gilesco

I think the point is, at some point, any scientific team, once they have a certain amount of results, need to put it out there, and say, "look we have this evidence", please comment on it.

That is what happened yesterday, we clearly hope that this results in further investigation, be it further review, further evidence gathering (which is probably beyond the budgets of Cardiff University or even MIT).

They've done the right thing, put it out there, made hypotheses, and suggested outcomes.

I hope it widens the research in general.

I dont blame you for keeping it, reminds me of the winner of the Astrophotography Picture of the year 2020, only more appealing to the eye, despite the purely accidental effect.

1 minute ago, Chefgage said:

That was the same for my area minus the fog. Clear sky app was showing red for few but strangely enough I observed no dew at all while imaging. I had my dew heater on but usually everything else is wet, but not last night.

To the OP the last time I had dew it looked more uniform across the image, almost like thin clouds had rolled in.

I should say, it looks like dew if you don't have a dew heater running, where in my experience I got bigger droplets forming, with a dew heater the droplets are smaller and there are more of them, which can make things look more uniform across the image as you mention.

Looks like dew to me, was thinking of setting up last night, but saw high humidity, bad dew point, and possible fog later, so gave it a miss.

Wikipedia gives an idea of how it is moving:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard's_Star

M31, in my opinion is not a good choice to try to win an astrophotography competition. I'm thinking of the Andromedeans, complaining about lack of sleep due to the stars in their own galaxy causing the light pollution, filtering out the light of our splendid Milky Way. M31 is always washed out with light, compared with much nicer whirlpool galaxies that have more definition due to their orientation of view from us.

12 minutes ago, TerryJ said:

Received from FLO, after a few weeks delay due to the pandemic. 

Zwo ASI183mm plus wheel and filters.

The learning curve gets steeper..🤣

Cheers

Terry

I bought one of these bundles, you're going to love it - a lot of work to get your final images, but that camera is great.

48 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

All our photos in the future may look like this, courtesy Mr Musk, if we don't use Sigma clipping (People and Space category: The Prison of Technology, by Rafael Schmall from Hungary)
 

 

That picture certainly made a valid point

1 minute ago, Tom OD said:

I m very disappointed to see this win. It’s even a poor image of M31, let alone the out of focus stars.  
They need to have an art section in that competition. Winning images of satellite trails, and lens flares?!?! 
Tom 
 

I agree, while I have not, yet, produced anything worthy of being entered into a competition, I wouldn't dream of composing the type of thing that appears to have got awards there.

I guess, if you want to be seriously competitive then it's more about finding out what the judges are looking for, rather than producing a good astrophotography result.

I said this would make for some interesting debate!!

4 minutes ago, AbsolutelyN said:

When I first saw the image I assumed it was a photoshop filter to replicate tilt but when I heard him explain how he'd done it I was very impressed with the lengths he's gone to to create this image. He actually 3D printed an adaptor to hold the camera with about 30 degrees of tilt to the image plane. Basically emulating what you'd do with a tilt shift lens or large format camera movements. I think it's very effective, creative and makes a fantastic and unique image. 

I think there is a balance to be had between art and science. You are using artistic licence simply by framing up your image - deciding what to include in the image and what to exclude. I've taken many landscapes with large format film cameras and manipulated the image plane in camera with tilt, shift and swing to achieve the right result. The image simply uses traditional photographic techniques that have been used to manipulate the image plane in-camera pretty much since the dawn of photography.  

Well, yes, an interesting method, but I still much prefer the image of M31 on your website to the one that won the competition!

I tend to ignore these things, just to avoid both the anticipation, and the following anticlimax.

2 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

Does nothing for me but I'm not an imager. looks like a beginners first attempt.  On more worthy awards, Alexandra Hart (Montana on this forum) topped the solar section of the competition.    🙂

At least that picture matches my view of astrophotography (as being a representation of what is there), rather than art (although for me it also happens to have artistic allure).

Well this might make for some interesting debate. I saw that article earlier today.

I would term most of the pictures in the article not to be pure astrophotography, but astronomy based art.

When I image, I am trying to get a representation of what is there, this means that I only really modify levels, try out some false colour and automated routines to remove light pollution, calbrate star colours etc...

All my final work should still plate-solve to a location in the sky, and if it doesn't then I've probably applied too much artistic license, and I've left the science field behind.

What are other's thoughts on that?

