PeterStudz

Not sure how I missed that! There’s also some discussion and lots of details on CloudyNights…

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/857117-astroshader-ios-ap-app-intro-beta-testers-wanted/
 

I’ve downloaded it and will give it a go when we get a clear night. 

This has turned out to be a report too. When I take pictures I never know whether to write a report or just stick the images in here with some general details. 

Didn’t intend to be too long outside as I had (still do) an unpleasant chest infection. I started out trying to view Comet ZTF but the moon was washing it out and I could only just make it out in my rather light polluted Southampton sky. I was going to have a look at the moon but decided to first have a quick look at Mars. Of course Mars is getting rather small now so I wasn’t expecting much. However, the seeing was rather good, in fact close to if not the best I’ve had on Mars. I had the magnification up at x300 and things were still surprisingly sharp. So I decided to try my BST StarGuider 3.2mm which up to now had been rather useless - at x375 it’s a bit too much for my Skywatcher 200p Dob - and I was thinking of selling it. And to my pleasant surprise the views were still good. A bit wobbly but not at all fuzzy. I could see Mars in gibbous phase with Syrtis Major, other albedo features and the North Polar Hood quite obvious. At times there was also a hint of a white dot at the South Pole but that wasn’t clear so could have imaged it. If there it didn’t show on the images but then it is a phone camera.

I noticed some high cloud coming in from the SE so thought that I wouldn’t have much longer. To finish off I decided to practice taking some videos of Mars with my relatively new phone but wasn’t expecting much. Interestingly (although it was wobbly) by playing around with the phone settings I could see more in the way of albedo features on the screen in live view than I could visually at the eyepiece. I couldn’t do that with my old iPhone 12. Using the EQ platform allowed me to wait for a window in the seeing before taking a short video. I took five 30 second-ish videos before going back to visual.

High cloud was increasing as well as some mist. At one point this acted like a filter and gave Mars a real red tint. After that I called it a night. This is the result of a single frame taken from one video. And personally I’m pleased with it especially as Mars is getting so small. No stacking although I have been experimenting with an iPhone app that does basic stacking of planets. However, it didn’t work well here.

Southampton back garden, Bortle 7. Skywatcher 200p Dob on a DIY EQ platform. BST StarGuider 3.2mm, basic smartphone adapter, iPhone 14 Pro with video using the stock camera app set to 4K, 60fps. Edited in the stock camera app, Lightroom and Snapseed. First image as seen, second rotated so north is up. 
 

15 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Thanks, but my impatience got the better of me and I ended up buying the Meade 14-16” dew shield for £115. Each time I made one they would sit badly wilting out of shape. I have made them for scopes up to 8” without issue, but the 14” diameter beat me.

Just out of interest… The one I made for my 8” Dob had thin veneer (for model aircraft foam wings) to stiffen it. Stuck to the foam mat which was just 4mm thick. It’s as stiff as a very stiff thing

On 19/01/2023 at 22:53, bosun21 said:

Ah, ha the old sewing machine trick! That would definitely hold the Velcro in place. Problem is I don’t have one. Never have. Thanks for the information.

Only just noticed this thread so you’ve probably made yours by now. But I found that good old Evo-Stik contact adhesive stuck foam mat together really well. I’ve made a couple of dew shields with it and the bond has held for over a year.

You can buy Evo-Stik in smaller size tubes too. 

It’s nice that you’ve got a bit of colour in there!

Just to make it clear… do you want to image planets or DSO? It’s probably both. I’m not into imagining but I know that @Kon has done some amazing planetary imaging with his manual 8” Dob. So it’s possible. 

If the clock drive is the one I’m thinking of then I have one. First on a little EQ mount. Now it’s on my DIY EQ platform for my 8” Dob. On an EQ it’ll be fine for short 30 sec exposures at relatively low magnification. Anything more than that you’ll need something better. 

