powerlord

So... it's been a while. What with the terrible weather I've had few occasions to commit astrophotography, but the odd night that has been clear, I've just no interest. Having spent the last 3 years accumulating 20,000 quids worth of kit and building a bespoke 2 pier observatory in my garden..this is a bit of a set back. I've read of others over the years losing interest, and thought 'pah..that will never be me'.. and yet here I am. There's a clear night tue maybe. So I'm trying to kick-start my interest again. Maybe a wide view with pons brooks ? Any other suggestions ? Sonething to really energise me into the hobby again ? I feel some of it might have been general crappy weather, S.A.D. and stuff..but if it doesn't come back I might have to face up to it. 😕 there's not a lot of other hobbies that cam make use of a solid concrete based roof off shed. 😳

If it's new, gather evidence from single subs, and raise with where you bought it. If it's FLO, I'd imagine they'll be no problem replacing it. If on the subs it is just one side though, consider that it could be tilt - your asi2600 has a tilt adjuster - but don't mess with it until you are sure the issue is tilt. stu

no. it's an undocumented 'feature' of the new 3 star alignment process - which basically makes it possible

you can - look a few pages back for me doing just that. stu

im looking forward to the tracking in daylight - it was one of the things I liked about the dwarfii. be interesting to see if it can track the squirrels in my garden half as good as my jack russell can...

Hi Peter - latest version is v1.14 as far as I can see ? https://www.seestar.com/download stu

This will also work if one tablet, multiple asiairs: - use asiair 'switch' to connect to different asiair. - at this point it is dodgy - it will show stuff like mounts not connnected even though they are, etc. - close app (I've never needed to force close, just go to app view, and swipe it off) - open app again. it is now good and connect to the other asiair, all stuff showing connected etc -use as required. - same process again to switch to another one As you say, it's really worth having a device per asiair (or per seestar) - android devices are cheap as chips and any old phone or tablet tends to be better than the switch and close and open and switch and close mallarky.

Yeh.. I sort of went Mosaic mad in the first 3 imageable nights in 2024.. this is the last of the lot - not entirely successful to be honest. Lots of join marks, and APP didn't do a very good job of removing satellite trails either. But to be honest, I've been editing it for hours and I've had enough. I shot loads of Ha, but I can't really see what it would add, sticking it all in to be honest, so after trying countless ways of adding it, I've decided it looks better without it. the sort of weird band across the middle is the join line between the 2 parts of the 2 part upper and lower mosaic. And maybe that was the problem and I should have done 4 parts together rather than 2 then 2. Each panel was imaged 1 hour RGB, 1 hour Ha. But as I say, Ha not used in the end. redcat, asi2600. 60 sec subs. It is what it is...🫤

Hmm, I've not had them on the same night. But I suspect its not wifi strength, you say you have them in base mode. More likely both are broadcasting with mDNS with ports that are common across both devices and the asiair app thinks the seestar is an asiair. Have you got the latest apps ? If so, I'd suggest raising bug with ZWO (you can do it straight from the asiair app).

My biggest Mosaic yet - 6 parts (8 shot but clouds ruined two panels) shot with stellamira 90ED with 0.8 reducer and asi2600 over 2 nights. Like it smaller redcat mosaic of the same region, though didn't get comet in it this time unfortunately. Lots of galaxies there though. Clicky dance gets you the whole 132 megapixel. I had to darken the background more than I'd like, but there were joining artifacts from the Mosaic and it was the easiest way to get rid of em. Left middle you've got the eyes, some spirals in the right.

you should check out his website. seriously impressive stuff https://www.woodlandsobservatory.com publication list as long as yer arm.

Todays APOD. Kinda mental looking, but useful I think for compositing future projects? https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240123.html

can't they just cover them with black velvet ? or failing that, cat fur ?

wix.com need to update actually - not updated in about a year! stu

Shot With Redcat and asi2600. RGB and Ha with Ultimate filter. Processed in APP, Siril and Affinity photo. About 3 hours each of RGB and Ha. It's one that really benefits from RGB for the reflection purply bits and the colours in the Spider and Fly I think.

yeh, I edited late last night and actually found myself thinking the same thing overnight - well not the techy bit about elliptical tbh - just the fact all I got was every galaxy in red with no real extra data. I'll re-edit and remove the Ha. thanks stu

Shot over 2 nights - this is a 4 panel mosaic in RGB and Ha. Shot with my Redcat and asi2600a. Ha with Ultimate filter. And, I admit just by pure luck, I managed to catch a comet too ! It was a bit of a [removed word] to process, as it's 90mp worth. So all panels individually stacked, then mosaic joined in APP, then processed in Siril and then into Affinity photo for starX, noiseX, compositing in the Ha. It's about 8 hours in total - 1 hour per panel RGB, 1 hour Ha. Edited and cropped down, it's still 60mp so probably well worth the clicky dance. There really is a lot of galaxies in there. It boggles the mind to think of each of of those being billions of stars and planets. <edited to remove Ha as not adding anything - thanks Olly> Also, added annotations showing all the galaxies Annotated:

So, is this allowed ? I noticed on 18th Jan that Jupiter and the Moon could be framed in the same shot at 430mm with my 90ED and 0.8x reducer/flattener and asi2600. Now obviously actually imaging both in the same shot is not exactly straight forward. I took some 10ms shots which unstretched show jupiter and the moon well, but none of Jupiter's moons and no stars - though the stretched imaged did have all the moons in it. I also then used the asiair to shoot video of the moon and jupiter so I could lucky image process them later and composite them back into the image with a bit more detail. Finally I had to get some stars - so the next night I went to the same place in the sky - no moon now, and jupiter in a difference place but I imaged 60 second subs for 30 mins to gather enough data for stars and any galaxies lurking around. I then took out that jupiter from the stack, and popped the original frame back in with jupiter and the moon as it was on 18th. Finally I extracted the moons from the original night from the stretched image and popped them back around the original jupiter. Finally I used the lucky imaged moon and jupiter to add a bit more detail into the original 10ms sub. Last but not least, Jupiter being pretty hard to spot in the composition, I added a bit of the flaring from the original 10ms shot when stretched too to balance the frame and make it easier to spot Jupiter in there. The clicky dance to full resolution one definitely required here. I like the fact it really shows the difference in apparent size in one composition. Last night I did the same with Uranus! A bit less impressive, but might post that too if this one is allowed. stu

the avi needs to be debayered first. basically it records the data from the sensor 'raw'. It needs to be processed using the debayer pattern of the sensor to become proper colour data. PIPP will do this on the PC if you download it.

For the moon and the sun it seems to use an alternative to plate solving - which is great and I hope it migrates into asiair code base. Since there are no stars to plate solve in each case, it seems to go into the general area, and then move towards the lightest part of each frame. It's generally a great way of doing it. With the asiair, since all it can do is plate solve (at least in current release), you rarely get a good goto for the moon and need to manually adjust it. However, because of this algorithm it is, a bit like moths, prone to mistaking other things for the moon. I've had it move and centre a street light a few times.

mines is an a7 are works great

Think that's the first time I've seen -10 maintained with no cooling! Parky oot there

I really commend samsung tablets. You'll get a refurbished a8 under 100 quid, or a new one for about 140 quid. Stay away from the Chinese makes you've never heard of unless you know for a fact its good (ie don't trust reviews). Stu

All ready for first proper sesh of 2024.🤩

check the app permissions incase you've left something unticked ? also, what version android ? if it's very old I think someone else somewhere said gallery didn't work.