vineyard

Hello, In the spirit of constant tinkering, I'm trying to see if I can use an old prime lens on the front of my PVS-14. I've mounted the lens on the front of an old one of these ZWO adapters and have an adapter from RAFCamera that converts the PVS-14 objective into a T2 female. The RAF adapter has about 6mm optical train, and roughly measuring the distance to the front of the NV lens suggests about 6-8mm there - so a total of about 12-14mm: ie, within the 12.5mm-17.5mm optical length that these ZWO adapters assume on the back end. But I couldn't find focus (trying a bunch of different spacers) - couldn't even see out of focus stars. I'm probably doing something very silly, but not sure what? (The logic I'm trying to use is the one described in this diagram from TV but taking the EP out: ie, get the DSLR lens to form the image focal plane on the NV objective. I'm sure folks will have tried this?) Thank you! Vin

Hello, Just a v quick report on a v brief session a couple of nights ago. It was low fast-moving clouds, ie just a few clear bits of sky here and there. My RAFCamera 1.25" filter adapter & the 642nm IR filter had arrived & I was impatient to try. So eventually I took the PVS 14 just as a handheld & went outside & just pointed it up to a clear patch of sky. The IR filter is SO much better than the Baader M&SG - the usual "oh my god so many stars" reaction when you first look through it. And then I noticed a fuzzy patch and thought (actually in a rather blasé way) oh that must be M31. And then I actually had to go in & check on EKOS Terrain to see if I'd got that right. B/c I never see M31 that easily. And yes it was. And that's when it struck me. This was our neighbour galaxy just hanging up there. At 1x. Not magnified, not isolated. Literally just up there at 1x. I've often read how if we could see it properly it would be as big as a full moon. Obv even the NV doesn't make it seem that big, but it kept coming back to me that what these NV devices do, esp at 1x, is really drive home our context. Most of the time to see M31 I'd need a telescope or maybe bins (ie, some form of magnification). And that always makes it feel as it is really quite far away. And makes Earth seem more unique & isolated. But in reality we're not. There are so many stars in our neighbourhood of the MW...there's an entire other galaxy that just hangs out up there while the whole light-polluted world continues its merry way, in pretty much high disregard to our place in space. Yet if we were in Bortle 1 skies with enough dark adjustment, we'd see just how not-alone our planet is. How rich & crowded even our neighbourhood is. Would that make us pause and have a greater sense of our own context. Perhaps be a bit less self-absorbed as a species, and also appreciative of how we are lucky to live on a little lifeboat of a planet that can just about support us as it (currently) does? And that whatever glory & bombast motivates people & civilisations, its all but a firefly in a vast universe? Would that change perspectives? Enough cod philosophy - apologies - but tbh 1x NV should be not just part of outreach but also part of school education. Kids need to see & understand our context & what our world really is! Cheers, Vin

That's a nice set-up. Thanks for the tip on the BZ - hadn't heard about that. Something to add to the research list! Cheers

Thanks @Highburymark - yes that two-machine approach is a great description of exactly what I'm hoping for. I intend to have the PVS-14 out by the scope alongside other EPs pretty much every sustained session (and then by itself for quick sessions). The 642nm filter arrived today along with some adapters from RAFCamera. Just need the clouds to disappear for a bit 🤞🏾 And as for dark skies, I'm managing my expectations down but am secretly v keen to see what this will show. Its so small & light it will fit into my TV76 carry bag alongside the TV76, a diagonal & a few EPs = exceptionally holiday-friendly way of carrying the equivalent of a much bigger scope 😀

Glasses off for me. It does become a hassle b/c I need to then put them back on to do pretty much anything else (eg: read the handcontroller or look at an atlas or switch EPs or filters). But I find that keeping them on when viewing puts my eyes too far back so that it feels like I'm getting a smaller FOV (even w 20mm ER EPs) & too much ancillary details around the EP, not just what the EP is showing. (I realise that it may just be perception of FOV that changes rather than actual observed FOV). Hence, glasses off and just position eyeball at most comfortable position. Glasses are marginally more comfortable w v long ER EPs (a TV40 plossl for example) but the LP with those exit pupils is too much so I don't use them much for visual. Except now in afocal NV where I find that the NV device is very easy & comfortable both ways (glasses on or off) without any diminution in perceived FOV.

