gilesco

From what system are you SSH ing to the Astroberry from?

1 hour ago, cheddar-man said:

There are some (old) floodlights at the Wimbleball dam but never seen them on. Apart from the I'm not aware of any light source. The nearest village, about twenty houses, is Bury, well over the hill.

I expect, since becoming a Dark Skies site, that they've made all the changes to keep it that way.

https://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/enjoying/stargazing

Surprised I have not seen this mentioned anywhere on here, especially as it appears to be running right now... (although many events will probably not go ahead because of the weather).

https://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/enjoying/stargazing/dark-skies-festival

Interesting you can hire SkyWatcher Dobsonians from any of their National Park Centres, £25 a night, plus £100 deposit, £10 per each additional night. Sounds great for families who have a passing interest while visiting the park on a break.

39 minutes ago, M110 said:

Haddon Hill does look interesting, certainly a lot more sheltered than the site on Dartmoor we were considering and roughly equal travel time for me.

I've checked the National Trust and it's not one of their car parks (despite those donation boxes) so I would guess its an Exmoor National Park Authority owned one. @gilesco have you contacted them already? If not, I can send them an email.

I'd be happy to head to either site assuming Exmoor didn't mind us being there.

I have not, Exmoor is a little further, and I'm more at home on Dartmoor, anyone fancy getting in touch? I can still do Exmoor one night, just 10+ mins drive for me and I suppose a smoother drive with equipment.

Would be good to know what artificial lighting is there, I know the dartmoor sites have none, Exmoor is a dark site space, so should be hopeful on that.

Yes not seeing a good window this month at all... am getting a part shipment tomorrow, which will help with setup planning. Hoping for a better November, have some long weekends booked with work too....

Personally, I don't see much technical difference between an invoice that says:

And a pretty piece of paper that says:

"This is to certify that this Esprit has undergone a Optical Bench Test) blah blah blah"

3 minutes ago, MercianDabbler said:

Just back from a week on Exmoor... planned for the waning/new moon and with the telescope along for the ride. I had a few clear nights and needed to figure out where to set up.

Doing a search online turns up pages and pages of recommendations but most seem to be either direct from the tourist board or various newspapers and travel sites basically rehashing the same info. Finding recommendations from people who had actually used a telescope on Exmoor proved more tricky and some postings on here were about the best I found so thanks to the folks who posted here.

If anyone knows of any other good info (i.e. based on experience) then I'd be interested to know. Do other folks really spend their nights set up in rural car parks with occasional passing traffic? I didn't see anyone else doing astronomy, in spite of the moon phase and proximity to the Dark Skies Festival.

A few experiences of my own, staying (this time) near Combe Martin at the West end of the moor...

The tourist info centre has a leaflet with a map of the darkest areas and recommended locations for observing. I was puzzled by a 'minor road' shown running through the dark area which as far as I can gether is not a road at all but a boundary line.

One cloudy night was forecast to clear later (it didn't). While waiting I checked out a few of the recommended sites...

'Brendon Two Gates'. A cattle grid on the B3223 road across the moor. Two big laybys to the south (enclosed) side. Continuing North is more fruitful - the road is then unfenced and there are several car parks with clear views to the West. A couple of these were my chosen observing locations. They can be pretty exposed in windy conditions. There were two distant pools of sky glow to the West, presumably from Barnstaple and Ilfracombe. The road was quiet at night with no more than 5 cars passing during the 2-2.5 hours I was there each night. Several car parks were occupied by camper vans parked up for the night. Watch out for sheep bedding down on the road too.

'Goat Hill Bridge'. Two laybys alongside the B3358 road. In a river valley with high ground to either side. I didn't stick around, feeling that there would be more passing traffic on this road. On one night I passed this location the fog was so thick you could cut it with a knife... fortunately the higher B3223 car parks were crystal clear.

'Valley of Rocks'. I was only here during daytime. Two off road car parks. A deep valley so forget anything near the horizon but if you want star trails with spectacular rock formations in the foreground then this is the place. The 'through' road goes across a private estate and I imagine that passing traffic will be minimal.

