LuckieEddie

Wow. Can you elaborate on the "Star repair" module workflow please?

Thanks for the responses.

Tomatobro - I do like the idea of a "follow me" system controlling the dome from the mount. Genius.

inFINNity Deck - That's a seriously impressive build. Way beyond what I'm hoping to achieve. Thanks for the tips and the links.

I need an observatory for all the usual reasons. Unfortunately our corner plot only has one suitable location - and it's triangular. I think I'm going to be making a variation on a dome to modify the shed that's already there.

Right now I'm planning the structure but also thinking ahead to future automation. I have a question for anyone using an automated dome:

I assume the dome rotation gets synchronised to the mounts Azimuth co-ordinate via the chosen software/drivers but what happens when the scope changes pier side after a meridian flip? The resulting Azimuth is (almost) unchanged but physically the optical axis is displaced by a significant amount (eg. maybe 0.5 - 0.8m). I'm assuming that the typical dome shutter aperture isn't wide enough to allow for this so is there some offset applied to the dome rotation depending on current pier side?

Hi, I use a Fuji X-T2 with Kstars/Ekos/indi. The driver has some limitations but it does work. Driver configuration points:

• Leave the camera in T mode and only use exposures from the preset list - Bulb mode does not work properly.
• Set the SDCard mode to Delete - on the Fuji this seems to control the RAM buffer usage as well. If you don't set this to Delete, the camera will take shots until it's RAM buffer is full and then hang. Note this also means that the images are only saved via indi (to your computer) not to the SDCard.
• I set the Transfer Format to Native (RAW) not fits because on a Raspberry Pi (I'm running a RP4 8GB) the 'bayer' decode of the funky Fuji X-Trans CFA takes too long (10's of seconds). This means you can't run the fits viewer during capture. Image display for other functions eg. focus, plate solving alignment, PA work fine as they use the image un-debayered. Also note that the Transfer Format setting does not seem to get saved in the Capture module or passed from the indi driver settings - you have to set it each session in the Capture module.

I can't comment on ASIAIR though, sorry.

I've completed two Onstep conversations, one on an E-q5 and the other on a G11. I've found the system to be great in use, intuitive and rock steady.

Most of the issues I've seen mentioned on forums are about the physical system design where someone wants to design a conversion from scratch rather than following the established routes. This shouldn't be a problem if your looking to buy a kit.

If you're considering a kit from Instein just be aware that they have a bit of a reputation in the community. It's not that they're bad but that they've forked off their own version of Onstep, which is fine, it's open source, but they don't seem to provide much in the way of support or contribute anything back to the community. The Onstep community can't support their users as the code base is different and they don't want to provide free tech support for a commercial (ab)user of their work.

I think a Bahtinov mask was the first thing I 3D printed for astronomy. White PLA works great.

I've made a fully configurable CAD model that's freely available here. No sign in required. Just set the configuration variables (top left) to fit your scope/lens. Right click on the Part "Bahtinov mask" (bottom left) and select export to download a .STL you can throw in your slicer.

Hope it helps someone.

5 hours ago, pixelsaurus said:

Awesome. Anyone what the blue nebula at the bottom of the frame is?

 

It's identified further down the astro bin card

At work, we use Indu-Tek "Friction Free" Grease for damping small mechanisms. I have a lot of it and can pop you a few CC's in the post for the price of the postage. PM me if your interested.

Sometimes less is more, and sometimes more is more. So here's less focal length, giving more galaxies. This is the Markarian Chain and friends.

This was shot on 26th March from my heavily light polluted garden using my Fuji X-T2 with a 50-230mm lens (at 230mm) on my Losmandy G11. 4 hours worth of 60sec subs.

I knew there were a lot of galaxies in this region but until I started peering at it in order to annotate I didn't realise quite how many.

I've made out over 50 in this shot and I can see a few more in there but both KStars and SkySafari top out at magnitude 16 so I can't identify the really faint fuzzies. Annotated version...

hl;

Well, you can't have an Orion topic without a few Horse Heads can you? So here's mine. Fuji X-T2, Onstep modified EQ5, Skywatcher N200/1000 (original blue version not a later 'P'). About 4 1/2 hours of 30sec subs, unguided. I had a hard time processing out the light pollution gradients on this one due to the busyness and variation across the frame. Stacked in Siril with a sequence (per frame) background removal. Processed in StartTools.

I've set up monthly patreon's for all the open source SW that I rely on, Siril, Telescopius & GIMP. Regular payments help the developers that help us get the most out of our hobby. Being active in their communities also helps, there's normally plenty of things that can be done outside of coding as well - documenting, testing beta builds, bug reporting, supporting new users on forums, etc.