Thanks for that tip on Brackens @PeterW - Xmas list it is. I'm S-facing in N London so looking up is about the only way to look out! And being an inveterate tinkerer I intend to try all sorts of daft things with this NV kit. Thanks too @Deadlake - yes NV is clearly like the bogeyman & must stay hidden under the bed for fear that it will frighten the pure & innocent😂. The big problem with that is that it doesn't give a complete picture to lay-readers. For example, reading the recent reports on the observations of the propeller in M13 w big dobs in dark skies. Those sound brilliant & I'm v pleased for those folks who were able to do that. A reader would think that that's whats needed to see the propeller (and ofc if you live in those skies & are able to get a dob that big, then good for you!). But Gavin and I also saw the M13 propeller with a wee refractor & NV in Bortle 8 London. An interested lay-reader would never see that in the Observation section, and would have a wholly incomplete picture of what is possible (or what is needed).🤷🏾‍♂️ An analogy that comes to mind is if, for example, a scuba diving board said that folks who use closed-circuit rebreathers were not allowed to report on dives in the same section as open-circuit divers. I think that would be met w much mirth, & probably even some derision knowing how irreverent fellow divers are. Kit stuff clearly has to be different, but a dive is a dive is a dive. And folks value reading & learning about how the same dive site can give different experiences with different kit. Anyway it is what it is - I thankfully missed the mini-civil war that seemed to happen on this & have no desire to go down that back-alley. I guess other than ghettoised nuggets, there is no other way (verboten!). CN actually seems much more useful & inclusive on this topic - I have particularly enjoyed reading the experiences of CN'ers whose expertise on other topics (such as BV'ing) I have found v helpful in the past. Shows that there are many ways of enjoying this hobby. Cheers

Indeed re the induction to the Dark (actually No Longer So Dark) Side. Gavin has a lot to answer for b/c yep Ha & 642nm filters are en route....as is probably a TV55. I still need to get my head around the maths on afocal, and also have a 0.5x reducer which I want to experiment with. Reading the reports of the UK pioneers in this 'ere ghetto, as well as the CN folks, is whetting my appetite. I know I've already seen things I could not imagine from the Big Smoke - glad to be aboard this ship!