16 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Also exactly what I was seeing when observing the moon. The surface of the moon was awash with a blurry image throughout. To my eye it looked like a sea of condensed floaters. But with an Explore Scientific 24mm 68 degrees that’s not likely. This was straight after viewing Mars with a relatively clean image 🤔

Must be something to do with height/position in the sky. I didn’t look at the moon but at times I had a combination of drifting high cloud and developing mist. As I mentioned at one point it turned Mars very red, so much so that I took the eyepiece out to make sure I hadn’t left a filter on it. Of course I’m not in the same location.

11 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Indeed. It's not comparing like with like but with my 12" I've just been looking at Mars at x380 and seeing a lot of detail. A poorly collimated scope would be blurred with little or no detail and certainly wouldn't be able to hold high magnification in good seeing conditions. No scope on Earth will see fine detail in poor seeing conditions though!

It’s basically this. If the telescope is poorly collimated you’ll really notice it when you are at the limits - eg at high magnification and/or when you need good contrast.

So is the bit about seeing. It always amazes me how much more you can see on a night of good seeing (transparency too) - no night is the same - which always makes me want to take a look. 

As for holding collimation. Once the secondary is done you rarely need to touch it. The primary might need a tweak before a session but once it’s settled down I generally don’t need to touch anything. One example - I took a small reflector on an aircraft. After a car/taxi journey lasting a total of 3.5 hours, rattling through an airport, 4 hour flight, 45 min ferry journey… I was pleasantly surprised to find that collimation was still spot on. But it doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way.

6 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Lunar session didn't last long. Seeing is dreadful. At x217 (7mm Nirvana) and x211 (18mm Ortho + 2.5x Powermate) I was trying to observe the bands on the face of Alhazen α. I thought the fine shadings would be a good decider as to which is the better combination for lunar. The image was constantly vibrating in that multiple image you get with poor seeing. Even worse, every so often, there's a wave of complete blurredness moving across the view. Bleh!

Interesting how it can change (after seeing being good) so quickly. 

40 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Nice view of Mars. I was getting a bit more detail in the 12" earlier with a distinct white bit at the top which I can't see on your image. I've read before that the cap doesn't always show on images. I wonder why 

Yes, I’ve heard that mentioned but don’t know why.

I could see a very small dot of white at the South Pole too. I’m no imaging guru but if I look at the video I can very occasionally see it there as well. Looks like it’s coming and going with the seeing. But it’s more than that. Eg Anything white in colour isn’t nearly as obvious in the video or images. The North Polar Hood is in the image but it’s far less obvious. While the albedo features have more contrast. Of course I haven’t done any stacking but I’d put money on that having some sort of effect. 

PS - I also fiddled with camera settings so maybe that didn’t help. It’s also a smartphone camera so you can expect too much!

I’ve had an off and in session this evening with the Skywatcher 200p Dob plus EQ platform in Southampton. Mostly off as I have somehow acquired an unpleasant chest infection. 

Started off looking for Comet ZTF. Found it but it was very faint. The moon was up by now and the neighbours had their back garden lights on at full blast

Them had a look at Mars for what I thought was going to be a quick look and go. Mars is now obviously getting small and not a full disc so I thought I’d had my lot. But to my surprise seeing was excellent. Put in the BST StarGuider 5mm and I could make out the North Polar Hood plus surface details, especially Syrtis Major. Then put in a 4mm for 300x and still sharp. So I got out my secret weapon which up until now had been far too much fir anything useful and I was thinking of selling - the BST StarGuider 3.2mm for 375x - still sharp which is a first so maybe this is a keeper!

I then played around with my new phone and took some videos of Mars. Didn’t expect much but just playing around with the camera settings actually showed more detail in the live view than what I could see visually. Surprising, these phone cameras are getting good. I’ve posted a single frame from the video that’s had some very basic and crude editing. I reckon I can get more out of that with a bit of a play.

High clouds and a little fog started rolling in which acted as a red filter and occasionally changed the colour of Mars. At that point I called it a night. 

From my experience I’ve found annoying play in both the mount and tripod. I had a similar setup and at first upgraded the mount. It was an improvement but that aluminium tripod was terrible at damping out the slightest vibration & movement. The dual legs vibrated kind of like guitar strings - once they started it took an age for the vibrations to damp down. 

