Marvin Jenkins

Any suggestions? Obviously if it is a processing solution then no need to comment as the kind people that helped me did it for free on there own time. Would you suggest taking more subs at a shorter, say 45 second duration? Marv

My first attempt at The Flame and Horse head. Second AP image after M42. Just over an hour of subs (I had to throw away another 40 minutes worth due to light pollution issues). 15 darks 15 bias. Good friends #bukko and Son ran it through PI for me as I have not learnt gimp yet. I know it will not win any awards. I made a pretty awful job of the framing, the focus isn’t quite there and I need flats so I am told. The Bahtinov mask has arrived now and next time flats. Any healthy criticism welcome. Marvin

Nailed it.

Wow. I have had about four clear nights this year. I guess with my skies I am reading about it and you are doing it and writing about it. I am envious it has to be said. All the way down here and I may as well be living in a cloud. M

Just for the purposes of learning, what is nautical dark? Never heard of it. From the reply by DaveS I am assuming it is the lack of really dark dark skies in the summer months? M

Got to echo #fozzybear I use the Michael Vlasov Deep sky hunter star atlas. I have printed mine, laminated each page which is essential here as dew would turn it to mush in ten minutes. If I had my way I would have it in A3, laminated and choose the reverse white on black version, but that amount of black ink would cost a fortune. All wrapped up in a plastic ring binder to protect from the dreaded moisture. All the info you need on the front page in pic 1. Pic 2, gives you some idea of detail using Cassiopeia as the target. Marvin

Those two pictures are amazing, why did you wait so long before sorting the end result? To use a saying I heard recently from someone younger than myself, “crisp like walkers”.

The transparency was poor last night and I was out early to beat the moon rise. Hopefully clear skies in a week as we approach new moon so I can get out a little later and observe this one. Marv

I can’t believe what incredible objects you are viewing and imaging. I looked to see how many are following this thread and it is just me! I am quite new to all this but I am fascinated by what I am seeing. When I first started I thought the M list was all there was to see. Marv

OK, at least I am not going nuts or blind. I was going to post a new thread on here titled fifth bite at T2 Panstarrs, but saw this and thought otherwise. For some reason I love Comets, they appear to not like me. My first 46P Wirtinen was a watershed moment, but T2 Panstarrs is a different sport. Now I must say I have had just four nights in three months and I went all DSLR on M42 and AP crazy. Great results though. Tonight clear but the seeing isn’t great, too much moisture I think after all the rain and flooding. However, I can’t get close to finding this comet. I checked Skyhound for position, marked it on my charts...... zip. Perhaps the conditions, perhaps I need more aperture, perhaps better navigation. I had it in a triangle between Stock 5, Stock 6, and NGC 896. I looked around that area as well and got nothing but star clusters... always a silver lining. Am I doing something wrong? Marvin

I note with interest in parts of this thread for Orion as we see it to remain the same, the loss of one of the stars to be a great loss to us all. Everything in the universe is in a constant state of change, creation and decay. M42 in Orions scabbard? A birth place of new stars from a cloud of gas that people outside of astronomy think is a single star. I have to confess I know nothing about M42 origins, but is it not a remnant from a past supernova? I may be wrong but can you imagine what Orion looked like with an extra Red Super Giant n the scabbard. If it is a super nova remnant can you imagine what it looked like five years after. I am blown away now. Marv

Good job. Knowing your weaknesses are the key to future success. I appreciate your effort (I am in the same boat) and being self critical is the first step to better images. You are a long way toward getting great images, some of it is opportunity, some financial, most planning and practice. Keep it up and I am sure you will be getting great results. Marvin

alacant, I dream about having a go, given it some tries with single exposures just to test ISO. My weather is so bad I am beginning to wonder if I should start a boat building business. Marv

Wow. With the orientation and how crispy the stars are it took a few minutes to relise what was looking at. The sheer star saturation made me loose my way. A quite unique and lovely image. Marvin

Good to see you here. Great crowd of people, I am sure you will learn some stuff and teach a few us new to ap a thing or two. Marvin.

