vineyard

Hello,

Literally had about 10-15 mins in the Sun between other tasks & clouds to do a quick setup.  Stuck a DSLR in and this is a single shot ISO 6400 - straight off the SD card, haven't had a chance to do anything to it (hence pls forgive the image size too).

Did take some videos on the DSLR but not sure how they'll pan out (I doubt if they will but let's see).

Cheers,

Vin

Those are gorgeous. It really is like flying over them.  The Montes Appeninus in particular.

That's beautiful!

Thanks @WestCoastCannuck.  You got it almost spot on - ISO 100 setting, but I kept the exposure to 1/200s to try and keep it more moody 😂 And yes re the focus as well - I have a heavy hand, and its only a single-speed focuser so I find it tricky to get it spot on for photographic purposes (especially as I don't think I can zoom in on liveview on the camera to check finest focus on features - unless I've not read the manual properly).

Yes if I could get usage of the K70 nailed on for lunar & solar then I think I may lose my ASI178MC.  But I need to get it right before I do that (a camera in the hand is worth two in the bush - especially these days).  I tried a similar video capture w the K70 and Ha-solar.  Was much less satisfactory - the solar features didn't really show up at all (although they did a bit on stills) - this was with lowest ISO and pretty fast exposure.

Cheers

Same scope (same pics) on eBay again now.

Hello,

Not one of these amazing mosaics that folks are posting (wow).  Just a quick video grabbed on an old Pentax K70 through a Vixen 102M on an alt-az mount.  Run through PIPP, AS!3, ImPPG & then GIMP.

Stay safe!

Vin

(I've been trying to see whether the DSLR could sub in for lunar & Ha-solar image capture - I have to say the lunar isn't that bad for the convenience it offers.  I couldn't really get the Ha-solar capture to work but that's probably a thread for another section!)

Gorgeous!

I don't get a chance to check images regularly, but whenever I see you've posted something I always have a look!  Breathtaking as always.

How funny - I spent time looking at that too last night.  It really was showing well.  That's a great link @John - what a view - & a v useful map @Nik271, thank you.  I'd set up both the Telementor with a 10-0, and also the old Vixen 102M (w a 12T2 and then a Nag Zoom) side-by-side on a dual-saddled EZtouch.

As an aside, I asked one of the teenagers to look at the moon through both (when the Vixen had the 12T2 in, so 84x on the TM & 83x on the Vixen).  After an "oh wow the Moon" reaction, I asked which they thought was the better view.  Without hesitation, the TM.  When asked why: "its cleaner & clearer" (I guess that means sharper)?

But b/c of the greater resolution on the Vixen, I spent most of my time with that, and the seeing & scope were holding v crisp & steady at 3mm on the Zoom - 333x?!  Its nice comparing the mental images of what I saw to that map - thanks Nik!

Cheers all.

Beautiful!  The moon really was gorgeous last night.

Managed to spend a quick stint with the Telementor and 10-O.  The moon really is beautiful!

I thought I'd try a quick DSLR grab (sometimes it's too much faff to take CMOS camera, cables, laptops etc), so I just put an old Pentax K70 in and recorded a MOV.  Used PIPP to turn into AVI and then ran it through AS!3, ImPPG and little bit of GIMP.

Was curious to see if it would do a better job than a CMOS (an ASI178MM is about 6MP, the K70 about 24MP but in colour so equivalent to about 6MP mono?).  Not sure about it - its ok when seen at small scale but there doesn't seem to be as good resolution as previous old lunar images with a faster ED APO if I zoom in.  Maybe I didn't get focus nailed (especially as its just a single-speed?).

Stay safe.

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

I was gonna say the ASI is USB3 but just checked and so is the Altair. But then all the Altair cameras tend to be cheaper. The new 26C is a good £200 lower than the ZWO and QHY variants.

Yes, this is what I'm sort of scratching my head about - you'd think China would have lower production costs etc and so ASI would be cheaper (eg Moravian is more expensive than ASI), but it's the other way around.

Any user feedback from anyone on the Altair GPCAM3 178M?  (Thank you if so!).

 

On 23/01/2021 at 16:46, Adam J said:

I would not call £23 between the two that significant? What prices are you looking at? 