Here's a M42. Taken with a Fuji X-T2 using a SkyWatcher N200/1000 on a Onstep modified EQ-5. 236 x 30 sec subs, no guiding. Stacked in Siril, processed in StarTools.

Here's my entry for category 2. This was taken last night using a Fuji X-T2 on my Onstep modified EQ5. No guiding, 30 sec subs, a total of 2 3/4 hours, Bortle 6ish.

Stacked in Siril, and then processed in StarTools.

I have a different opinion. We use canned air when cleaning optics at work. There are a couple of things you need to take care of though. There's a big difference in the quality between different brands, particularly in propellant discharge. Always keep the can upright. Start the air discharging while pointing away from the glass and then pass the stream over it and off the other side. Then stop and repeat if necessary. It's a bit like the technique for paint spraying.

Yep, I agree. The latest alpha HDR module is a step backwards for me. To be clear this is using a GPU version, the new module is very heavy on CPU usage on load, even on the GPU accelerated version.

The time taken in Siril could be down to storage I/O throughput. I've got an old 2008 MacBook running Linux but with its SSD a typical stacking time is 10-20 minutes. The same stack, same Siril version, same OS on my work laptop (2019 i7 16GB) is 10 hours+ if the images are stored on it's HDD, and about the same time (10-20 minutes) if they are on it's SSD.

Autostakkert runs flawlessly under wine (in my experience) , which runs on macOS as well as Linux.

Another vote from me for Siril for dso stacking.

Here's the final entry from me for this competition, NGC7023 The Iris Nebula. Taken last night (16th) this is the best 220 30 second subs of the night. Not quite up to the IKO dataset standards but I'm fairly happy with it for my set up. Taken with my SW 200N, and full spectrum modified Olympus E-PL5. Stacked in Siril and processed in StarTools.

Here's my entry. Processed in StarTools 1.8 Alpha.

Loaded in Compose using L + Synthetic L from RGB, RGB, Ha into NB accent. Dialled in relative exposure times. AutoDev, Crop edges, and Wipe with Narrowband setting. Re-do AutoDev with no ROI. Contrast at default, HDR at default, Wavelet Sharpen with default mask. Spatially Variant PSF Deconvolution using sample mode and sampling only the best ~40 stars with a roughly even spread across the image. Colour with Scientific style and saturation bumped up to 250%. Shrink stars with Tighten preset. Superstructure with Saturation preset and gamma set to 0.33. Add the Ha using the Narrowband Accent set to Galaxy preset. De-noise at defaults. Lastly, applied Fractal Flux using mask set on the galaxies and the Add Detail algorithm.

Yet another galaxy from me, M74 this time. Just under 2 hours of 30 second exposures, unguided, taken last night. Taken with my Fuji X-T2, stacked in Siril, and processed in StarTools.

Another one from me, M15 taken as a fill in on the end of my session on 16th/17th July. Only 22.5 minutes total of 30 sec subs.

I've recently obtained a Fuji X-T2 camera and this is my first target captured with it - IC342 The Hidden Galaxy. This was captured over three nights (16th-18th July 2021) from my heavily overlooked and light polluted back garden. In total this was 560 x 30 sec subs, unguided using my SW 200 & EQ5. I messed up my polar alignment on the first night resulting in a lot of walking noise some of which is still evident in the background but managed to improve the PA for the 18th.

Here's my entry, IC342 - The Hidden Galaxy.

This was shot on 12/04/2021 under Bortle 6. 420x30sec giving 3 and a half hours total.

SkyWatcher N200 (the old blue one), EQ5 modified with Onstep goto system, Full spectrum modified Olympus E-PL5, Baader UV/IR filter, Baader MPCC. Stacked with flats and darks in Siril, processed in StarTools.

Here's my latest effort. This is my first shot without Astronomical darkness - my first summer season as I only took up the hobby about 9 months ago, you certainly don't get much in the way of darkness these days.

All my shots would qualify for this challenge as I've been shooting unguided and so I default to 30 second subs. Progressing to guided soon.

This is M63, The Sunflower Galaxy.

Shot on 13/06/2021 under Bortle 6 (according to ClearOutside), 196x30sec subs giving 1hour 38mins total. SkyWatcher N200 (the old blue one), EQ5 modified with Onstep goto system, Full spectrum modified Olympus E-PL5, Baader UV/IR filter, Baader MPCC. Stacked with flats and darks in Siril, processed in StarTools.

11 minutes ago, John said:

It's a Meade LXD 55:

You can download the manual for it from here:

https://www.meade.com/lxd55-manual-size-1-1-mb/

Thanks John for the super quick reply. 👍