vineyard

Aye v lucky to be able to play with that. And the missus would indeed kill me on the plants. Happily some of the wee plant-lings (or whatever they're called) are put indoors at night until its warmer so I have a bit more space (wait until the tomatoes grow up though, forget it then - but the nights are short then anyway, says he consoling himself). Stay safe & cheers!

Hello, Sorry if this is the wrong sub-channel, but I thought I'd share this photo. An old Vixen Super-Polaris 102M on an original SP mount and original HAL-130 (?) tripod. I got this from my elderly father (he's still going, but this gear is a bit bulky for him now - so I swapped him an old Vixen Porta on a Japanese surveyor's tripod (original versions both) and my little Primaluce 72ED as those are a bit easier to handle hopefully). Looking fwd to taking it for a spin - strictly visual tonight Stay safe all, Vin

I knew not that there was such a thing, but upon googling...hmm. Not sure I'd get permission to take it all the way up to 170cm but ideas are being germinated. It could be painted, it could hold little pots in it, it could have vegetables & various green creepers growing up the side and camouflage it 😂 Thank you - will keep up sleeve for next round of negotiations!

Hello, So I think my better half may be amenable to a pier being put in a corner in the garden. Negotiations are continuing One thing that would certainly help the case is if the pier could also be used for other purposes during the daytime. Particularly if it could be used for potting. Which I think means a pier at about the height of a kitchen work top (90cm, although another 10-20cm on top would probably be ok), with the ability to screw in a square work surface on top of it, which can then be unscrewed and removed. This could then be used for potting plants on (or to put utensils etc while bbq'ing). For telescope use, I'd have to then put an extension on top of that (to get sufficient elevation to be able to clear one side of the garden). Currently I use a Berlebach fully extended (130cm) with a 40cm extension on top of that, with the mount then sitting on top of that. Ideally, I'd like to be able to get maybe even 10-20cm higher (just to be able to get a bit more sky but it's not that important - also if I put a levelling adapter plate in, then that would give a bit of extra height anyway). This is for AP. So that means an extension of about 60-80cm on top of the 90-110 cm pier (levelling plate not included). I don't mind screwing & unscrewing the extension bit on. The mount itself will only be an HEQ5Pro (maybe max one level up from that in the future) - I use a 4" frac mostly, and maybe one day might go up to an 6" (frac or reflector) or max run two 4" scopes at the same time. But nothing super big or heavy. Is this a daft idea? Is it even possible? Also, would folks mind sharing photos showing piers being used for other purposes to help build the case ? Thank you & stay safe, Vin

Hi Jason, thanks for this. I've got a v old Pentax (*istD) but can also borrow a newer Pentax K-something. The manuals for both of those say that the camera cannot be operated while connected to a computer (which would be a problem for platesolving & image framing via EKOS) but maybe the Indi stacks get around that. The wrinkle I found when I last looked at this was that the Indi code for Pentax doesn't seem to be in good shape based on some forum discussions (and I really don't want to take the risk of running non-stable code on my EKOS/SMate & destabilising everything else!). Will keep an eye on it b/c it would be great (and much cheaper) to be able to use the Pentax APS-C chips! Cheers & stay safe, Vin

Gorgeous. Whole disk views (especially when there is this much activity) are just so pleasing! 👏🏾

I'm afraid I can't help you on your Q, but as my intention is a 294MC Pro for my next camera on my own learning path, if you are tempted to make the switch & need to shift the current one, I might know a careful new owner...😇 Cheers 😄

Hello, To practice my GIMP workflow a bit more, I tried with some other footage from yesterday. I think the colour here is too cold a bit (and I don't like the bright region in the lower middle right of the disk). But I think the disk edge is better than the whole disk version earlier up above. (Didn't take flats so maybe that's the reason?) Anyway stay safe, Vin

Ah ok, thanks. The original image is so clean, I just had to chuckle seeing my hack at it! Cheers & stay safe, Vin

As I suspected. This is nominally the same object 😂 but from Bortle 8/7, 72ED. To borrow a line from Jaws, I'm going to need a bigger scope for this one! Stay safe, Vin

