AstroMuni

On 23/08/2022 at 19:24, Mart29 said:

Think I just liked the sound of full service.  

Find a local buddy astronomer, get together and service your scope together 🍻

1 hour ago, M6RDP said:

I even managed a short video of Saturn last month using my Huawei. After stacking the image was pretty good. Even before stacking the video showed the rings. And this is with a child telescope really, the Celestron Travelscope 70. 

Thats a good shot actually. If you use a lower zoom you should get better images. Beginner scopes like yours (and mine) are not geared for taking close ups of the planets. My best phone images came out when using a 25mm eyepiece. Another tip is to set a delay of atleast 2 secs, so that scope and camera get a chance to stabilise from vibrations after you have pressed the image capture button.

10 hours ago, DeanSL said:

I was originally looking at the ZWO to buy,  then came across the Altair,  both seem to have happy owners.  Thought I might have found somewhere or someone comparing them on the net,  but not found anything.!

I have the ASI224mc and happy with it. The only difference I could spot was the included wideangle lens on the ZWO. At the moment due to discount offered by ZWO these are cheaper than Altair

18 hours ago, alan4908 said:

Another attempt at M57, this time with RGB stars and narrowband data to better capture the outer halos

Wow! Its an amazing image. And when you zoom in to the nebula and increase the local contrast, it begins to resemble a rose more than a ring.

15 hours ago, M6RDP said:

I was hoping to use it for imaging in place of my smartphone which is so fiddly.

Have you tried the smartphone with an adapter? Here is what I managed to get sometime back with an iphone 8 attached to my Astromaster 130, so dont give up hope 🙂 Good luck!

1 hour ago, M6RDP said:

I turn the focus in to it's furthest point, but it needs to go further in.

I am assuming there is nothing between the camera and the focuser? i.e. Remove any diagonals etc. You could try using a barlow to increase the FL.

26 minutes ago, M6RDP said:

And you are also right about the fact that I needed to use my diagonal. 

EDIT: It looks like you meant that you need it to come further out, hence ignore what I said.

16 hours ago, gorann said:

but now it is Astronomy Now that I find in my mailbox - a clear improvement! A bit more in depth.

I buy the same and I wish their review of equipment could be a bit more objective (as in clearly pointing out the pros & cons). At the moment it looks like its almost like an advert for the particular equipment 😞 I am waiting for the day they become like the Ziff Davis ZD net publications of old.

1 hour ago, Cosmic23 said:

Hello, I have a MacBook (one of the newer ones), and I was trying to download oaCapture because I recently got a SVBONY SV105 camera for my telescope. When I click the download button, it doesn't even attempt to download. If any one knows what is wrong please tell me

I tried downloading to my Macbook Pro (M1 chip) and it works. Also managed to successfully launch it. I used the link posted by @LaurenceT

1 hour ago, Mdc said:

I do have a digital dslr camera also, and I see you can buy adaptors for these to fit on fb e scope,  is this a better and cheaper option? 

Welcome back. My advice, just go with what you have and know for now! Once you find that you have outgrown the capabilities of your camera look at purchasing the best that your funds will allow. I started with an ASI224mc as I didnt have a DSLR and used it for a couple of years. Its worked quite well and taught me a lot about AP. Good luck.

And before I forget, it was a pleasure dealing with @nephilim. Thank you Steve 🙂

I acquired my ASI533MC Pro from @nephilim last week and here are 2 images I managed to grab over the weekend. Love the camera and looking forward to learning to use it to its fullest capabilities. Images taken using the Astromaster 130EQ mounted on HEQ5 Pro, 30mm guidescope & ASI120mm. Images captured using Ekos on RPI and processing done in Siril.

NGC5906/7 Splinter galaxy - 60 x 30s at unity gain, no cooling, darks or flats

NGC6995 Bat nebula - 12 x 300s at unity gain, no cooling, darks or flats

On 14/08/2022 at 16:29, alecras2345 said:

can you suggest a youtube channel that streams live events, meteor showers, lunar phases, planets? 

Hi Ash, Cambridge astronomy association have quite regular sessions on astronomy and you could join them. Here is a list of previous talks with links to their Youtube http://www.caa-cya.org/catchup.php  You also have https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-live and NASA broadcasts all their events so thats another source. I dont think you will find a single source to get all your requirements in one go 😞 Good luck

17 hours ago, RaspberryJamBerlin said:

Attached is a picture - an example of what the Raspberry Pi can take using the Celestron (taking photos of the moon) its about 12 shots stitched together using photoshop image merge (nothing fancy) 

Thats a great image. Others have provided the choices available to you. I use the RPI to do all my imaging but with an astro camera. My scope is the bigger brother of yours, an Astromaster 130 and you can see my journey in my signature link.

