vineyard

That is gorgeous - could soak up a lot of time just panning around looking at the details & textures. Have you entered the satellites imaging challenge? Looking fwd to seeing more w the 140. How are you finding the 183MM (is it the Pro version)? I'm enjoying the 290MM but every so often look at the 183MMPro as it would have full disk view (of Sun too) & could double up for DSO as well. But not sure how the frame rates compare in practice to a dedicated planetary camera - what do you find as the pluses & minuses of them for lunar? Cheers for the wonderful images!

The old moon was stunning last night & night before (cloudy here tonight). I was visual only (BV w Telementor 2 & 2x9mm) on 22nd but the Montes Apenninus & Eratosthenes were just amazing - Copernicus was brooding at the edge of darkness. Wind the clock forward 24hrs, & Copernicus was out. I set up the camera for a bit (spent most of the time visual) & here are some quick takes. Cheers, Vin (PS - looking at the some of the smaller craters visible on the floor of Clavius suggests the little TM2 was resolving 5km across features w the 9mm? I reckon it could have gone smaller had I upped the magnification & looked more closely)

Hello, Here's 32.5mins of 150s lights on this from last night. Pentax K70 w an old nifty-fifty prime lens. iOptron Skyguider Pro (unguided). ISO 200. JPEG for size. There were clouds for a short while, and there's a tree on the left hand corner of the image which obv moved in the image as the mount rotated so I think that's making the calibration off in that corner. My flats could also be better, but am just experimenting. I like this lens. Infinity means infinity, and I like the FOV of this compared to an old 35mm prime (which is too wide for all the neighbouring houses & trees). Right now I think is my favourite lens for DSLR imaging - need to experiment a bit more but these Pentax primes seem to deliver better images than an old CZJ 135mm Sonnar. Has anyone used a Pentax 135mm vs CZJ 135mm? I couldn't get PI annotation to work on this for some reason. Cheers, Vin

Hello, Here are some attempts from 19 March. TV76, SF50, ASI290MM processed via AS!3, ImPPG, GIMP. The whole disk is my first ever attempt at a solar mosaic (using gradient tool in GIMP) - I think the merged area is easily discernible so I need to improve that! Cheers, Vin (PS - am still playing around w colours so some of these will seem quite garishly green!)

Now you are talking. That is gorgeous! 👏🏾 (PS Did you use layers?)

V nice - lots of activity! The 3rd image really captures the silhouettes of all the proms (incl the one at 11 o'clock). If its possible to combine those silhouettes w the 2nd image, it should be quite spectacular! 👍🏾

I have one of Pavle's autofocusers (the AF2 if I remember correctly) & its brilliant. Dramatically improved the quality & convenience of my imaging. If I ever decide to get an autofocuser for my widefield frac, it'll be another DSD.

I just watched one of your videos on true north @astrocanito & that's a great trick w the pencil & solar noon. I had no idea about that & it should be v helpful for one area where I can get some nice sky views but cannot see Polaris at all. Obrigado!

Concur! I came back to amateur astronomy after decades in H2 2019, and stumbled across SGL. There is NO way I would have been able to go through the learning curve involved with all the new stuff that has been developed without the help & advice of SGLers. There are so many ppl here w so much expertise - all willing to share, and I haven't yet come across anyone who wears their skills on their sleeve. It's a fantastic forum. 🙏🏾 all.

Thank you @mikeDnight @Highburymark @Louis D that's really helpful & exactly the kind of rich feedback I was hoping for. Much appreciated! 2.6x GPC it is

No need for apologies! Crikey re no filters w 90% moon & streetlight - what could that camera capture on a new moon night?!

Hello, A q for more experienced SGLers pls. I currently have, & v much enjoy (separately) a BV and a Nag 3-6 Zoom. So much so that I did start wondering whether 2 zooms in a BV would be amazing on the moon...but on reflection I'm wondering whether it would be worthwhile: My main visual scopes are an old Telementor 2 (840mm f/l), an old Vixen 102 (1000mm f/l) for when I want more resolution & an old TV76 (480mm f/l) for widefield & Ha solar. For the BV I have a 1.25x GPC & a T2 prism diagonal. This allows me to find focus w both the TM2 & the TV76 (but not the Vixen). W the TV76 though, that is only for nighttime, b/c there is only about 10mm of inward travel left once infinity focus is found - so if I use TV76+BV for solar visual, the blocking filter unit adds about 35mm to the path, and the BV can no longer find focus. Given that only 35mm is added, I think if I used a 1.7x GPC instead of 1.25x, that would allow me to find focus for daytime solar too? So I will probably be doing that b/c I do want to be able to BV solar (I'm told its much nicer, just as with the moon?). This though makes me pause on the idea of a second zoom. My shortest BV EPs are 9mm & 18.2mm. So if I had a 1.7x GPC, that would make them equiv to 5.3mm & 10.7mm. I do find myself using the Nag Zoom for mono-vision at 3-4mm a fair bit b/c both the TM2 & Vixen can support that, so an effective 5.3mm f/l would leave a bit wanting. But a 2.6x GPC would make those BV EPs equivalent to 3.5mm and 7mm. Given that, would it actually be better to just get a 2.6x GPC instead of another zoom. That would give more or less the range of a zoom. Yes it would mean swapping EPs but FOV would be higher (62deg)? And it would be a fraction of the cost. (In fact even getting both a 1.7x and 2.6x GPC would be <50% of a Zoom - I could probably get both GPCs & another prism & still come in below a 2nd hand zoom!). I'm v glad to have a zoom for mono-lunar, but am I missing s/thing in the above or would it actually be better to just get another GPC for close up lunar? Thank you! Vin (PS - the other angle that makes me hesitate on BV'ing Nag Zooms is that w a 1.25x GPC, the effective f/l would be 2.4-4.8mm...I don't think the seeing would support 2.4mm that often w a little TM2 or the V102)

Do you have access to a secret quantum wormhole that allows you to get really close to these objects? The clarity in that image...🙌🏾

That is a cracking image - 90mins w L-eNhance not even L-eXtreme. That's v helpful as an L-eNhance example - what Bortle are you in if you don't mind me asking?

