carastro

I image both in an observatory at home and also at astro camps.  
 

At camp l leave everything set up and simply put the lens cap back on and a cover over everything while l am there.    I rarely clean my optics, flats do a perfectly good job.    So as long as you don’t move your camera or focus, flats can be reused.  
 

Additionally I also have a camera fitted in the back of my Samyang lens for wide field imaging with filterwheel all permanently fitted together in mounting rings.  I never open up the set up and am still using flats from 18 months ago. 
 

Carole

I haven't seen anything like this.  It doesn't look typical for lack of flat frames.  I hope you resolve the problem and would be interested to know what caused it.

Carole 

I have seen the aurora in both Norfolk and Iceland and neither time did I see colour to my naked eye, just appeared white.  Yes with a camera they appeared green.

Hope this answers your question.

Carole 

Astro phoptography is a two part job.

a) the capture

b) the post processing.

they both take a lot of learning but very rewarding when it all comes together and you see the results of your hard work.

There are some people who simply buy already captured data and process it.   

Carole 

Thanks Martin.  Yes I must confess there have been other occasions when I have tried to image it from the same site and much depends on that low area being clear of cloud and murk.  

Carole 

All images need processing afterwards.   Deep sky because they are hidden in the darkness and need bringing out.  
 

You might get away with it on the Moon.
 

Carole 

The top asterism is Ursa Major (The Plough).  The two [pairs of dots are the feet of the Great Bear.  

Thanks Olly for your nice comments, and thanks everyone else.

Carole 

Minehead is not a whole lot higher in latitude to my campsite.   Minehead is 51.2 degrees and my campsite is 51.02 degrees.  Might be worth a shot. 

Carole 

Taken over several years.  Twice in Spain and twice in East Sussex.

Spain 2017 DSLR and cheap camera lens and Ioptron skytracker. 4 hours
Spain 2019 same set up but with a luminance filter and Mono CCD camera 2 hours 
I wasn't happy with either as the cheap camera lens produced horrible stars.

Having bought a Samyang 135mm lens at the end of 2019, I decided to try to get better luminance from the campsite I visit from time to time in East Sussex, but it is VERY low from the UK.  This time I could take my full rig with me and do longer guided subs.  HEQ5, Atik460EX and Samyang 135mm lens. 

2022 I captured some luminance with better stars of the Antares region, but half of Rho Ophiucci was chopped off.  1 hour 20mins
https://www.astrobin.com/sz1393/B/
last week April 2023 I captured the area around Rho Ophiucci and made a mosaic thus completing the image at last.  1 1/2 hours.  Of course we can always use more data but given my VERY limited opportunities I think this will be the final version.

Total of 8h 50mins

Slightly revised version posted on 29th April, with some star reduction.  Hope this is an improvement.  

I also managed to complete an image I have been bashing away at over several year as follows:

Taken over several years.  Twice in Spain and twice in East Sussex.

Spain 2017 DSLR and cheap camera lens and Ioptron skytracker. 4 hours
Spain 2019 same set up but with a luminance filter and Mono CCD camera 2 hours 
I wasn't happy with either as the cheap camera lens produced horrible stars.

Having bought a Samyang 135mm lens at the end of 2019, I decided to try to get better luminance from the campsite I visit from time to time in East Sussex, but it is VERY low from the UK.  This time I could take my full rig with me and do longer guided subs.  HEQ5, Atik460EX and Samyang 135mm lens. 

2022 I captured some luminance with better stars of the Antares region, but half of Rho Ophiucci was chopped off.  1 hour 20mins
https://www.astrobin.com/sz1393/B/
last week April 2023 I captured the area around Rho Ophiucci and made a mosaic thus completing the image at last.  1 1/2 hours.  Of course we can always use more data but given my VERY limited opportunities I think this will be the final version.

Total of 8h 50mins

I will proobably post this up separately as well. 

This is a camp in East Sussex, mainly for the local astro group, but as numbers have dropped as people move house, I opened it for non members, and I am pleased to say a new SGL member attended and plans to do so next time.

We have been using this campsite for a number of years, it is Bortle 4, but of course you can never rely on the weather and it was REALLY windy for the first two days, so much so it damaged my camping observatory, and some of the other imagers could not image at all when the wind was bad, however this died down later in the week, but overall we only got 1 full clear night and 2 half nights.

Having completely miscalculated the size of one of the images I wanted to do, I went for a much smaller cluster NGC7129 which has been on my list for some time.

Dual Rig, ED80/Atik460EX & ~ED72/ATik460EX on HEQ5
Lum 27 x 600
RGB 40 x 150 binnedx2

Total imaging time 6 hours 10m

Very low but have to take what I can get when I go to Camps for darker skies in galaxy season.

This is the full image:

and this is a Crop to get in closer to the main feature:

It will be badly LP but give you time to find your feet.   If you don’t mind a drive my local astro group meets up in Otford for observing once a month.   Plus some of us go camping in Bortle 4 skies in East Sussex a couple of times a year.

Carole

Hmmm missed it, that's what happens when things get delayed.

I would hold on for a cooled camera, it will make so much difference to the noise levels.  Patience is not only a virtue, but a reward.

Carole 

I have watched the imager/s that produced this image for some time on Astrobin.  It seems he spends much of his time making new discoveries and l think he is genuine in his work.  

Some of the nebulosity might look blurred in comparison to the other image shown because of the latest fad of blurring the background to remove noise.   Also the FOV is different between the two images  

 Carole

I have had a sky POD for 13 years.  It leaks at the pivots and so l have a bucket to catch the leak but there is always some degree of splash on the floor after a heavy downpour.    I don’t remove my scopes or cameras unless changing my rig which isn’t that often.   There is a small natural gap between the dome  and the walls.  
 

In the winter months l use a dehumidifier intermittently but when l do l pad out those air gaps with pipe lagging  to save me dehumidifying the entire neighbourhood.   I have never felt any moisture on the scopes and the cameras seem to be unaffected.  I even leave my laptops out there when doing multi night imaging.  

l bought my dehumidifier from DryItOut  

Carole

Not being at all into engineering I have been reading this thread as I used to own a CG5 GT.   I guess 3D printed cogs are not going to be an option?

I know a guy who built a complete EQ Mount 3D printed and it works and guides well (he is actually a member of this forum but not active these days).

Carole

 Spread the word as only up to  915 signatures

Looks good, not an easy target. 
 

Carole

I just took a look at the Flat you posted earlier and there is definitely vignetting, which means the flat does not work.  

Carole 

Might be worth checking the histogram of flats you have previously taken to see where the histogram is on those.

OK it is more faff to do it this way, but if the Flats Aid doesn;t work it is giving you even worse faff.  

Carole 

I have come across this problem before with two other new imagers using the APT flats aid and it to me doesn't appear to work properly.  APT is an excellent bit of software otherwise.

On both occasions I got the imagers to use the histogram and simply take a flat exposure without using the APT flats aid.  Make your length of sub short enough so that the histogram is about 1/3 to just under half way across.   

This has resolved the problem in both cases.

I must tell IVO (APT)  about this problem as he is very approachable.

Carole 

3 hours ago, Graeme said:

OSB on the inside is all done. I put a trapline on the top because rain was forecast.

 

 

Good job too!

 

 

 

It's coming on well Graeme, I love the puddle of water in the tarpaulin.  Lol

Carole  

Amazing images.  I only passed through Akureyri by way of flying there from Reyjavik en-route to Lake Myvatn in February some years ago.    

Iceland is such an interesting and different place to visit.

Carole