14 hours ago, Timoka said:

The Celestron, holds the weight but buying it second hand, it needs a little work,,,.! 

Welcome to the forum. I have the bigger brother the 130EQ and the scope itself is not too bad, but I found that the mount was not ideal for AP, vibrating at the slightest touch. In the end I plumped for a 2nd hand HEQ5 pro. My journey is in my signature link. But my policy is get the most out of your existing equipment before moving on! So have fun.

Beautiful image @Thorney. I wish this was taken by me.

And your raw data did give me a chance to practice my processing skills 🙂 in Siril and apply the local contrast suggested by Olly. Thank you

33 minutes ago, Iasus said:

Can anyone offer any advice or alternative software I could use?

I use Siril. Its free and the tutorial is here https://siril.org/tutorials/tuto-scripts/ . Others who are users of DSS maybe able to help fix the problem.

If you join a local astro group, you will get to know the folk who are car pooling.

17 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Any guidance to put me out of my misery would be appreciated. (Be aware, I do have a penchant to miss the glaringly obvious 😀).

See if this article helps in your understanding https://www.edmundoptics.co.uk/knowledge-center/application-notes/imaging/understanding-focal-length-and-field-of-view/. The diagram explains it quite nicely.

12 hours ago, Zippy_McSpeed said:

I don't care about just looking though the eyepiece like on a Dobsonian, so the photography part is what's interesting.  Cost isn't really an issue, but I don't want to waste it either.

Welcome to SGL. As others have said get the best mount for your budget. The next choice is of platform - windows vs Mac and/or Linux. The learning curve lies first in gaining experience of controlling your devices thro software and then the artistic bit of processing. Slightly more choice available on Windows at the moment but thats a changing landscape. Good luck!

2 hours ago, muletopia said:

The path to the bottom is not quite as given but once there I could not get 30 seconds to stick.

Get it to the lowest value that will stick and proceed. After all the laptop is not going to lose time at such a rapid rate that the figures will be meaningless. Once you get the adapter you can perhaps just do another round of calibration. Enjoy the hobby in the meantime !

18 hours ago, OK Apricot said:

Feel free to give any pointers about processing, anything really. I'm just glad to be able to share my first more serious attempt!

Cheers!

Thats a great image. The learning curve for processing is the next hurdle but once you get the hang of it, its apparently a breeze ....I am not close to that stage yet 😉

23 minutes ago, Gem85 said:

Thank you all for your opinions and recommendations. I have a family of 3 children the youngest are 10. My budget is £200-£300 really for our 1st scope!  At the moment we love just watching what is moving in the sky, watching the stars and last night I had a great view of Jupiter from my garden but gutted we haven’t go a telescope yet to take a closer look 😕

Hi and welcome to SGL. Go to a local astro club. You can lookup here https://www.firstlightoptics.com/locator.html. That should give you the opportunity to physically try out scopes and get hands on advice. Good luck!

To make a quick start get a pair of binoculars. Sometimes there are good deals at Aldi/Lidl for their 10x50 binos. You will be amazed at what you can see even with those.

9 minutes ago, pipnina said:

This setting works well for normal photos but I can't work out how to get the capture tab to queue videos in sequence :  (

BTW, Ekos is not really geared for planetary captures. I tend to use Firecapture for that. So use Ekos to manage the mount etc and Firecapture for the images. In your case run FC on the Linux laptop nearest camera and remote into it from your laptop inside your home. You can run Kstars from either device.

On 06/08/2022 at 17:29, pipnina said:

Is there a way to get it to send videos to the client instead of the host?

What is the setting against Save: in Capture tab? If its local it will save on device where Kstars is running and if Remote then the device where indiserver is running. You can also set it as Both. Hope this helps

But its indeed odd that images are stored locally but videos are not. What tool are you using to capture videos?

19 hours ago, Baldy45 said:

AstroMuni, I think I know what you mean, here is how I work out the Hour Angle, this is for 11pm yesterday. Find attached how I workout the Hour Angle of Polaris.

I use an Android phone and use https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.astrotools.polarclock&hl=en_GB&gl=US