Thank you so much for all the info. I will try to take it all in this weekend. I enjoy a learning curv no matter how steep. Marv

Thanks Mike. I have no immediate need to go down the Eva route. Definitely run before walking territory, as you say I need to build up more experience. Just stumbled onto the subject and seemed very interesting and new. Perhaps one day in the future, and I will keep following this forum out of interest. Marv

I have been following this sub forum on and off for a month or so and it has peaked my interest. I have been doing basic astronomy for nearly three years and hoovering up all the info I can. At first amazed by everything, then anything. All the discoveries, Open Clusters, Globs, Galaxies, Plan nebs, NEBS. Still amazed but something happened... I watched a YouTube vid of a guy in the US using a big Dob (ES 16 inch) but with night vision. I thought it was fascinating. Recently I stumbled across a website called Mantrapskies.com which appears to be one mans attempt to record photographically the entire ARP list. Now I have to say that until looking in the EEVA forum I had no idea that the ARP catalogue existed. Now I realise that the Mantrapskies site was not EEVA but the only place I had heard ARP targets were this forum and the above website. Now I realise they are distant targets, but what is the general idea for minimum equipment needed for ARP hunting and in particular EEVA. Marv

Hi everyone, thought I would post my first M 42 image. Strictly speaking I have been practicing taking single subs of M 42, 31, 81/82, to get an idea of exposure lengths and ISO rates. The kit I have been using is an NEQ5 Pro with Synscan V5. The camera is an un-modded Nikon D3100. The OTA is flocked SW 150 PDS. I spent a great deal care polar aligning as I am unguided. The rarest of events, a completely clear night, bang on the new moon and the seeing and clarity were perfect, I don’t think the stars were twinkling at all. 120 x 30 sec subs at ISO 800 and ten darks. I went through the subs before stacking and discarded four due to satellite trails. My first stack in DSS with the help of YouTube of course went perfectly. Now I have had some help and much needed advice from #bukko about basic AP and he was right about exposure length. My first single sub efforts at 90 secs were burnt out. Now as I know nothing about processing (downloaded GIMP yesterday) bukko’s offer of running it through PI was jumped at. He said he spent five minutes on it and the end result blew me away. The generosity did not end there, #bukko sent the file to his son who spent more time on it despite the fact that we have not even met each other, and the second picture is his hard work. I am amazed ‘that’ data was captured by me in my back garden. Seems surreal somehow. It was pointed out to me that there is some coma in the corners as I did not have a coma corrector. This has now been rectified. I am very thankful of the help I have received and consider my self a very lucky guy. One day I hope to be at least competent at processing. Now to the work product..... Marvin

You say vintage. How old is the Vixen? They look fantastic. I thought they were new high end scopes. M

Anti aircraft gun from WWll ?

Yes, you will have those moments as a limbo dancer. You can loosen the scope rings a little and turn the tube then tighten back up but you will need to re acquire the object in the EP. Better to find something twice and observe in comfort than be on your knees with a bad neck. You wait till you upgrade your mount. Integral polar scope through the body of the mount means you can accurately polar align. What they don’t supply is the hi tech carrier bag to kneel on to look through it, so your trousers don’t have dirty wet knees. The more tech, the more tape, cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Glamorous life of astronomy, once out of the dirt, stand alone in the cold, freezing whilst exclaiming to no one what an amazing thing you are looking at. Rare breed us lunatics. Welcome to the asylum. I have a feeling you will love it, or I may be wrong and never see you on here again. Marv

As you can see I have only been at the Astro anvil for a few years so new like yourself. If you have any questions you want to ask people on this forum without it going on the main thread you can PM people. It’s a nice way of asking someone something if you just want that persons opinion without further comment. Marv

This is to simplify things not frustrate. My first scope Orion Space Probe 130 Newtonian on an EQ 2 mount no motors. Served me well for my first year, but never polar aligned it, just plonked it on the ground in the direction of what I wanted to look at! I have to say I got my first glimpses of amazing things due to it being a five inch scope under dark skies The bug bit and I bought a SW NEQ5 mount with all the mods of Goto with polar alignment scope. Even with all that switched off and just casting around the sky on the EQ5 manually, my starter Orion was a totally different scope. With no change in scope I could see objects like the Ring Nebula!!! There is a saying... No Mount, no scope. Keep it small Dob at the beginning and you will not go wrong. Marv

Seriously, you are at the beginning of potentially a long journey. You need to learn the night sky and what to look at, and I am sure you will. The only reason for an eq mount is to track an object, but at eq 1 or 2 level this is not really feasible as the way the mount is made is just not very good. I know as I have one with an Orion 130 newt installed. The scope is to heavy for the mount. After a simple focus adjustment it takes a few seconds for the mount to stop wobbling, which makes focusing a real trial and error. My heart felt advice is buy a Heritage 130 flex tube. Proper scope, galaxy capable under dark skies for a great price without throwing an eq1/2 in the tip after a year. At the beginning go aperture without the useless complication of a useless low end eq mount and tripod. Marvin