Upgrading the tripod to a secondhand EQ5 steel tripod sorted that out! I still have the aluminium tripod - it’s makes a great travel tripod and I’ve taken it on aircraft too. 

It’s flat calm here and crystal clear. Although I’m exhausted after last nights session so I’m staying in tonight  

A beautiful moon last night in Southampton before the clouds rolled in. Good seeing too with some great shadows around Mare Imbrum and the Apennine Mountains. Amazing to think that some of the peaks are over 5km heigh. Thor’s Hammer also easy to see visually (middle of last picture). 

Skywatcher 200p Dob, StarGuider 12mm & 5mm, iPhone 14 Pro, single shot images in RAW taken with the stock camera app. Basic editing in the stock camera app plus playing around in Snapseed. Must learn some more about editing RAW. 

Recently I noticed a couple of apps for iPhone that are supposed to do and/or help with video stacking. They are “VideoStack for Planetary” and “WaveletCam”. WaveletCam is supposed to do real time wavelet processing. Theres also another app for stacking DSO by the same developer, but I haven’t tried that.

I’ve never done any stacking. I don’t even own a PC/Laptop/Mac and unless it’s going to be very simple and quick I’m not interested. I haven’t got much of a clue what I’m doing or nothing to compare with.

And after saying I don’t like playing around with software what do I end up doing… fiddling around with apps! But at a cost of 89p for each I could not resist. Here are a few initial results with everything done on the phone. All taken though a SkyWatcher 200p Dob using a StarGuider 5mm. 

I’ve only got one video of Saturn and that was from September 2021. It was taken with my old iPhone 12 using the stock iPhone camera app. No tracking and it was zoomed being only 5 seconds long. Seeing was good but the original video rather fuzzy and wobbly which is normal. Mind, the results from the app aren’t bad. All I did was stick the video in VideoStack, press a button then save the result. The second Saturn image is with some simple post processing in WaveletCam. Maybe sharper and a bit more clarity but in this case doesn’t add much. All together it took just a few mins with no real knowledge of what I was doing. My kind of stuff!

I took the Jupiter video only last Saturday - 21 January 2023 - with my new iPhone 14 Pro as I wanted to practice using the camera. I just used the stock iPhone video app. No fancy camera app. Of course Jupiter is hardly in the best position for imaging but the result was a pleasant surprise. Although a video longer than10 seconds crashed the app and it did require a bit more work in WaveletCam plus finishing off in Lightroom. I probably spent about 25 mins on it. 

I have one video of Mars that was taken on 26th December 2022 with an iPhone 14 Pro. It was an interesting session - visually I could see the North Polar Hood, clouds over Syrtus Major and various subtle albedo features. The Helios Basin was also very prominent. However, this was much harder and the short video pushed what the apps could do. I had to try several times as at first the result looked more like some lumpy asteroid. But got something in the end. At least you can see the features (plus a tad more) which I could see visually which is what I’m after. Eg It’s captured the rough shape of Sinus Sabaeus, Syrtus Major along the planet limb plus the Helios Basin. Although for some reason my “processing” has reduced the extent of clouds over the North Polar Hood and those near the limb over part of Syrtus Major.

It can work in a simple kind of way. Some general conclusions….

Cons: Videos need to be short. The VideoStack app is flaky and will sometimes crash, especially if video is any longer than 10 seconds. It will sometimes crash if the planet in the video is smaller than about 1/3 the screen size. Easy to fix by zooming in. It works better with some videos more than others and I don’t know why. 

Pros: A planet drifting across the view is no problem. It’s very simple to use. The companion app WaveletCam is interesting and can be used for processing other images. It’s certainly worth having but if it doesn’t initially produce results I wouldn’t spend too much time fiddling! 

On 28/01/2023 at 20:49, Kon said:

That looks great and very clean. I wonder if iPhone has a similar auto stacking function as  my pixel that does 4min.