'Holdstone Down'. A proper off road car park on high ground overlooking the Bristol Channel with views across to South Wales and attendant lights. Higher ground to the South and West so objects near the horizon would be hidden. Ithe road here is very minor so I would expect minimal passing traffic.

'West Anstey Common'. Not one from this trip but I spent a few hours there on a previous trip when staying near Dulverton. Not in the darkest part of the park, having open views over the hinterland between Exmoor and Dartmoor. Parking near one of the boundaries it was possible to get a fair way off the road and the boundary shielded me from any approaching headlights from that direction. Passing traffic was infrequent.

Anyone got anything to add about these or other sites?

Would be really good if you can tag or somehow copy paste this thread into the Devon & Cornwall club topic list, as I think it is relevant there.

And if you are in Devon, join the club!!

13 minutes ago, sputniksteve said:

🔥

Kind of read between the lines... "we have soooooo many waiting for delivery on this scope"

9 hours ago, johnturley said:

From what I gather, there are very few (if any) dud Esprits, occasionally one requires the collimation to be tweeked.

John 

Tweaked, but not sure about collimation on a refractor, if it is possible to tweak then yes, but he doesn't open the tube and adjust lens positions etc...

It is just easier to take in mind that you have a scope from FLO, that Es Reid would have accepted if he had bought it from a distributor.

That is the peace of mind that the £75 buys you, you could spend more than that just getting it shipped to you on a non vibrant container from the factory.

55 minutes ago, cheddar-man said:

Mine in Culmstock isn't that great but useable😎 not that I have a clue what any of that means🙄

Being well East of Exeter I'm thinking of a trip up to Haddon Hill, overlooking Wimbleball Lake. Often walk up there and it's beautiful, complete with car park.

So what is all this telling me folks??

If you go to my website, I have recently posted a talk by Dr Robin Glover, which goes in to levels of light pollution noise and how this helps / hinders your necessary exposure time when imaging.

If you can obtain better detail with lower length exposures then you can get more subs in a given time frame and thus more detail.

Bortle is a rather rough scale. Lower is better. SQM higher the better.

It also translates to observing quality, but it is difficult to quantify, as your eye is fixed in its abilities regarding focal length, aperture, and exposure time. Of course having a telescope is altering your focal length and aperture to your eye, but exposure is still set fixed, to whatever your brain copes with.

Location looks good, looks like good shielding from passing traffic, larger space than what we've been looking at. Don't know if car park closes overnight, there are some buildings in the area, but also some amenities (toilets). Do you know who runs the car park? Would like to clear with them for use in that way.

It is a lot further from me from other sites, but time on road is just +10minutes, given some is motorway and major A road.

If you have the ZWO filter wheel then check the physical prominence of the filters in the wheel, too often the issue is that they stick out too much and jar the wheel.

I have a seven filter set of LRGBHaOIIISII ZWOs. I'm happy with them, but don't have a compare with anything else.

14 minutes ago, johninderby said:

As mentioned earlier in this thread the ES Reid test is mentioned on the customers invoice so there is your “paperwork”.

Think a label on the scope will be a good additional step for  FLO though.

Steve did mention, before going for his Sunday dinner, that they would look into perhaps a holo sticker (I assume a sticker with a hologram that is tamper-evident) that they'd put on scopes that have gone through the process. So they may do that in the future, although I wonder whether stickers would be made available to those who have already purchased a tested scope... they will have to consider this, as otherwise people will be selling second-hand scopes with and without provenance and those who have been tested and didn't have a holo sticker would be a bit miffed.

27 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Hi, hope you don't mind me posting. I'm in Devon, didn't know there was a Devon and Cornwall club on here?

It has not been too active, am trying to revive activity there, particularly dark site visiting.

From what I can tell, the bench test is:

(a) visual inspection
(b) aiming a laser at the head of a pin, or small bearing, to create an artificial star and viewing the artificial star at various points through the telescope. Looking for chromatic aberrations, changes in size etc...

Dud telescopes go back to the distributor, the good ones get shipped to FLO.

