Wyvernp

Just now, Allinthehead said:

You're welcome Enjoy.

Nice. Tiny stars.

Thanks! I recently learned about masked stretch in pixinsight which seems to work really well for galaxies.

On 03/05/2020 at 16:14, Davey-T said:

If you're lucky you raise a dispute saying it hasn't arrived and they send another in the meantime the first one arrives and then later the replacement arrives, happened to me more than once and they don't want returns 😂

Dave

In the end the seller extended buyer protection for another 50 days... this meant I could not raise a dispute until then... I smelt a bit of dishonesty there especially as this took me just out of my Amex purchase protection period. So I just opened a case with Amex, I feel they will have more swing as a payment provider than me as an individual. Fingers crossed...

58 minutes ago, BGazing said:

If you turn the power off the view will not change much immediately. But it will degrade and become featureless soon. It takes longer for it to cool than to heat normally.

You can actually see this happening in one of the latest Chuck's Astrophotography videos when his power supply for the Quark ran out. Have to say  I did want to buy one after watching that!

ahh just re-watched and it wasn't a quark it was a dedicated solar scope but the result of no power is the same. 

Love the Iris nebula, and that is a great image! Just downloading the data now, hope I can do it justice! I am fro southern England though...hope that's ok? 😂

Welcome from another West sussexer? Is that a thing

Hope you enjoy the vast amount of knowledge pool available here, I know I personally have learned a huge amount during my relatively short time here.

Finally got around to your M31 data, again thank you! Being without a camera at the moment it's been great to keep honing my processing.

If you want to practice processing one of our kind forum users has shared some of his data on this thread 

Ahh my bad the one I’m expecting is the 163m not the 183. My understanding is that most of the why range are pretty good. The pixel size looks bang on for your ED80 according to astronomy.tools if your seeing is good. I have heard the drivers weren’t quite as good as zwo but I think that was maybe earlier on. 
 

not had any experience ordering from cyclops optics bit at a glance they seem reputable. 

On 28/04/2020 at 23:22, Mik3 said:

Ive got my eye on the QHY183C it seems like a good choice at £650

May I ask where you’re looking at it for that price? I only ask because I have been waiting for over 40 days for the mono version to arrive from AliExpress (lesson learned here) and am probably going to have to raise a dispute. 

Some fantastic processing going on here (yours not mine  ), here's my attempt at orion.

Thank you Richard, for the original data. It was a pleasure to work with and I can only hope I can one day getting data like this.

1 minute ago, Davey-T said:

If you're lucky you raise a dispute saying it hasn't arrived and they send another in the meantime the first one arrives and then later the replacement arrives, happened to me more than once and they don't want returns 😂

Dave

Let's hope so! could probably use a spare

Well, that didn't take too long... I now have a rotating stepper

I guess one payday I'll treat myself to the rotator....That's even if I receive my camera and wheel from china...serious lesson learned there. It's cheap because it will never arrive. I get to raise a dispute from friday so fingers crossed either it will magically arrive or I get my money back.

What a legend! Thank you so much for this.

So with all this time at home I'm in need of some projects to keep me going, so with a spare arduino, stepper driver and a left over nema17 stepper from my laser harp project (which never worked properly  )

I think it would be feasible to make something that would rotate the william optics rotator via pc input, I'm not looking at integrating it with ascom or anything like that as I don't have the programming knowhow to do that but maybe a simple app that allows you to set the camera angle could work. I foresee a few issues one being that the rotator fits behind the focus tube which will move in and out so the stepper cannot be fixed to the focuser assembly the same as the stepper for the myfocus pro. Not currently having the rotator I'm not sure how I'm going to work this but I'm sure I can find a way. 

Has anyone done this before? Honestly I don't need a camera rotator but I need to keep myself busy.

Wyvern

There are also a great series of youtube videos by Chris Woodhouse on Pixinsight that I have found fantastic https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEd4A5H8HcV8ybp96WRGmsA/videos

12 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

Ref @WaddenskyThank you for the link. Very informative and a good warning.

I own various stand alone lasers. Infra red, red, and green. Also a cheap laser engraving machine.
Low power scope collimating lasers are fine. As are presentation pointers and laser 'spirit' levels. Assuming they have come from a known manufacturer who will ensure the power is appropriate.
For anything else, extreme caution is advised.

I have never found the need for a laser pointer on a scope as a finder, for personal use.

My £100ish engraving machine (allegedly 1500mW but who knows) happily burns wood, paper, plastics, etc.
This is a definite safety glasses on (for the laser wavelength), stop and turn off the laser to check progress, and nobody else in the room.

Think of a laser like a gun. They may not harm you while taking precautions. But the projected light (bullet) can harm at a distance. 
Like a bullet hit, your eyes can be permanently damaged by a single hit.

 

Hey, I also own a few high power lasers. I was working on building an arduino laser harp and have experimented with various lasers and wavelengths including a 300mw Green and a 300mw white(RGB).

The RGB is most definitely the most dangerous as most goggles only block certain wavelengths and have found myself wearing multiple goggles with that one.

What a result!

I had to look  up the Martin Pyott method, looks feasible . And from his video it seems it did make quite a difference.

Yes of course, that makes perfect sense. Thanks. 
 

Just finished wiring up the control box with the Arduino and sensors/controllers. 
 

Again, not the neatest job but it will work. 

20 minutes ago, monkeyboy said:

1) When I perform the polar slignment, my reticule isn't the 'right way up' compared to a normal clock.  The markings are visible, but instead of 12 at the top, 12 is rotated (I forget exactly how much).  Does the reticule have to be oriented like a real clock to work?  Or if Polaris should be at 3, for example, do I put it 3 as marked on the reticule or 3 in comparison to a normal clock?  I doubt this is the issue I'm facing but it would be useful to confirm.

I have this issue with the EQ6R as well, I've not found a way to rotate it to the correct orientation. Whilst yes, it's just a clock but finding the right angle to set polaris compared to the position on the app can be a struggle (for me anyway) I with there were a way on the PS Align app to rotate the markings to match my scope. 

I think I'll be purchasing a polemaster within a month or 2.

Morning and welcome. Lots of very knowledgeable people here. 

There's  a good video here on how to peltier cool an astro camera 

They have the advantage of being very cheap. Also even with a heatsink would be lighter than cold packs.

Here's the difference in FOV with your camera

I've included the flattener for the Zenithstar, I'm not sure if one is needed for the redcat.

I also plugged details for your camera into http://astronomy.tools/calculators/ccd_suitability and whilst both will be undersampled, the Zenithstar less so.

What mount will you be using? As weight will also be a consideration. Either way, I've seen great photos taken with both of these scopes. I believe Trevor from Astrobackyard has done a some videos on youtube with the redcat, worth a watch if you havn't already seen them. 

Not had any first hand experience with those scopes but I have a WO GT81 and the build quality is very good. One thing I would say is the focal length of those scopes mat be a little short for some of those smaller DSO's however would be great for some of the bigger nebulae such as the heart and rosette nebula.

The image circle would be fine with either scope with your camera.

Well it’s not pretty but it will definitely do!

that stepper is bloody heavy though. I hope I’ll be able to balance it.