Ags

Artemis never happened. They obviously recycled the Apollo footage, which was also fake by the way 🤣

Had a brilliant view of Syrtis Major tonight with my Long Perng 90. The feature was sharply delineated and unmistakeable. I am using pretty low magnification - 102x - but it seems ample nonetheless. Also had a look at Jupiter. It seemed a little washed out and the SEB was hardly to be seen. The GRS was initially undetectable, but became clearer with extended observation. But it is COLD!

Launch? What launch? Did I miss something? 🙄

An Asus ZenBook UX425QA_UM425QA 14" laptop. A hexacore Ryzen processor with 16 GB of RAM. It's not an ultrabook... it's an astrobook! I bought it for the weight (1.3 kgs), fast processor, AMD integrated graphics, and the (most importantly) very long battery duration. It's also powered from USB-C, so it will be easy to boost the battery life with a separate power pack. Currently various parts of the software maze are speaking to me in Dutch, but at least the laptop smiles when it recognizes my face! Picked up super-cheap as a customer return with a very small dent on the back and tiny scratch on the charger.

Here is another color attempt from last night.

Yes, I may have misremembered the name of the feature.

I took this a quick snap after shooting Mars. I had just discovered the auto white balance feature in SharpCap and thought it could maybe give me a chance at a color moon treatment - something that has eluded me thus far (the terminator usually turns green or red...)

In AutoStakkert you place alignment points on regions of detail to guide the stacking. AutoStakkert can compensate for some rotation with the alignment points (and you have a smaller scope with less resolution) so three minutes is fine in my limited experience.

That's really very good, better than I ever got using a 102 mm Maksutov. My suggestions: put an alignment point on the moon (assuming you can, I use AutoStakkert for stacking), shoot a 3 minute sequence so you get more than 2000 frames, and use auto white balance in Registax.

Ooh very interesting. Max 6kg load one sided... does that mean a 6-0 split would be ok, and if so would 7-3 or 8-2 be ok?

I think we were snapping Mars at the same time. Here's mine, taken with a C6.

Thanks. I was using a 400x400 ROI, which could be smaller but tracking with my AZ-GTI becomes more tricky of course. But with that ROI I should be getting 150+ fps. I use the free version of SharpCap for capture.

Shot through drifting clouds; it was going to be a 6 minute sequence but the clouds thickened, so I got about 4 minutes of 6 ms subs at 100 fps at f10. For some reason my frame rate has dropped on my laptop lately??? Stacked in AS!3 with 1.5 drizzle, sharpened in RS6 and tweaked in Gimp.

Another good night with Mars and the Moon, this time with an unbarlowed 4.9mm eyepiece (100x). I think the barlow was the source of most of the CA last night - much reduced on the Moon's sunlit limb tonight. Plenty of detail on Mars and Jupiter tonight.

Gorgeous!

I think the dark blob in the north was Acidalia Planitia, but don't quote me on that 😀

It's showing in stock to me...

I also took this snap of Mars with a 2x barlow - 90mm aperture and 1000mm focal length is not the right tool selection, but it is quite close to what I was seeing in the eyepiece:

Had a detailed view of the Moon and Mars last night. A very good lunar and planetary scope. Some blue haze on the sunlit limb of the Moon - but that could also be from the prism or the cheap barlow. Took this picture:

Looking forward to your report!

Stellarium shows the GRS in the right spot for me on Android.

I use a similar 66 mm refractor, and the views of planets are very good - of course very small, but with strong color and good contrast. While a larger telescope can theoretically show a bigger image, this is limited by the stability of the air - the so-called seeing conditions. A good planetary combination would be the 18.2 Delite with the 3x barlow, although the barlow might be the weak link in that optical train. With patience there is plenty to see! Regarding the Pleiades, I often find them underwhelming - other more delicate clusters give a far better show in my opinion. Try point your scope at the Double Cluster near Cassiopeia, or (at a dark site) at the dramatic Messier 31., which will fill the view of even your widest eyepiece.

Holiday was a washout really. My tearducts were blocked so I couldn't see straight, it was driving rain 90% of the time, when I did imaging I messed up the settings and wasted half the little time I had. Still, I enjoyed the time despite it all. Tell me about life in a dome!

Question, would the 2.2m dome feel cramped? How high is the door indo the observatory?

Zenithstar 66 - grab and go and astrophotography. C6 SCT - Solar System photography, with a .63 reducer its a nice big grab and go too. Long Perng 90 - visual observation of planets and double stars, still learning how to use this one. Solar Scout SS60-ds - for the Sun naturally. Long term plan is to get a Combo Quark and replace the SS60-DS with the LP90. I don't quite think the LP90 can replace the ZS66 for astrophotography but maybe it could. It can never replace the C6 though...