Hello, Had a chance to start tinkering with whole disk solar on the Lunt50 today. @MalVeauXyour tutorials are a great starting place, thank you! Processing still v clumsy & as I use GIMP not PS I still need to figure out my workflow & settings. Stay safe, Vin

That is a brilliant video - v funnily put together too. And I'm really happy where it ends b/c I also recently picked up a belted HEQ5Pro from a fellow SGLer! And am absolutely loving it for AP. Have got it humming (by my newbie standards that is!) with a little 72ED - have figured out via tips from other SGLers I need a different camera for the 4" (sampling). And if lockdown ever ends and the ATM classes begin again, am working on a little 6" reflector If only I could get my old DSLR to work while connected to a laptop now... Brilliant video @rorymultistorey& thanks @Stufor sharing that!

Hello, Saw this on the Grauniad website - not sure if this is old news or not, but the image is certainly striking? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/08/astronomers-capture-new-images-of-jupiter-using-lucky-technique Stay safe, Vin

Hello all, Here is M92 from a quick grab last night (only 1hr of 60s lights, unguided). So v much w-i-p but just liked seeing the cluster so I thought I'd grab some time with it. Unannotated image is downsampled for size, annotated is not (I had no idea here are that many other objects in the FOV, not that I can see them necessarily but if the computer says yes, who am I to disagree!) Stay safe, Vin (PS - one thing that has me scratching my head is that Wikipedia says this cluster is about 14bn yrs old - roughly the age of the universe - but its only 26k light yrs away, so our solar system formed a LOT later in the same neighbourhood? Wow)

Very nice. I actually grabbed about 3 hrs on Iris last night for the first time - but with a little 72ED from maybe Bortle 8/7 skies (but with an Astronomik CLS-CCD too ). Have yet to process it, but somehow I don't think it'll come out like that 🤣

Beautiful. How long did all that take you if you don't mind me asking? I prefer the second image - the stars are more restful on the eye, and also seem more "individual" (each one a little solar system), whereas in the first one they seem just like stars (not sure if that makes any sense!).

V nice. The detail in M63 is lovely. I was playing around with an M13 set I took (not as nice as yours!) and if you play with the colour curves, you can sort of make the cluster look a bit like a coronavirus with the spikes.

Hello all, Here's a quick grab & process (downsampled). Stay safe! Vin

They're all fantastic, but Sinus Iridum just looks amazing. 👏🏾

Hello, Here is my first ever go at M51 - images taken last week but only managed to get round to them today. I realised I was making a masking mistake so hopefully this is less grainy than my other galaxy images! Learning curve continues Non-annotated image is downsampled 3x for size reduction, annotated one is not - wow, that's a lot of objects in that FOV. Stay safe, Vin

Hello, I spent a fair amount of time on M101 this week & managed to get 6.5 hrs of stackable data (total was more). Limited processing skills, and only a little PL72ED scope (FPL51 glass) & ASI178MC. But still pretty happy with it - its about as far as I can take it I reckon. Nice to see 9 star clouds also caught in the annotated image! Stay safe, Vin

Tbh I'd be doing high fives if I ever came out with an image like that. It's gorgeous.

Is there an emoji for green with envy? Enjoy! PS - looking fwd to seeing the sketches that come from that!

Ok with a bit more time after dinner, and a glass of wine, here's another attempt. Have done one more Curves Transformation (with a Luminance mask in place first) to darken the background, and then HDRMT, and then a bit more curves to change the colour balance a bit. And also played with the v cool imagesolve tool - which showed me that there was an even fainter fuzzy caught!

Hello, Hope every one safe & well. Here is M13 from last night. My first ever attempt at it. There's a dust bunny at the top right hand corner (I need better flats). I guess that fuzzy in the bottom right corner is NGC6207? I did initially try using Dynamic PSF & MMT as well but I wasn't happy with my settings as it came out over sharpened. I guess the optimal settings vary from galaxies vs clusters? Cheers, Vin