On 23/01/2021 at 16:59, david_taurus83 said:

Altair offer fan cooled and tec cooled cameras. Are you sure your not looking at the fan cooled Altair v the ASI183 Pro (tec cooled)?

FLO are showing the ASI 178MM at GBP346, and Altair Astro are showing the GPCAM3 178M at GBP299+change?

@Robindonne yes that's part of what I'm trying to get a sense of from more experienced folks, esp for lunar/solar.

Stay safe all

Hello,

Hope all well.  I was wondering what (if any) difference there was between these cameras (or people's general experiences w the two different makes).  They seem to be the same chip but there is a meaningful price difference.  Has anyone used both to be able to share first-hand comparisons?  (I would be using it for lunar/solar mono).

Thank you & cheers.

That sounds like a lovely evening 👍🏾 It's great when everything comes together!

That's beautiful - looks like a 5 inside a circle (or oval).  Maybe it should be called the Five Nebula.  I love these sorts of obscure targets!

These videos are great - thanks for sharing - the mismatched subtitles are surreal (Youtube still need to work on that tech).  I had never appreciated the craft that goes into these (classic Japanese eye for detail though!).  I wonder if there are any videos from AP or TEC or Televue manufactories?

Cheers

Hello,

Hope this finds all safe & well.  Just a quick Q please to get feedback from those who might have upgraded to the new stable release 3.5.1 of Kstars.  How are you finding it?  Any glitches?  I'm happily running 3.4.3 (w all the astrometry files on my laptop) and thinking about whether to update it.

Torn b/w if its not broken don't fix it vs the new functionality in 3.5.1

How is the StellarSolver?  How stable is the guiding & autofocus module?  Meridian flip problems?  Are folks running peripherals like autofocusers/rotators etc without problems?

Thank you in advance!

Vin

On 06/01/2021 at 22:10, scotty1 said:

I recently bought the GPS astrotracer,and it seems to work well for a simple astro setup. 

Not sure how well it performs with comets, I have a K5, I'm not familiar with the in-camera stacking, are you using a K70 body?

Hi, sorry for slow reply - a few crazy things happening in the world yesterday 😂

Yes I'm using an old K70.  I haven't yet had a chance to try the in-camera stacking (the Interval Composite option) nor the Pixel Shift - but I do want to, they look intriguing.  The Starstream is fun to watch building up - if you frame it right you can probably get some v nice images with a foreground.

Cheers!

(PS - on comets, I don't know I'm afraid but it's a great idea - I didn't think of using Astrotracer for Neowise, doh)

That's an excellent review, and a lovely image as well!

That is simply stunning. 😮👏🏾

That's a lovely shot @Nik271 - your focus was better than mine.

I'm really liking this light & wide approach for the reasons you mention.  Its quick, easy to set up & strip down.  For evenings where you can't set up a whole rig to go deep (for whatever reason, usually clouds later ) it still gets you out & engaging w the sky - and the anticipation of what you might capture.

I'm going to keep experimenting w some old lenses for the time being!

That is just stunning - thank you for the explanation too!

Hello, so I ran two experiments w my 0.96" mirror diagonal.

First I put it in instead of an EP on the straight-through configuration (ie, with the extender tube still attached to the OTAm and the diagonal inserted as if it was an 0.96" EP).  As @Don Pensack says, no joy finding focus.

Second I removed the extender tube and attached the funnel shaped thing which the 0.96" EP would normally slide into directly to the OTA (since it also has the M44 thread).  And then put in the diagonal.  And that did find focus on buildings about 2-3 miles away (too cloudy here for true infinity) with still some travel to go after that.

But I wouldn't be very comfortable w the second configuration b/c its literally only friction thats holding the diagonal in (since the funnel thing doesn't have a set screw or compression band) - I'd be v-e-r-y nervous relying on that alone to hold the diagonal and EPs, and there is no way I would put a BV on that.

So I'd echo @Stu & @markse68 wrt getting something that adapts from M44 down to your diagonal nose, b/c that will be much more secure.

Cheers,

Vin

(PS @sungazer is selling a neat adapter combination for Telementors in the For Sale section in case that's helpful - you'd still need an M44 to T2 adapter)

That's gorgeous.  Looking also at the images of the recent Epsilon 160 from @Allinthehead is it time to do a scope-off?