powerlord

I agree - I'd like to see more deep shots of just, random sort of areas. I think with the level of tech and skill on here, we could get some interesting shots. who knows- maybe even find something new ? I'm going to have a go tonight: clear sky and no moon.

Id have thought a wideangle would make more sense - the fov is equiv to a FF sensor and 1700mm or something.

true but @Luke Newbould had a good video about this. He stated that unlike sodium lamps, the LEDs ones, since they are far less bright tend to almost always be focused down. As apposed to old sodium ones which very often spilled tons of light all round and back up. He stated that he has found, at least for all the LED street lights that have replaced the sodium ones around his area, that it has massively REDUCED light pollution and totally eliminated the need for light pollution filters.

Don't worry - if they're like the ones around here they are 'smart' and turn off when it gets dark. yes..I do mean that. Apparently the point of street lights now has changed. Unclear to me what the definition is now tbh-but it does not appear to be to 'light up streets at nights'... around here they turn on after dusk, then switch off at 11pm. Because.. reasons. On the one hand I'm not compaining as it means light pollution has plummeted in the last 2-3 years by 11pm or so. On the other hand, if I had a teenage daughter walking home late at night on streets and lanes, I might wonder if we've regressed to the dark ages (sic). stu

er.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=samsung+note+4+battery&crid=H9P1CW1R90GI&sprefix=samsung+note+4+battery%2Caps%2C81&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Some others too. With optics at least, if its good, its good. I mean lets face it, celestron have been churning out SCTs for 50 years pretty much unchanged. With tech its trickier for sure - on the one hand you really want to take advantage of that supercomputer in your pocket for that new minkyMonkeySuperGadget3000™ you've built. On the otherhand, if/when its not compatible with the phone anymore - you know ever one you've sold will be nothing more than a very expensive minkyMonkeySuperBRICK3000™. Techmoan has a good moan about this in some of his videos - automatic chess playing board was the latest I believe.

yeh, the baine of nearly all new stuff these days - relies on software or cloud stuff for no good technical reason. there's even headphones you can buy that won't work usefully with the app. it's madness.

Yeh I would say, you need a surprisingly large amount of ply to make drawers and stuff, and the results do tend to look a bit 'look what I made in woodwork class mum'. But they are sturdy, and the benefit is that you can customize the sizes, etc to be precisely what you want. 40w will be pretty mental. I had to do quite a bit of work to ensure the smoke gets sucked out with my 10w.. with a 40w you'll need some serious exhuasting.

Yeh I tend to agree now. Though I don't think the mottling Olly is talking about is anything to do with the star removal - it's just stretching very dim stuff and then trying to remove some of the noise. In this case I found noiseX made the mottling worse, and settled with a small amount with Topaz noise reduction. Without any noise reduction they be no mottling, but loads of noise - horses for courses.

Just an update - I got some slides and had a play. the <1mm ones are very easy to snap with a line on them, but these are definately thinner than an L-extreme (which I have managed to get second hand). The thicker >2mm slides are trickier. they can be done the same way, but often don't snap right on the line and its then tricky to trim them.. I think I need to keep trying there. Its tricky to score them all the way across at the start and end - I tried putting another one each side then scoring but its still not ideal. However for the 'real' rectangles, it will be 4 scores, and possibly scoring all 4 lines, then snapping will help to constrain the breaks to the lines. I've not tried dremels, etc yet. I mean, I'd rather not have to to be honest - glass dust everywhere is not something I really want on my hands, in my eyes. etc. I will measure the thickness of the L-extreme I've got tonight, then do some more practicing. I reckon IF they are close to the microscope slides or the cheap 32mm IR cut I got, I'll try to trim one to be the right size to fit in camera and test that lenses can still focus with it in there. My thoughts being if it does, then it should work with the L-extreme. Obviously I want to be as sure as I can that this will work before I 'destroy' £160 worth of 2nd hand L-extreme. I do note that most clipins are 1mm, but that could be just for maximum compatibility - if it works with the lenses I want to use with my 6d then that's all I need - I'd imagine 2mm thick might just give me less wiggle room. We will see...

