PeterStudz

Thanks Lee, I look forward to seeing your images. Although I know it was especially interesting seeing the arc that Jupiter was taking - it’s going to be significantly higher in the sky this year and potentially very good! Exciting stuff, let’s hope that the weather improves. I’m not a morning person but it was nice packing up to the dawn chorus. For me astronomy is about the whole event, more than just looking through the eyepiece/taking pictures.

On the train today I did another Jupiter. This one is a bit more ‘subtle’. I think I went a tad too far with the first attempt!

If you haven’t already it’s worth having a good search on this forum. I found a wealth of info on here when I worked on my telescope. Sometimes I had to try and search multiple times before I found what I was looking for. Here are a couple of examples I found which might help. The first obviously has an upgrade to the focuser which might be reassuring… You could try and contact the post authors. Some people don’t come to the forum often or won’t see a post. There must be others on here who have some Dark Star knowledge. It would be interesting to know what the tube is actually made of. This would help with selecting glue, flocking, drilling holes etc. the paint is certainly Hammerite, which of course is still available although the formula has changed (more environmentally friendly) over the years. I’d certainly at last cover that crack and do something to stop it spreading. My DIY experience of cracks is that however much filler/sanding/painting I undertake the crack is always still somewhat visible. As suggested some sort of strap would work. You could even make it look part of the design. I made a dew shield out of very thin veneer. Go around with some of that plus glue and it works out very thin and stiff. And it’s easy to work, sand and paint with just about anything.

Taken me a while to post and I wasn’t sure if I should do it all in one post, as an observation report… but here goes. I noticed that the forecast was for a clear night and that the jetstream was well out of the way, so I decided to wake up early (2:30am) on the Friday morning even though it was a school night. Saturn was above the moon which did create a some glare. Still, the seeing was very good and I could make out the Cassini Division towards the tips even at x375. Maybe pushing it a little but it’s the first time I’ve viewed Saturn at that power and it hasn’t been a wobble fest. I could also see a thin but strong ring shadow, plus banding on the disc. And things improved as it got higher, although the increasing light didn’t help with contrast. I went back and forth between the moon, which looked lovely, and Saturn until Jupiter appeared between two trees. By this time the sky was noticeably lighter. On Jupiter the four moons were strung out in a line. And banding easily visible. Between 4-4:30am I took some pictures and video with my phone. By this time it was obviously getting light, so not ideal and colour contrast wasn’t great. However, I could see that Jupiter is going to potentially be great this year. A really fun morning, although it took days for me to fully recover from the lack of sleep! Skywatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform. iPhone 14 Pro fixed to eyepiece with a no-brand smartphone adapter. Saturn using a 3.2mm BST StarGuider. Video (Saturn & Jupiter) 4K at 60fps. All editing on the phone, Planets stacked using the VideoStack app on the phone. Moon a single shoot in RAW. Saturn. The rings are much tighter this year. Hard to visually make out the Cassini Division. I’m sure details and colours will be better when Saturn is aroun d in an actual dark sky. Interesting comparing to an iPhone 12 capture from 2021. Jupiter with Io. Hard to capture details/colours as it was so getting light. I attempted a double exposure in order to get a capture of all four moons. Amazes me how far from the planet they can be! Moon, single shot in RAW format.

The Teflon sheet that I bought was a relatively small rectangle. I cut into squares with a hacksaw and drilled a hole in the middle to make pads (see picture). It would basically be a replacement for what you have. The textured aluminium is on the top surface and just tacked on with a few very small wood screws. Just enough to keep it flat and keep it fixed to the base. Personally I’d just clean it up and replace the pads. Then see how it performs - you might find it perfectly satisfactory. Many of the commercial Dobs with Teflon pads just have them running on some sort of smooth surface. This can be a bit ‘sticky’, especially at high powers. Eg when trying to move a target into the middle of the FOV it’ll jerk and overshoot. Ideally you want enough of what’s called ‘stiction’ (the holding force that must be overcome before the bearing can begin to move) to change eyepieces etc without risk of the OTA moving, but at the same time will move off smoothly without jerking and without overshooting. I tested mine by having Mars at a silly magnification of around x400 and I could still center it smoothly. And when stopped it stayed where it was left. The lazy suzan that I tried (could have just been too cheap) was too free running. And there was some unevenness at higher power. To increase tension I needed to tighten and fiddle with the centre bolt, but it was never as good as the Teflon pads plus textured aluminium. Again, it could have just been the lazy susan that I bought off the internet.

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.