Hello, Here's a couple of quick takes from yesterday. TV76 w SF-50 etalon, ASI290MM, FireCapture, AS!3, ImPPG, GIMP. Playing with slightly different colours this time. Cheers, Vin

Hello, In the little run of clear (but moonlit) nights we had at the end of Feb, I played w the little Evo50 + SW flattener as a wide-field imaging scope. Mounted in an Astrokraken rig, on an HEQ5Pro, w a Baader UHC as a filter. I've posted what emerged from M81/M82 & IC1848 in other posts, so this is the last target on which I had all of 45 mins of lights (60s, calibrated; Pixinsight incl a little bit of star reduction). A lot more data clearly needed - but still quite pleased w what the Evo50 could produce in these conditions? I definitely want to try and spend more time on this part of the sky whenever the clouds go away. The glow in the bottom left corner is the moon I suspect. Not quite sure what the diagonal band towards the right hand side is - it wasn't there in the M81/M82 or IC1848 images, so I'm not sure if its an actual feature or an artefact or something else. One thing I've noticed in all three images is it almost looks like a ripple effect is also there - the centre of the image is brighter, and then a circular dark area and then a circular brighter area. Could it be internal reflections in the train b/c of the UHC filter? Cheers, Vin

That's quite resplendent 👏🏾 & wow re the processing intricacies post-capture - scripts I didn't even know of (good old learning curve!).

That's a great shot. I got 6h of data no M81 & M82 a week or so ago, and after seeing your image went back to see if I could see anything in that - nada, zip. But then I re-read what you explained about IFN's & needing large apertures, long time & fast speeds. And felt less bad that my little Evo50 hadn't captured any of the volcano 😂 👍🏾

Reprocessed it w/o cropping (& w some star-reduction). I really should have framed it a lot better. And I wish I could figure out a way of losing some of the processing artefacts (?) in the corners.

Hello, Finally got round to having go at about 6h of data caught on this at the end of Feb. Baader UHC filter around the time of the virtually full moon (as you can tell by the esp strong gradient in one corner?). ASI294MCPro. Calibrated (darks, flats, dark flats). 60s lights. Guided. This is the uncropped image so the whole FOV can be seen. The flattener does a pretty decent job - there is a bit of tilt in there but I think that's from the way I thread the filter in. All processing limitations & hackery is my fault. Cheers, Vin

Thanks @MartinB - you're right about the UHC. I thought I'd try it to see what effect it would have - I'm surprised at how much it did but agreed not a patch on a dual-band or Ha (unfortunately I have neither in 1.25"). I'm going back & forth on FOV & rationalising kit. Looking at the uncropped image, the actual FOV w an ASI294MC Pro & Evo50 is smaller than what Telescopius suggests - until I realised that I have to add 2x for the 4/3 crop factor on the camera? Then Telescopius' prediction is more like what the image actually came out to be. And so then tinkering w different lens configurations the FOV w a CZJ Sonnar 135mm @ f8 (w the 2x crop factor added) looks pretty interesting. I also have an old 1.4x Pentax teleconverter so that takes the 135mm to 189mm before the crop factor. And stopped down to f8 hopefully the image should be fairly flat & sharp even w/o a flattener. But I'm intrigued to see if the flattener would still work with an incoming 189mm f/l stopped down image circle vs the Evo50 242mm it's designed for. Will test & see. Anyhow, if the CZJ @ f8 w 1.4x teleconverter works then I'm leaning towards maybe selling the Evo50 to rationalise kit & release some cash for a rotator for the main imaging scope. I'm just a bit uncertain whether I'd regret losing that as a guidescope for the main 4" imaging frac (which is f8.6) - would a ZWO MiniGuide scope be good enough for that guiding...decisions, decisions. Anyway, long rambling train-of-thought msg, apologies. Great IC405 & tadpoles image btw!

Hello, Here's about 2h24 of lights from Bortle 9 under virtually full moon skies. EvoGuide50 w SW flattener as the imaging scope & ZWO MiniGuide as the guidescope. Baader UHC filter used w ASI294MCPro. 60s lights, calibrated (darks, lights & dark flats). Cropped a bit to remove processing artefacts at the edges (a v bright moon - gradients still there but this is the limit of my processing skills 😂). It may sound crazy but I'm actually thinking about switching down a bit to a 135mm DSLR lens as my widefield. Has anyone used a DSLR lens as a guidescope...in which case the Evo50 may actually go 🧐 Cheers, Vin (PS - another Q: has anyone tried a SW Evo50 flattener w a DSLR lens - I'm minded to try that to see what happens)

That is lovely - really nicely done 👏🏾 you should definitely put that into the satellite imaging challenge.

Stunning images - the 5th & 7th are very dramatic! 👏🏾

Hello, Finally got round to playing w some white light & Ha images from 26 Feb. It was so nice to see blue sky & Sun - and there was activity! WL: Vixen 102M w Lunt 1.25 Herschel Wedge, Baader Solar Continuum filter Ha: TV76 w SF-50 etalon ASI290MM in all, w FireCapture, AS!3, ImPPG & GIMP. Cheers, Vin