Just now, Davey-T said:

Arrived today thought it would be a quick job to stick it all together but focuser bracket was no good so just spent a couple of hours making one.

Dave

heh, my helical focuser and ASI290MM mini arrived today too, so FLO just had a ZWO delivery!!!

1 minute ago, MarkAR said:

I looked into those USB Eternet adapters and I don't think they work.

I ended up getting a Raspberry Pi, loaded with Astroberry and set it up as a Lan connection (rather than Ethernet) to my MacBook. I currently have 20m cable but you can easily go up to 100m.

I also contacted Lindy and they recommended a CAT6a cable. 

Get one that is rated as suitable for external use.

I personally have a reel of Cat6 external rated cable and crimp the RJ45 ends myself when I need a new cable, it is a lot cheaper than purchasing pre-fabricated cables.

When you have a tracer battery, which seems to provide a single 12V socket, how do you break out the power, I seem to need about 5 12V lines for all my equipment (Mount, Dew Heater, USB Hub, Raspberry Pi (via 5V 3A converter), Cooled Camera).

I've used one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tocas-100A-BusBar-Box-Distribution-Black-Silver/dp/B07DN92HVB/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-p13n1_0

But I'd be interested if others are using fuse boxes and what products, as there is more than just the Battery to consider when remote powering.

1 hour ago, Alkaid said:

Get a small F10 Achromatic refractor, something like a Skywatcher Evostar, it will get you going and is inexpensive.

I still point my Evostar 90 at the Moon and get a nice wow factor.  There is a lot of detail to see, short cool down time, takes reasonably high powers well and it cost around £150.00.  

It's also very light, easy to pick up and put outside.  I reviewed mine once when I got it, I'll message you the link so you can see what it's like.

I think he's gone...

About power, not that I profess to know about electricity, but in my opinion I try to power from an AC / DC regulated power supply. Drawing power from batteries seems to raise issues for me, although I'm planning on getting the larger Skywatcher / Celestron power bank for dark sky site stuff... i would not power stuff from regular AA batteries, as I'm not sure whether the intermittent draw is provided quickly enough, and it is something that might change over a long session.

Have a read here: 

Only post that mentions the Omegon telescope you mention, don't know about the costs of what they eventually went with, but after deliberation, they didn't choose the Omegon (and they weren't keep on a Dob as their firrst scope either).

17 minutes ago, Delboy_Hog said:

Hi Gilesco,

Could I check what you mean when you say 'directly to the mount'?  I've been relying on the ST4 cable from ASI-air to the mount (and did check it was plugged in!), but haven't clocked a setting I could change to suggest a different way - have I made a ridiculously rookie error and there's something else I should be doing?!

Thanks for your thoughts!

Well when using Ekos for guiding, you can either guide via the Guide Cam (i.e. via the ST4 cable that connects from the Guide camera to the Autoguider port on your mount), or you can get Ekos to directly talk to the mount via the Handset connection (I have a CGX). I don't bother connecting the ST4 cable and usually set Ekos to guide via the Telescope Mount. Of course sometimes I forget to set that up, and as the ST4 cable is not connected (in my case), then the pulse commands don't move the mount.

If you're using an SA then I think your only option is to guide via the ST4 cable.

Did I hear with PHD that there were multiple places to disable the Dec guiding??, perhaps have a look around the extra settings.

10 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Usually I get the same message when using Ekos, it's picked a hot pixel as a guide star. Try to pick another manually.

Sometimes I get this if I have set guiding via the ST4 cable, which is not connected, rather than directly to the mount.

Just now, Ouroboros said:

I see.  That presumably explains why they’re available on FLO now but not available on the iOptron website. 

I think they ordered what was available, because this mount just doesn't have a replacement in its class. The CEM40 is significantly more, and also slightly heavier (although still lighter than a lot of mounts).

I wonder what replacement might fill the gap that the CEM25P will leave...

I'm surprised it was RVO, something went wrong there, a mistake was made somewhere along the line.

In any case it looks like the issue is resolved and you can draw a line under this. Had you mentioned it was RVO before then I could have told you that you won't have any problem getting a refund if you demand it. I don't consider them a dodgy online retailer.

I don't think your experience would stop me buying equipment from RVO in the future, but if it is in stock at FLO and well priced (they price match anyway) then I'd go for FLO (also they are more local to me - 30 minute drive away).