Horwig

I have a Pulsar dome and I'm trying to find of a way to keep the scope warm and dry without heating the whole dome. My idea is to have the observatory pc mounted by the side of the pier, under the mount, and leave it on 24/7, it;s only 25 watt without the monitor, so won't break the bank. Then cover the scope with some kind of insulating blanket that comes down to the ground, enclosing the pc, instant background heat. Question is, what kind of blanket material, looked at mountaineering/first aid foil blankets, but how durable are they when you fold and unfold them, also they are not huge, I might have to tape some together. Anybody tried something like this? Some years ago I had a dehumidifier in my old dome, and the cost of that was 'interesting', my wife noticed the jump in power consumption when it was on, it stayed off after that. Huw

I built a fibreglass on timber dome about ten years ago. It was a pain, it had quite a few repairs and rebuilds, and over the years cost me a not inconsiderable sum. This last spring, it split, once again, due to water ingress into a ply gore. I gave up, and would you believe it, on the very same day, Pulsar put up an used 2.7 short dome on Abs, for not much more than what I must have spent over the years on building one! Lesson learnt, the new dome is watertight and turns much easier than the wooden one. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the challenge of the build, so, if you want the experience, build a dome, otherwise, keep your eyes peeled for a good used one. Just my twopence. Huw

calpoly18sas2008paper.pdfDirectDriveWorkInProgress.pdf Don't know if these papers might be of interest Huw

I was not happy with my earlier posting of the veil in HST, so here it is again processed in HOO, I love the ZWO ASI6200, you can shoot widefields, and still zoom in to see details. 14 x 20 minutes each Ha and O111 AZEQ6, FSQ106 reduced to 382mm, ZWO 6200 mono, Baader filters. SGP, Pi, Ps. Huw

That also sums up my approach to processing, and definitely not on purpose in my case.🙈 Huw

What got me thinking was that superb western Veil you posted about the same time I posted my HST, so much crisper and more 'structured' than HST, very much less is more. Huw

I've recently got a set of Baader NB filters, and this is my first attempt at the veil in NB. Not being sure if I liked the result, I posted the HST versions in the deep space section, asking for feedback, but not much happened, so I'm re-posting here, together with an HOO version, which I like a lot more. I've trawled the web, whilst there are loads of HOO versions, there were not many in HST colours. Is the veil not a good HST target, or is my processing pants? (or both) Firstly, just mapping filters to RGB and some star reduction Secondly, tone mapping and generating a luminance from the combined filters And thirdly, HOO, tone mapped, and just the brighter stars added back. Whilst I admit that the processing between versions is far from consistent, to my eyes, the colours of the HOO just pop out, where the HST just looks garish. Criticism, constructive or otherwise is sorely needed Huw

I need some feedback on this please, not really sure if I'm going in the right direction. I finally got a set of Baader NB filters, they had been on order from FLO since early last year, they were going to be my lockdown present to myself. Anyway, captured this over a few nights back beginning of Sept, 14 x 20 minutes each S2, O3, Ha. First is a straight mapping to RGB with star reduction Second is tone mapping with a version of the straight processed image for L. Really not sure what my opinion of the result is. Kit: FSQ106 on AZEQ6 reduced to 382mm, ZWO6200mono, Baader S2, O3, Ha SGP, PI Ps etec etc. Thanks for looking. Huw

Is the crawler going to be powered, radio control maybe? That would be even more cool than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfnIdSV_4vo Best of luck with the build Huw

Thanks Francis, I had a feeling you were using photoshop, I'm impressed with your use of gradients etc to bring it all to life. Looking forwards to seeing the scope come to life as well (naturally). I had a 16 inch f3.75 from John back in 2011, and built a serrurier truss tube for it, it's quite a beast. Best of luck with your build Huw

Really nice looking project, and nice looking drawings as well, what software do you use for the drawings? Huw

Looks like the mount is coming along well. I built a fork mount some years ago, mine also had hinges at the base of the polar wedge. They proved not to be up to the task, there was play that resulted in pointing inaccuracy when the OTA was swung. I've now put triangular side plates to fix the wedge after polar aligning, problem went away. Huw

Thanks Alan, I found that section on hnsky's website and tried it, yes it does work, and work very well indeed. Thanks Huw

I'm still using V2 (2.7.0) of SGPro, is ASTAP compatible with it, or only V3 and 4?

