AstroMuni

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Edit. I think this has more to say and is much nicer to look at.

I think this is now talking more about aesthetics & subjective matters rather than what could be applied to a 'rule', is it not?

I like your image as it showcases the sheer number of stars & nebulosity.

The main thing that I have done wrong is possibly choosing to pick up this hobby in a country plagued by clouds all the time. And now with Global warming its getting worse 😞 So wrong time, wrong place.

1 hour ago, Swoop1 said:

1st Law of Astrophotography- if you have a full head of lustrously natural hair- don't start.

Applies only to gents 😉

Hi all, here is my attempt at this faint group of galaxies most of which are around 300mly away. Around 100 x 120s subs with the ASI533MC pro mounted on SW130PDS / HEQ5 Pro. All equipment managed with Kstars/Ekos and processing done on Siril. Needs more data to reduce the noise & bring out the fainter details and the IFN around NGC7331 but this is a start that I am happy with.

Thanks for looking and comments/ suggestions are welcome.

I took the liberty of applying the following to your jpeg image using Siril

- Increased saturation

- applied contrast limited adaptive histogram enhancement (CLAHE)

- Noise reduction

- changed black point

15 hours ago, Bluesboystig said:

So for my third project since getting my imaging setup I decided to give a go at the Heart Nebula.

Nebulae such as Heart are quite faint, so suggest practicing with brigher objects first - atm you could try Ring, Dumbell nebulae to name a few prominent ones that are in our skies. It will give you the confidence and help configure settings for such objects

1 minute ago, Mandy D said:

Yes! Yes! Yes! That was one of the things I was looking at. That and the awesome landscape it is set in. I' almost tempted to make my observatory to that same design, only a touch smaller.

I still want the Planewave, but the observatory is droolworthy, too.

3 things droolworthy in that picture - planewave equipment, rollback obsy and the lovely skies. We could get the first two here but definitely not the last 🙂

Lovely shot. It also tells me that I am going to need a lot more data & skills to get anywhere near your image quality 🙂

6 hours ago, Gabrielwiklund said:

8" f/5 Sky-Watcher Explorer 200PDS 
ES HR Coma Corrector
Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro
50/200mm Guidescope
ZWO ASI120MM Mini
ZWO EAF

Thats a great image. I didnt think the HEQ5 Pro could handle the 200PDS + the rest of kit. Its good to know that it can. How are you finding its ability to manage this load?

Thats a great shot of M31. Love it.

EDIT: realised that your equipment list has grown now, so my previous comments were out of date 🙂

On 08/09/2023 at 16:49, Albir phil said:

I then stack them as always in dss then process them in Photoshop as usual,

That answers my question 🙂 The .info docs are outputs of dss. Its not needed as input by DSS when you attempt to stack again. Hope this helps

On 06/09/2023 at 14:36, Bluesboystig said:

This is really helpful, thank you very much! I guess I'll have to try and be as precise as possible with framing again?

Let me give you a third option 🙂 Use the GUI interface of Sirilic. It does all the magic of creating the script and running thro Siril. https://siril.org/docs/sirilic/

5 hours ago, Albir phil said:

Need some help here, after I have stacked images my laptop as suddenly decided to show information page for each sub image when I return to the subs file .can anyone tell me how to stop this . I have a feeling I have probably caused this inadvertently in some way🤔 

Hi Albir, it would help if you posted details of the software that you use, your kit and how its configured and the particular situation(s) in which this happens. 🙂

2 hours ago, Elp said:

(no custom mobile UI so hard to use without a laptop)

You could use browser/VNC on ipad or phone 😉  I agree its not as user friendly as custom UI of ASIAir

26 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

So, I connect the camera to the tablet with an OTG cable?

Here is an alternate solution which I use. I run teamviewer on the laptop and use my mobile to connect to it. This way I can stand next to the scope and twiddle focus while watching display on laptop.

EDIT: I also used a long FTDI cable to connect the mount to the laptop. So had 2 long cables running from inside the house to scope. Consider learning software such as NINA or Cartes du Ciel etc. as these will help you control mount, camera platesolve etc. Once you do platesolving then n-star alignment will be a thing of the past 🙂

And tip on imaging M42. Try using smaller exposures upto 30s to prevent over saturating the central part of the nebula.

19 hours ago, Bloodline said:

to view in various websites like NASA and Google sky

In that case, I would suggest that you use Starsense to go the nearest star that is named in Google sky/NASA and then manually move the scope until the 'named star' is in FOV.

6 minutes ago, Bluesboystig said:

Not sure how much more signal can be extracted from the data I have,

You could post your unprocessed FITS file here (just after stacking) and others can show you what they can get out of it. Thats what I tend to do when in doubt if there is more in my image.

1 hour ago, Bluesboystig said:

Hi everyone, super excited, got my first session last night and went for NGC7000. Needless to say, I have a shedload to learn and a lot of pick up for processing, but wanted to share with you and ask for any advice, comments, suggestions etc. 

A great shot. Welcome to the dark side 🙂 What software did you use to process the images?

On 02/09/2023 at 00:26, WolfieGlos said:

it it’s recognised by the computer and I can tell it to move … the software says it is moving….but nothing happens. The spindle on the EAF is not turning.

Thats sad. Can you hear the motor working when you command it to move?

On 01/09/2023 at 13:49, Bloodline said:

I think it would be very hard to find it has a magnitude of 12.263 but if I could put the coordinates in at least I’d be looking at the right piece of sky.

If you can post the details of the star here, one of us could take a screenshot of the skymap and send to you.

19 hours ago, saac said:

cannot get past the "why do I need to do this".  On this occasion it is not their fault, its the physiology of their brains. 

And I suspect its also a bit down to the way its taught too... the connections between subjects and the linkage is not always made clear in simple terms. Some teachers tend to do that and make the subject 'enjoyable'.

Another challenge is probably due to the way exam papers are written. eg. If you were asked to apply a certain physics principle in maths would it be considered out of syllabus? The other way around is probably more acceptable 🙂 So if the student was aware that they could be called upon to exercise the 'physics' part of their knowledge in a different paper then they would use associative memory rather than think about it as - its a certain paper hence I know the kind of questions in scope. Food for thought!

2 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

The problem is in deciding which parts we will need.

You are correct..Its a chicken and egg situation. If at an early age you knew exactly what you wanted to be in later life then you could be provided a specialised set of courses. But at the moment we are taught a broad range of skills so we have options to pick & choose and in later stages of the education process (including during work) to specialize.

3 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

I wonder if this is due to the compartmentalism methods used in our education system or is it just my age?

I think its partly down to the perceptions - i.e do I need this info for the test/exam. Many students (and sadly a few parents too, believe that students are being taught stuff thats irrelevant in later life). 😞

40 minutes ago, alankrit rajan said:

See I have made a small one 

Good work. Point it at Jupiter which is not too far from the moon at the moment and check what you can see. Use a planetarium software like Stellarium to tell you where to look OR use a skymap app on your phone such as Skychart/Skeye

On 01/09/2023 at 17:32, alankrit rajan said:

India.

What do you do are you a scientist or what

Do you live in a city or have access to relatively less light polluted skies?

It would also be good to know your background so we know how technical an answer is acceptable. 🙂

EDIT: Meanwhile read this https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/make-a-small-refractor-telescope

And