scotty1

Hello Chris Perhaps tomorrow night is slightly better, but with low pressure anchored to the west it's drawing up alot of clag and fronts. Scotland and northern England have had better luck with the weather. Quite a few photos of Aurora from those areas last night/tonight. I've got my DSLR taking shots incase a Taurid fireball appears, another hour or so and the cloud and drizzle will arrive.

I've noticed a couple of times when opening the Glendale Aurora app, it has a message saying update "a new version of the app is available" however when I tap on the msg it doesn't seem to update,or install anything. Just wondered if anyone else has this msg? Thanks

The forecast isn't great but a few clear spells tonight. After that alot of cloud around for the next week or so in the UK.

Hi yes I'm the same scotty I've just noticed your earlier post about the Taurid cycle 🤭

Just read on Spaceweather of a possible Taurid swarm. We need clear skies now https://www.spaceweather.com/

Are you using a tracked telescope for the movie? It's good 👍

Luckily this was already underway when I suddenly remembered it. I had to place two ND photo filters over the phone to reduce the exposure. My phone decided it was mushroom season. Then I did the same over my zoom lens on my DSLR.

During the last two nights I've tried to see the Orionids. Alot of cloud around and very humid, a few short clear spells also. Managed to see three Orionids, one of them falling in the west was orange and visible through gaps in the clouds. The Orionids have never been very bright, or prolific from my experience. Mars is a nice hue now that reminds me of an orange boiled sweet, or tree sap.

On BBC 4 now programme about Aurora

I'm quite surprised to get into the top three. Well done Naxatras and Penumbrella Thankyou to the judges

Also a sundog on the right.

It was very humid and close to lakes, and a river valley (Lark). There were mist patches floating across, and a hint of high clouds. The conditions bloomed Mars up.

You must have a dark sky bottle 2-3 ? Really nice from the phone!

I was trying to find the Aurora (no luck), but this view of a village church about 01.30 was quite nice. I had to balance the tripod on the churchyard wall, luckily there was calm conditions. It's around bortle 4+ here. Pixel 4a on mini tripod, processed with Snapseed.

On the Glendale app it's been picked up again tonight in North Norfolk. I'm trying to learn how the readings on that app, play out in real time. The sub storm was -560nt. -BZ , Only KP4 on most indicators!

It's quite an illusive beast, I think I missed the display by about 20mins on Sunday. Anyone looking north out to sea has a better chance. It's nearly two hours to a north facing coast from here, I just tried very local area. The humidity and mist was blooming village lights up, despite being north of town.

There's several photos from Northern England, and Scotland on the Glendale app now Also the Norfolk coast Only mist and LP here 👍

Hi I don't know if this is any help, I'm a beginner with regards to stacking. There are several tutorials about combining HA and RGB on YouTube that might help. This one is how to get colour in DSS. It says convert the RAW files to tiff before stacking.

I've been in the garden for an hour or, and had a go with my pixel 4a. I got similar shots to yours, I think it's about bortle 5+ here in town. I'd like to try this from a bortle 1 location! I was also keeping an eye on Aurora strength, no luck but tomorrow is cloudy, so I bet it arrives then 🤬

August 6th 04.40 Pixel 4a in astro mode on tripod pointing overhead with a totem pole and milky way. Edited in phone with polish photo editor.

From an aesthetic view the first image would be great if it were desaturated particularly the stars. As I don't know have a benchmark of how M31 is actually supposed to look. Any of these versions is good to my eyes. I don't have the knowledge, or experience of the folks doing these DSO. As mentioned above AP can be more of an artist's interpretation, rather than an accurate account of the target.

Perhaps the distances needed to travel to discover other lifeforms are too great. It may take many generations of people to travel such huge distances. I think it's going to take thousands of years, to get to the stage ware we able to travel so far. Even if we can discover new ways of propulsion and technology. Not sure humans will be around long enough to find out.

I found this on wikipedia about Samyang. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samyang_Optics#:~:text=Samyang products are also sold,%2C Vivitar%2C Phoenix and Quantaray. It says their lenses are sold under these brands. Rokinon, Bower, Opteka, Vivitar, Phoenix and Quantaray.

I use my Pentax DSLR and camera lenses for basic wide field astrophotography, and occasionally to photograph comets. I use a a standard tripod without any tracking, although I can use the astrotracer GPS on my camera for longer exposures. This is one of the lightest and simplest setups for astrophotography. I think you will either use a DSLR and camera lenses. Or a telescope and astro camera. You can find good used lenses that fit straight onto your Nikon D5300. This is simpler than using lens adapters. A fairly heavy sturdy tripod is essential also, as a lightweight tripod will not hold the equipment sill enough.

Winter constellations rising August 31st 03.20 Pixel 4a in astro mode on Slik mini dq tripod. Edited on phone using inbuilt editor.