Since recently, FLO only offer the Esprit series with the bench test, they don't sell any that have not been benchtested. So your invoice is your certificate.

Welcome, be sure to join the Devon and Cornwall club on here

Welcome, be sure to join the Devon & Cornwall club on here.

Here's the Light Pollution Map info, better than my Bortle 4/5 at home.

I popped up there this afternoon, it does look quite promising, at the car park level you can find points which are shielded from the road in both directions. Quite a few cars there at the time, I imagine that it dies down near to dusk. Remember to bring a spirit level!

View from the ridge:

A panorama, I guess that you have 360 degrees, horizon at car park level is probably around 10 degrees.

I was not aware of the 3m recommendation for USB3... I think I will hold fire and try and improve cable management, then perhaps look at getting a Pegasus PPB Advance when the budget allows.

Thanks for all the recommendations, I do still need a slightly longer USB2 to go from my mount to the USB hub. So will check Lindy and ETGuuds brands for their offerings.

The tool is great, I use it on my works in progress

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/?wtml=http%3a%2f%2fworldwidetelescope.org%2fwwtweb%2fShowImage.aspx%3freverseparity%3dFalse%26scale%3d2.207991%26name%3dcombine-RGB-image-mod-lpc-cbg-csc-St.jpg%26imageurl%3dhttp%3a%2f%2fnova.astrometry.net%2fimage%2f9340892%26credits%3dAstrometry.net%2bUser%2b(All%2bRights%2bReserved)%26creditsUrl%3d%26ra%3d39.184698%26dec%3d62.720308%26x%3d3263.4%26y%3d3461.7%26rotation%3d-138.40%26thumb%3dhttp%3a%2f%2fnova.astrometry.net%2fimage%2f9340894%26wtml%3dtrue

The image cross-fade is great too, gives you real satisfaction to know what you're imaging is what is supposed to be there.

I have a ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro, it is producing perfect results, my imperfections are in other areas. Will certainly be considering this one for future OSC results, but the for time being, I will be building LRGBHaOIIISII images in one form or another very manually. 

I have a whole assortment of USB cables some old, some which came with equipment I've bought (e.g. ZWO cameras).

I would like to look at purchasing some longer length cables (not much longer, perhaps 4 or 5 metres).

Looking around I see that the cost of these cables varies immensely, without much to tell whether the more expensive ones are of a better quality.

What USB cable manufacturers do you recommend which are quality, work for astro, and will not break the bank? I need various different ones with differing form factor ends.

The third car pack up from the Warren House Inn, just beyond Bennet's Cross kind of looks promising as it appears to be shielded from the line of sight up and down the road (I doubt there is much late night traffic there anyway).

I am waiting on some new kit, which I need for remote site work, currently expected to arrive first or second week of November, weather looks awful all around this month anyway, so if I do get it together the next window of opportunity would be 13th / 14th November, clear skies permitting...

11 hours ago, M110 said:

That email from the National Park Authority is promising. As long as no one falls asleep in their car all should be fine!

According to the light pollution map I've just looked at, the darkest skies accessible by road are NE of Postbridge on the B3212. There's several car parks to choose from on that road, unfortunately they are all right next to the road so if there's any passing traffic it would pose a problem.

I agree, any trip up there would need to be worth it. I'd be doing a mixture of visual observing and light imaging - I see from your images that you're much further down the astrophotography path than I am!

In my case, a weeknight would unfortunately restrict the time I had available due to work commitments. I'd still be willing to go, but would probably only manage a few hours. but if we could arrange clear skies for a Friday or Saturday night I'd definitely be up for an extended session lasting all night perhaps.

 

I'll look at the Postbridge area later, a combination of the streetview, satellite and light pollution should help find something suitable. I've stayed at the Two Bridges before, so know that road a bit, by the way, you do realise that that road is haunted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_Hands

Agree, unless I take a day off work, it's going to be a Friday or Saturday.

2 minutes ago, johninderby said:

StellaMira are the refractors and StelkaMira are the CCs and RCs.

I did ask and got the answer, they are from different manufacturers, despite the similar branding - but both are Taiwanese.