Sorry, managed to double post instead of editing, if the mods could please remove if they see this. Sorry Huw

sorry, double posted

OK, so this strictly is OT, but is probably of interest to anybody looking at the ATIK version of the ZWO camera as well. I've posted this in imaging. There's loads wrong with it, but none of the negatives are to do with the camera. This is a 30% rendition, faults, the scope needs collimation, the camera was not screwed tightly onto the filter wheel, and moved over the imaging run (OK, I know, I know). Also because of this, flats don't match anything, and this was processed without. Looking at the positives, this is 70 minutes of Luminance in 5 min subs, RGB were 20 minutes each, also in 5 min subs, scope was 1450mm fl at f3.6, so quite fast. Pixel peeping at the data , max ADU was 58368, will do further tests to see if this is a realistic figure of saturation or just a reflection of the lack of collimation. by 50% mod, (2768 ADU) only 30 ish star cores were saturating, so maybe 5 minute subs are very conservative? The plan was to get the camera hooked up to my FSQ106 for first light, but the Tak 72-98 adaptor I require won't be here for months. There was no noise reduction in this image, and only minimal sharpening in photoshop. I've put a new (to me) i7 PC in the obsy with usb 3, but my processing PC, a twin 4 core 3GHz Xeon with 16 Gig of ram was struggling. The learning curve starts. Huw

Here it is with all its faults, Imaged at 1450mm at f3.6, but scaled to 30% to hide the worst: First, the good stuff, it's only 70 minutes in L, RBG were 20 minutes each, all unbinned. The camera only arrived a few days ago, and I was hoping to give it its first outing on my FSQ, but the Tak 72 to 98 adaptor won't arrive for months. So it's been hung off my 40cm Newt, which is still very much work ongoing. I had to throw away 30 percent of the L subs because of movement during the exposures, took ages to find the culprit:- the camera was not screwed tightly to my SX filter wheel, what a plonker. Even the good subs have eggy stars, collimation still not perfect. But I reckon it's still not too noisy a data set, no noise reduction was used and only minimal sharpening, I'm optimistic of good things to come. Huw

That button is indeed the button, I must have been particularly blind last night! Huw

I've just moved over to a ZWO6200, and am on the steep part of the learning curve! In SGP, if I grab an image, it's fitted to the viewer, in my case the obsy PC monitor is 1920 x 1200, and on the 61M image of the 6200, that equates to about 12%. However, if I zoom in to pixel peep, and then zoom back out, 25% is the widest it gets. How do I get back to view the whole image? I'm on SGP 2.7, are the latest releases any different? Huw

I am one CCD owner who has just passed his full frame CCD to a new owner and is expecting his ZWO 6200 to arrive tomorrow😀. Some years ago I imaged M31 with Olly at Les Granges, using my FSQ106, it took a few nights. Lumianance in a six panel mosaic using my QSI6120 at 382mm, and the RGB in a single frame using my SX35 full frame at 530mm. I've just looked back at the resulting image, it's 3.52 x 2.24 degrees that's 7565 x 4819 pixels at 1.68 "/pixel, and a lot of hard work to capture and process a smooth 6 panel mosaic, with a matching widefield image. The 6200 on the Tak at native 530mm should give 3.89 x 2.60 degrees, 9576 x 6388 pixels at 1.48"/pixel. AND THAT'S IN A SINGLE PAIN FREE FRAME. The learning curve starts here (again). Huw

I enquired about the Atik at FLO, and was told it was going to be quite a wait, so went and ordered a ZWO ASI6200 to sit on my FSQ, can't wait for it to arrive, have already gone out and bought a new obsy PC, complete with USB3 and a large hard drive (good old ebay). Huw

I can highly recommend Alan Marlow. Used his services a couple of times, last time with autofocus on a Canon 24-105. A true gent, and what he doesn't know about lenses isn't worth knowing. http://www.cam-rep.co.uk/ Huw

It was so satisfying removing said tree from my Stallarium landscape😀

The tree was growing on rock, and not in the best of health. It dawned on him the geometry of the situation, our weather is from the west, so if there was a storm with the tree in leaf, it might uproot and reach the obsy, he reckoned it was cheaper to take the tree down than pay for a new obsy (and contents). I didn't drop any hints, well not direct ones anyway 😇 Huw