Astro Noodles

I couldn't really ask for less promising conditions last night. 98% moonlight, wispy cloud and neighbours having a party with a bonfire. No astro-darkness. I took 150 x 60sec subs but discarded all but 23 due mainly to cloud. Canon 600D (modified) and Askar FMA 135. Unguided. iso800. Darks/flats/offset applied. A quick stretch in Gimp with no star mask or background extraction etc. Compared to what I would have usually expected, I am quite astonished how good this filter is.

Another frustration - Not being good enough at image processing.

Autumn ?!? I couldn't wait that long for anything. 😄

I'll be foaming at the mouth with frustration when it finally does turn up and I have the guaranteed 3 weeks of cloud before I can use it. 😁

aargh... now I want a pub shed. 😄

Having to wait 60-90 days for my new astrograph is proving quite frustrating.

In the winter, get all set up, polar align etc. Go inside to wait for it to get properly dark. Get all togged up - gloves, hat etc. Step outside and immediately have an overwhelming desire to answer the call of nature. Happens to me every time.

It's ok Stu, Dr Becky has explained it all to me and added some perspective and context. 😄 Just need a bit of poetry from Prof. Cox now. So perhaps it is Sag A* which is less impressive than I had imagined it would be. I don't like the idea that we might be staring down the barrel of a supermassive black hole - no matter how unimpressive I might think it looks.

I'm not as impressed by the image as I probably should be. After the astonishing M87 image, I suppose I was expecting something with more definition. This image leaves me with the feeling that it's one they rushed out and snapped through a gap in the clouds - even though it took 5 years to process.

I didn't really have you down as a Daily Mail reader. I think that Sailors and Astronomers are fellow travelers in many ways. I enjoy both activities and there are quite a number of things which transfer from one hobby to another. Being freezing cold for example.

Hi Jim I had read some articles/posts and seen some videos. I was impressed by some galaxy shots someone had done with an L-Enhance from a bortle 8. As you can tell, I'm really quite pleased with it but have nothing else co compare it to except my SkyTech CLS which isn't all that effective against moonlight.

With 78% moonlight and no more astro darkness, I wasn't expecting much last night. I decided to give my Optolong L-Enhance filter a test drive around Cygnus. All images 24x60 sec unguided with flats, darks and offset/bias. William Optics ZS 61 with modified Canon 600D. Sadr and associated nebulosity. Last year, without a modified camera I couldn't get any of the HA. This is very encouraging. 😁 Part of the Cygnus Loop including the Western Veil and Pickering's Triangular Wisp. It was right in the bottom right hand corner of the frame. Again, really pleased with the HA. I couldn't get it at all last year - just buried in noise. A rather strange looking Deneb and part of the North America Nebula. I was just pointing to a place in the sky where I thought it might be. 😀 All in all, a very satisfying and encouraging session. It was pleasant yesterday night and I spent quite a lot of time just sitting and observing with a pair of bins. I have a 200mm lens coming at some point in the next 60-90 days. I'm looking forward to using it for some widefield fun in Cygnus over the summer.

I suppose we're stuck with it then. 😁

I agree with that. Why is it that whenever there is a few cloudless nights it's ruined by a full moon? Maybe Elon Musk or somebody could go up there and paint it matt black.

I've tried to get my head around this. The light we are seeing now left 3C 273 2.4 billion years ago. Am I correct if I say that light emitted from the object now will take 4.6 billion years to reach my camera sensor?

Capturing the object was easy enough as 61mm F5.9 gives a wide field. Finding the object in the resulting image was much more challenging. 😄

61mm frac.

I'm not sure my kit is up to the challenge. I had to zoom to 200% and stretch like crazy to get that image. Thanks for the suggestions though.

Not much of a picture, I know. 😄 When the light set out from this object 2.4 billion years ago, there was no multicellular life on Earth. It is amazing to me that I can capture an image of it at all, no matter how fuzzy and faint from by back yard with a couple of thousand pounds worth of kit.

I think that the cost of Astronomy equipment is the least of our worries at the moment - what with spiraling prices and high inflation. It probably is a case of if you could afford it before, you probably still can, and if you couldn't afford it before, you definitely won't be able to now. ☹️

But if you published it as a graph, or in a spreadsheet or something, most people would just go ugh?!? and never think about it again.

No s**t. Is that really the sound of matter being torn to pieces? I rather expected a belch - black holes are such messy eaters.

Wow - It sounds exactly like I would expect one to sound.

I'm not sure about that. All the horrible mistakes we have made in our lives will be in the future. 😬

OK, here's one. not so much frustrating as annoying. Why, when trying to polar align, do I have to grovel on my hands and knees? And why do the manufacturers of mounts assume that I have a double-jointed neck?