PeterStudz

This looks great! I restored an 8” Dob as a beginner and I really enjoyed the experience. I’d definitely go for flocking. It was easier than I thought (I did the while OTA and things like the focuser draw tube) taking about 1/2 a day. Personally I’m not a fan of a lazy suzan bearing. After some experimenting I used Teflon sheet like this fro eBay… https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123981266447?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=4pKUCQI7T5S&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=I8jCpZsmREe&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY That would be enough to get it working and see how things are. But it looks like the top surface is smooth? Which isn’t ideal. I found this to be ideal. Cheap and easy to cut too. But of course its up to you…

I enjoy mostly visual. The smartphone images are a combination of recoding what I’ve seen plus I also find it interesting what the device in your pocket can do. My daughter also likes to have a record of what we’ve seen.

OK, I’m in Bortle 7.

Due to life getting in the way I have a backlog of images. Mind, just as well that the weather has been poor! This is a shot of Venus, taking during daylight at around 6pm on 9th July. Seeing a bit wobbly and not nearly as good as it was a few days before. Skywatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform. BST StarGuider 3.2mm (I’m getting to like that eyepiece), iPhone 14 Pro Plus on no-brand smartphone adapter. Image from a video using the stock camera app - 4K at 60fps. All processing/editing on the phone:- stacked on the phone using the VideoStack app, edited using the stock camera app, WaveletCam and Lightroom. I’ve cropped and rotated to give an arch as is sometimes done with Venus images - it does look nice! Managed to keep the horns with a decent level of pointyness too. I have a number of Venus images. Recently playing around with composite images has given me an idea. Ideally need a couple more images. Will see how it goes.

@Richard As you probably know AstroShader does live stacking. There are a few apps that attempt this but AstroShader is the only one that I know that does this well. However, there isn’t a way of ‘unstacking’ the images. The developer is active on this this thread so yo could ask there… https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/857117-astroshader-ios-ap-app-intro-beta-testers-wanted/ @StarDuke82 The lasted version of VideoStack is more stable. I’ve got it to process videos over 20 sec without issue. I’m certain that it can now handle more.

@StarDuke82, these are great and an obvious improvement. Especially the third capture of M57. You can even see the central white dwarf which I think is visual magnitude 15.75 - a tiny camera in phone picking that out is amazing! Can I ask what Bortle level were these taken at?

Thanks! And yes, I’ve also noticed that the granulation does become more visible at higher magnification. Although you can often make it out, it doesn’t always come out in a single smartphone image. Interesting idea and coincidently I’ve also been playing around with creating composite images. Recently with Jupiter and its moons. As the weather is awful I might go and post some of the images.

Interesting discussion. If I do an early morning observing session it can literally take me days to feel fully recovered. I’m not a morning person but I do enjoy it when I make the effort. And in the summer I’ve camped out in the garden “no tents” with my daughter, looked for shooting stars, scanned the sky with binoculars and looked through the telescope… fun but tiring! And as suggested there could be health implications. Being in an urban environment I’ve found that my best skies are generally after 1:30am. Even for the planets and lunar seeing is generally better in the early hours of the morning - I’m guessing less rising heat from buildings and other man made structures. So I tend to be drawn to the early mornings.

That’s very nice! - many thanks. I’ve done another more recent Venus and got a good result showing the horns using the current version of VideoStack. I’ll post that here soon - work getting in the way. Looking forward to the latest version.

@StarDuke82, there’s no one way or right way of doing this, especially with smartphones where there’s a lot of new apps. Personally I find Lightroom (I’m just using the free version) useful for adjusting colours, colour balance, noise and colour noise. Snapseed is also useful but I find the interface annoying! Others might get on with it. And there are other apps that are just as good or maybe even better. You could also upload unite images to a PC and use your favourite apps there. Although I can’t do that as I don’t have a PC. Editing on a small smartphone screen, however good it is, makes life a little more difficult - it’s easier to spot issues on a larger screen. Although I find doing everything on the phone rewarding and I bit of a challenge. I’m still learning too. And it’s good to see what other people come up with. I’ve only used AstroShader twice and both times I was in a bit of a rush (against the rising sun) and just randomly played with settings. Need to give it another go when I get astro darkness back.

Well done. I’ve had some success with AstroShader and you do need to practice. Some settings are definitely off, so keep trying! However, you can get more out of your images. I hope you don’t mind but I took your M57 and spent about 5 mins editing on my iPhone using the stock camera app, WaveletCam & Lightroom. Here’s the result.

M57! I struggle to see that in my Bortle 7 sky in moonlight😀 But this does remind me. Last year my daughter had some friends over and I showed them some sunspots (there happened to be a good selection). However, they were due to leave before it got dark. So, for something to do I tried to find Jupiter in daylight. This was surprisingly easy, seeing good and the GRS in view which I did not expect. At first they couldn’t understand and were amazed that looking up at the sky, naked eye, there seemed to be nothing, but in the telescope there was Jupiter with its spot in full view. And as the sky got a little darker the Galilean moons “mysteriously” pooped into view. Great fun!