It's very poor thinking and marketing by celestron. It's no more than an app that you set your FL at the end of the day. Anyone could make a mount. If they sold it either as an app for a fiver or with a mount for 20 quid no only would it sell by the bucketload, but they'd have a solid marketing platform in the app to sell to those users. But imho there thinking is still very much stuck in the 1980s - a bit like Skywatcher.."computerized mounts" etc.. I'm surprised they don't advertise they are 'solid state' with transisters not valves... compare that approach to tech vs zwo. night and day. I am suprised there are not more apps that do it though, I mean it's basic stuff - assuming a mount pointing phone same direction as scope (no need to get fancy with mirrors), its just regular IMU sensors to get rough position aka sky safari, etc, etc followed by pics and plate solving to home in. It's just a small market I suppose - compared to designing another 'collect the coins and buy more' game to rob children of cash. stu

Thanks Graeme, I think I'll get around to doing the other half too. It'll make a good mosaic, but also I think, make a good 2 photo composition for printing/framing, and there's enough detail there to take a fair size print I think. stu

My 3rd attempt at this over the years. Bit of a wider field than before. Certainly the most integration time I've given it. Still of course very noisy - it's some pretty dim stuff - so I dimmed the stars a wee bit otherwise they do tend to overwelm it a bit - however undimmed stars version here too. Redcat, asi2600. 8 hours of 5 min subs. Processed in Siril and Affinity Photo. And with full stars, which on the other hand does a good job of hiding the noise and giving the illusion of greater sharpness:

ha! looks like that info is wrong then. sorry about that. And also, cool! - I'll maybe see if I can get on that one.

Haw wood ones stopped, so they are looking for a new organiser afaik: http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/star-parties/?doing_wp_cron=1694414752.7969698905944824218750

Haw woods is an excellent site. I was there last week again. It's ideal I think. They are a dark site, very few trees so good views from all pitches and the owners are awesome. And of course, being where it is, there's better chances od clear skies than pretty much anywhere else in UK. Stu

Well, processed with the CORRECT flats, I think you'll agree, this is a tiny wee bit better... definitely the deepest M31 I've managed so far. I'm pretty happy with that. 😃 I've purposefully dialled back my use of noiseX here as there's such a lot of tiny fine detail, removing more of the noise was hurting those fine details. Here's a weird looking wee galaxy. I looked it up on NOMAD but not much there about it:

yeh, so... I'll reprocess this as I used flats from the redcat on it. I did realise at the time, the flats hadn't really worked here, but as there was lots of sensor mist in the morning since I'd forgot to switch anti-dew on AGAIN, I figured it was just that - some of the subs must have had a bit of mist - so just worked harder to extract the background. However in so doing, now that I've reintegrated it with the RIGHT flats, I can see i've stripped off the faintest bits in the process... so I'll update once it's redone

hold on, what the hell am I talking about. that was shot on my 200pds!!! I was shooting sh2-126 on the redcat! which also explains why my sh2-126 was looking terrible as I've used the flats from the 200pds!! I'll update post. thanks Olly - duh.

yup, other than a wee crop around - slightly more crop on left but not much,.

"These milkywayers - spying on us all the time. We have no privacy any more" is probably what those pesky Andromedians are saying. 6 hours of RGB wideband from last night - redcat 200pds and asi2600. I was going to shoot some Ha for it too, and maybe I still will, but to be honest, Im not sure it needs it ? stu and magenta removed (kinda prefer it with it if I'm honest):

The Crescent Nebula in wide-field. about 11 hours of wideband RGB data, and 7 hours of Ha/Oiii (L-ultimate) data. Shot with redcat and asi2600 over the past 2 weeks.

yes that would work great. and you'd take video.

NGC6820 - Not one I've seen much of. This was taken over 4 sessions - 2 for RGB, one for Ha/Oiii (L-ultimate) and one for Sii/Oiii (D2). Shot on my 200pds with Baader mk3 CC and asi2600. I got about 2 1/2 hours worth of Ha, the same for the Sii and about double that for the RGB. As it was mostly done with 1/2 a moon still in the Sky, and intermittently cloudy, lots of subs got deleted. I struggled for a while getting a good blend of all the data in Affinity Photo but in the end I think I managed to bring some of the Sii in and oii in ok. I used the 'natural' colours for the NB by using a wavelength to RGB calculator so the resultant blend of NB into broadband data should be as you would see it in RGB given enough integration time I think. I decided to rotate it from the usual 'trunk pointing left' orientation as I think it looks better framed this way around.

i have the 8mm too, which doesn't fill a FF - but that I though would be a non starter where are am - one for when im out in the middle of knowhere !