Thanks! The iPhone has something called Night Mode that does some auto stacking, but only up to 30 seconds. From what I can tell it’s not aimed at astrophotography. I get the impression it’s more for the likes of night time pictures of cities, camping trips and festivals. 

This was from Friday 20/02/23, far too early, at around 5:45am. Have been busy and just had a little go at processing the original iPhone images that I took. More for fun than anything else. The result has brought out the coma plus some of the dust tail. Must have another go at observing this comet but clouds, life, some trees and buildings have got in the way. I really enjoyed observing this and the original images (even without the faff of “processing”) help record and memorise the event.

Southampton back garden, Bortle 7. Skywatcher 200p Dob on EQ platform. StarGuider 25mm eyepiece, iPhone 14 Pro with basic smartphone adapter. Single 30sec exposure in RAW via the stock camera app. Basic processing in LightRoom and WaveletCam.

These are outstanding images! Well done @Stu And it goes go to show that things are coming along fast. 

And this does remind me… I am a visual observer. But I’ll sometimes use my phone as a tool for visual. Eg when I take an image it’s usually as an aid to record what I’ve seen, maybe to share the event with my daughter. All I want is to snap and shot with no or minimal processing or manipulations. This sort of phone feature seams ideal for me! Although I’m unlikely go out and buy a phone just for this. Mind you, out of curiosity and/or to pass some time, maybe see what the phone can do, I will sometimes do some basic image processing on the phone. I’ll also use my phone plus app for PushTo, and to orientate and level my EQ platform. 

Lovely moon halo through clouds plus Jupiter on my way home this evening. Snap taken with an iPhone. It lasted about 1 minute and then it was gone. 

Lovely images with plenty of detail. Which I well know isn’t as easy as would first seem. 

@Stu “Stacking@!? Don’t go there

3 hours ago, Kon said:

Yes it was great seeing it. Tonight is good according to MET, but currently foggy.

I’ve noticed similar here. At the moment we have drizzle but it’s forecast to clear in the early hours. Conditions after rain can be good so I plan to give it a go too. 

What can I say… outstanding! 

On 20/01/2023 at 21:55, Kon said:

My family wants to join as well but at silly hour with frost it will be hard to get them out. Forecast is looking good with clear skies untill 5 so it has to be 4am wake up for me.

Looking forward if you do more editing on them. Your DIY platform is working very well!

I tried again but went back to be as there was high cloud once more. But I see from another thread that you managed to see it. Rewarding isn’t it!

On 20/01/2023 at 21:55, ankwste said:

Amazing work Peter and very nice infos you share with us...I hope you can take more photos of the comet and stack them...can you give me more information about your platform...ok having the same DOB and want to buy one platform 

Hi, and thank you. I’ve been busy the last few days so only just had time to reply.  I haven’t got a PC/computer at home so stacking at the moment is out for me! The EQ platform is home made via the excellent instructions on here…

I’ve modified mine a little. Eg larger external battery & limiting microswitch, but it’s basically the same. There’s also a method of doing a rough polar alignment for increased accuracy. But once you have that I mark the position on the ground in my garden. Then all I have to do is place it there and make sure it’s nice and level. 

There should be a section “what did you see in the day?” as I packed up over an hour ago. Going out socially tonight (it doesn’t happen often) and of course it’s crystal clear

My daughter had a couple of friends over so did some solar with the 200p Dob. The sun is magnificent at the moment with the biggest sunspot I’ve seen. loads of detail too and it could take a surprising amount of magnification give how low it is. One of Alice’s friends was far more interested than the other but that’s kids.

They were leaving at 5:30pm but not to be outdone I strapped the phone to the OTA and located Jupiter in the afternoon - at about 3:50pm. Surprisingly easy to do and a surprising amount of detail inc the GRS which soon showed itself. It was fun watching Jupiter show more detail as it got darker, the moons appear and the GRS move across the disc. Best views just before and just after sunset. In fact the best views I’ve had of Jupiter for a couple of months. And my daughters friends were actually impressed.