I’ve been observing Venus during daylight since February. I started doing this as Venus is poorly placed from my garden when it gets dark. Often after I’ve done some solar too. I use a PushTo feature in an iPhone app to find it. Works every time. Personally I find Venus better in daylight - better seeing as it’s higher in the sky. No need for filters.

Depends on airline. But when I went on EasyJet last year it was 15kg for carry on, which is a massive amount. Mind, they never bothered to weight our carry on luggage which included a telescope and didn’t even weigh half of that. Looks like it’s still the same.

I struggled with cloud so far from ideal conditions. And I had to wait well into the afternoon for decent brakes. But AR3354 was a beast and the only opportunity that I had here in Southampton. It was so large that we could easily spot it (my daughter joined in after school) naked eye with eclipse glasses. As usual I was doing visual and only played around with the camera towards the end of the session. At which point it was getting rather cloudy. Skywatcher 200p Dob. BST StarGuider 15mm using iPhone 14 Pro on basic no-brand smartphone adapter. Images and video taken with the stock camera app. Edited on the phone in the stock camera app, WaveletCam and Lightroom. I experimented with taking RAW, Live and video. In some of the wobbly conditions the Live images could win over - Live takes a quick series or “burst” of images. It’s then possible to select the sharpest in a (hopefully) brief moment of better seeing. By the time I tried to get a close-up by trying to use the iPhone zoom for x3 the clouds started to increase and I couldn’t get a clear and steady shot. Still, not bad so included it here too. And in some ways I find that the simple short video, taken through clouds, gives a better impression of the size and scale of AR3354. RAW Image… Above RAW image cropped… Live Image + iPhone x2 zoom… Live image + iPhone x3 zoom… Video. 4K @ 60fps… IMG_3677.mov

Lovely image of a great AR! I was looking a couple of days later. And as you say - it’s a shame that it’s been fairly cloudy. I only had one chance.

Taken in daylight at about 7pm on Sunday 25th June. Seeing was good, helped by Venus still being relatively high in the sky. And still surprisingly sharp when using a BST StarGuider 3.2mm giving x375. As it got darker and the planet got lower things certainly got a tad wobbly. SkyWatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform. BST StarGuider 3.2mm, no-brand smartphone adapter, iPhone 14 Pro. Short 4 sec video - 4K at 60fps taken with the stock camera app. All editing on the phone - staked using the VideoStack app, processed in WaveletCam and Lightroom. I’ve included the video (rotated, cropped and basic editing in the stock camera app) as it hardly needed stacking and still shows the phase of Venus well. Although tricky to keep the points on the “horns” nice and sharp. IMG_3245.mov

I really noticed this last year when observing Mars. And for Mars you need all the help you can get with contrast/colour contrast. Eg when I went back into the house for a break and came back out into the dark garden to start observing again the details I could see were often improved.

I do like seeing images of the gas giants with some of their moons. And it might just be me but in this case it adds to a feeling of 3D. I got up early to try and do some visual on Saturn, but went straight back to bed - in Southampton I had total cloud cover.

I did the milk bottle mod to my secondary of my SkyWatcher 200p Dob. Cut milk bottle washer and intended to use a steel washer too. Worked really well in the end. But I found that the gap in the secondary was so tight that in order to get the secondary under the focuser I couldn’t use the steel washer. Image shows the secondary roughly collimated when I was trying to work out what was going on.

I’m sure that I mentioned it to you before - it’s a secondhand £10 purchase from Gumtree. Originally sold by IKEA but sadly not anymore. One of the best astronomy purchases that I’ve made. And useful in the house. My daughter uses it as an art stool too. I hope that you find one. Being IKEA there must be quite a number about.

As @Carbon Brush says! I really enjoy white light solar with Baader solar film. And it’s quality stuff. Using scrap card to form the filter cell can work well. I went a little further and used a £5 card hat box from HobbyCraft that just happened to fit my 200p like a glove. As for eyepieces. Just use the same eyepieces that you use for night time astronomy.

Got up at 3am just to take a look at Saturn. Nice rising crescent moon too but behind trees. Skywatcher 200p Dob in Southampton. Despite Saturn still being relatively low it was easy to make out shading and subtle banding to the north and thin but prominent ring shadow. The rings are much more side on compared to the last time I saw Saturn in the winter. I couldn’t make out the Cassini Division but it’s going to need decent seeing this year. And two moons (I assume Titan & Rhea) were easy to see even at 4am as it was getting light. Packed up to the dawn chorus. Back to bed for a couple of hours. Definitely worth the effort!

If you decide to stick it down to the whole tube there are various ways of going about it. Not sure what’s best and it might depend on the size of your OTA. I went with a suggestion on here (it was for the same OTA) which was to flock in 3 stages - top, bottom & finally middle section. Top & bottom were relatively easy. Doing and reaching the middle was a little awkward but when doing it you felt like you were on the home straight. And there was also the benefit of gaining experience on the easier sections. And I know that some recommend doing it using long strips of flocking material. I can see how that would work.

I agree here. There’s a lot to be said about feeling good with the job that you’ve done.