Returning to astronomy after decades away, the biggest thing I have been struck by is the huge changes in what technology (hardware & software) allows us mere amateurs to do. (For example, I can now take AP images from my back garden that I could not even have imagined in my younger years: thank you plate-solving, INDI, CMOS, dithering, multi-star guiding, stacking, post-processing etc etc!). It was in this spirit of curiosity that, while rummaging around, I came across NV technology on CN & then even noticed it in its own ghettoised prison-yard on SGL (no NV posts allowed elsewhere - strictly verboten!). While intrigued by it on paper, I've always been one to make my own mind up based on direct experience. And so nothing much more came of it. Until @GavStar put a PVS-14 up for sale. Since we're in the same city, he v kindly agreed to let me come & try-before-possibly-buy. I went with zero expectations. The night was SQM 18ish, clouds were drifting in from the North. But when I put my eye to the NV at 1x with just a simple 1.25" long-pass filter in (as would be used for planetary), it was breathtaking - a MULTITUDE of stars, with even the clouds drifting across stars (which you couldn't see with the naked eye) seeming like a scene from a Japanese woodblock. There followed a trawl through various nebulae with an Ha filter in place while dodging clouds. And frankly I saw things (NAN, Pelican, Pacman, Butterfly etc) that there is NO WAY I could otherwise have seen from a conventional backyard in light-polluted London. Now I also wanted to test the NV with more "mortal" equipment. So Gavin kindly put a TV76 on an AZGTI with an 18.2mm Delite and the PVS-14 & a normal long-pass filter, and we pointed it at M13 in Hercules. I think that was the single most powerful demonstration of NV-enabled visual astronomy for me. I had just been looking at M13 about a fortnight ago through a 180mm MakCass & had been v happy to be able to resolve a few pinprick stars amidst the fuzziness of the core though an 18.2mm. And the little TV76 just blew that away...done. (I can't wait to see what the 180mm MakCass will show - if its the same proportionate impact, then maybe I'll see what a 400mm+ would show?). About ten nights back it was clear for a few hours. I was in the middle of capturing some AP data with my TV76 so I didn't want to change its configuration then. So while that was clicking away, I thought I would just give the PVS-14 a run-out. On an old Telementor 2 (63mm, f/13) with a TV40 plossl & an 18.2mm Delite. With a bog-standard Baader Moon & Skyglow filter (I don't have a planetary long-pass filter yet). I knew that this would not be a fair test - everything about NV says the faster the optics the better the impact. So here was a small aperture, s-l-o-w setup w an ok-ish broadband anti-LP filter (its not an Astronomik CLSCCD). I pointed it at the Perseus Double Cluster. And did both non-NV and NV at both 40mm and 18.2mm to compare. The difference between the NV and non-NV was PALPABLE. In non-NV only a small handful of stars were visible, and you would have to have relied on an atlas to say to yourself yes those must be the clusters (tbh it just looked like a few nondescript points of light). With the NV in place: yep those are clusters. I took a couple of quick photos with my smartphone (attached, 18.2mm and 40mm) - literally just holding it over the EP as still as possible. These pictures won't win awards but hopefully give a sense of what these devices can show. I can assure you that non-NV there were not that many stars visible (same scope, same EP, same filter, same night). So this has just whetted my appetite for what more can be done with this kit. If a 63mm slow scope shows this...I'm already concocting some what-if ideas to try different permutations. There is ofc a role for both non-NV & NV visual astronomy. Sometimes its nice to see the vast blackness and just a few random stars - and sometimes its nice to see just how that vast space isn't as empty as you think through your own eyes (rather than a multi-hour stacked AP). So two takeaways continue to sit with me. 1. This is visual astronomy. I have nothing against AP or live-stacking (& in fact v much enjoy the former & am beginning to explore the latter). But NV is visual - the user experience (UX) as techies would say is v much visual. No computers, no capturing, no stacking or processing, changing EPs in realtime to explore objects in realtime. This is a visual UX. (Yes a battery is involved, but tbh if someone does non-NV visual with digital setting circles, or a go-to mount, or a tracked mount, they're being electronically assisted...and even if someone does old-school star-hopping only and finger-pushing only, then I'd wager the lens/mirror they're using will still have been critically reliant on electronics-driven processes at some stage to get to the required level of precision! This ring-fencing of NV astronomy as “electronically assisted” is bizarre & short-sighted). 2. At the risk of seeming like a heretic, if you live in a LP urban/peri-urban environment, and want to do visual only, are you actually better served getting a v nice achromat & an NV device, instead of a high end apo like a Tak (or any other make!) or a big heavy dob? That will probably put the cat among some pigeons - and don't get me wrong I appreciate quality as much as anyone else - but having seen first hand what this device can do, I'd rather have this and a Vixen 102M than spend the same amount of money on a 4" Tak tbh. (Ofc if you also do AP it is completely different, or if you are in dark skies then it will be different...this is specifically if you are in light-polluted urban/peri-urban skies where you will never be able to dark-adapt properly and yet you want to be able to see deep or faint objects without having a big beast of a scope). Sorry this is quite a long post (and a delayed one - ten days after the actual observations!), but figured a first-hand account of a sceptical newbie may perhaps be of help to others considering on the sidelines. Cheers

Hello, I've been testing out an old, carefully looked after (& now discontinued) ASI178MM-Cool on both solar & DSO (yet to do lunar). So far am liking it a lot. Here's 4h37 from 3 sessions focused deep in the Pelican, concentrated on an ionisation front. The front is the boundary between advancing hot gas from energetic young stars & cold gas. The dense textures & filaments are the cold gas from what I can tell from a bit of research. It's not quite this amazing image, but it'll do for me! Kit was TV76 w 0.79 reducer-flattener, and UHC & CLSCCD filters double-stacked on it (to try and create a synthetic triband). 60s lights at -10C (most of them at gain 50). Guided. Darks applied. APP then PI. JPEGs for size. Some closer crops & the full image. I'm not sure which framing I like best. All C&C welcome. Cheers, Vin

That is a beautiful - v-e-r-y evocative - composition. Quite magical. Hadn't heard about Photopills - will have to check it out. Hadn't heard about Deepscapes either - suspect you're right about the mountains - am reminded of a v striking image someone had taken of the NAN somewhere in Northern Mountains (Alaska or Canada perhaps) which would probly be a Deepscape - will try & find that. You're posting some beautiful images - more please! EDIT: found it - http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~apod/apod/image/2101/North-America-Nebula-Deepscape_Liron-Gertsman1024.jpg

Cheers @Rusted - I should have shown persistence! (& would clearly have failed Krypton Factor)

The Ca II & H-beta lines look interesting - would you pls be able to share closeups of those? Thank you if so!

Love that third shot 👏🏾👏🏾

Thanks @kirkster501 - yes when I look at the images posted 😮 Agreed re so many different things and a new learning curve. Its fun. I'm starting to understand how & why gain settings depend on the image being taken (fast vs long). Also the whole idea of IR-pass filters b/c seeing is less volatile in IR. Fascinating stuff. Haven't got to derotation yet - will leave that until I'm happy with the actual captures I'm grabbing! And as always the expertise & openness of SGLers is wonderful to learn from just by being a fly on the wall (particular shoutouts to @vlaiv & @Nik271 for various pieces of advice they have posted, although that is not to exclude others!) Cheers - looking fwd to seeing your images!

Hello, A few weeks back I got my hands on a well looked after ASI178MM-Cool. It was mostly for solar/lunar, but I thought I would also experiment with it for deep DSO (mainly small galaxies in mind). Just did a quick try last night on part of the Pelican. My focuser calibration wasn't working so this is focused by eye (hence probably not as sharp as it ought to be). Only 2hrs of 60s lights so not nearly enough data for a proper image, but as a try. Guided, but no calibration of any kind. JPEGs for size - a full picture & two progressively closer crops. Am I missing something - I don't see why this camera would be discontinued? (Clearly it won't match things like ASI294MMPro but even so?) Cheers, Vin

Thanks Pete. Yes when I saw that image pop up on the screen in processing, the over the horizon proms reminded me of a lyric from a song ("what's that coming over the hill, is it a monster") - or perhaps the ride of the valkyries 😂

Yes it's quite something. @Pete Presland caught a lovely capture of I think the same transition (much better though!). I suspect the grid pattern may be from my foolishness in binning it 2x2 so ruining the resolution - rookie mistake!

I never got the hang of Registax unfortunately - have found ImPPG to be much more user friendly!

That is gorgeous. The bows definitely make the image.

Hello, After a first attempt at Jupiter & @Nik271 suggestions to match focal ratio & pixel sizes a bit better, I tried again with a little 290MM on the f10 7" MakCass. Both with & without a 2.5x PM. Filter wheel problems meant I had to stick to mono (which was fine, this was just to get a sense of focus, image capture etc). Not prime focus which probably means a little loss of contrast, and I'd left a Baader contrast booster filter on the end of the diagonal. Saturn is v low & was almost gone so only 1 capture made. More time spent w Jupiter - it's amazing how much rotation there is, even in 3 minutes. EDIT: The 2.5x PM images are, to me, the worst - not sure if the focus needs to be even more precise at that magnification, or whether its a mismatch between f/10x2.5 & 2.9um pixels - ie 8x - and hence much better at just straight f/10 to 2.9um or about 3.3x ratio? No prizes will be won 😂 Cheers

Really nice textures - the spots look like a scared little face though! Wall to wall cloud here 😕

I went back to reprocess the whole disk image - with best 50% rather than 25%. I think I prefer this one - a more even light? Cheers.

Thanks @Nik271 for starting this thread. Got me motivated to try & find Neptune last night with a 7" & your tip of the HD221148 as a marker star was perfect. There it was - my first visual on Neptune! I think I may even have seen Triton (there were occasional moments when something a bit dim seemed to be there on the other side, but - foolishly perhaps - I just spent most of my time just getting fuzzy on Neptune, so I can't definitively say whether I saw Triton - will err on the side of having to go back & look for it more properly ). Thanks again.

A lovely time under the sun this morning. The WL viewing of the active regions was also v v nice. Not completely happy w these images (esp the whole disc, need to fine-tune the tilter a bit I think?) but they'll do. Cheers

The Daystar website says 80mm or above should use ERFs w Quarks, but if I remember correctly it can just be a (probably 2") UV-IR filter on the front of the diagonal rather than a full D-ERF? Figure the same ought to apply to this new gizmo as well?