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ONIKKINEN

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Everything posted by ONIKKINEN

  1. You could also try setting up a Windows 10 mini pc to do the same thing as an asiair, but have guaranteed updateability and more choice of software to use. To use this kind of setup you will still need something to control it with a remote desktop app. I use mine with either a phone or a tablet. depending on how mobile i want to be. It was a bit of a pain to setup but once i got it running i can do whatever i want with it, including some quick processing on the go to check what im working with. Win10 mini-pc will probably be a bit cheaper than an asiair pro, but not a lot. Asiair pro however will definitely be easier to use. I went with a mini-pc setup because i dont want to be locked out of options and i want to use all available software instead of depending on what ZWO enables on their product.
  2. I have a very limited sample size of times I've observed with a decent telescope but this was definitely the best seeing i have seen so far, maybe its all downhill from here... Wind had completely died down and i was at a remote-ish location with no real local ground thermals as i was looking over a field and a forest. At times Jupiter appeared to be frozen, almost like it was etched to the eyepiece, of course it got too bright very soon after but it was great for a while. The shadow itself looked almost fake with how well resolved it appeared, like a dead pixel but in my eye. Jupiter was 16 degrees at highest this night, and the highest I've ever seen it, im excited to see how much of an improvement next year brings!
  3. Observing with an OOUK VX8 fitted with a 2.5x barlow. Started out with the 9mm, as the seeing was dodgy at first or my scope had not fully cooled to ambient yet. Im leaning towards the cooling here since it is 29c inside and 16c outside. I did have the cooling fan on while setting up the mount which usually works but maybe this was too extreme. First time seeing a shadow transit so i didn't know what to expect, not even if its visible, but man it was as obvious as anything can be. Sharp black spot on an otherwise very bright Jupiter. It was so obvious that it was the best marker for seeing whether i was in critical focus or not, very easy to tell the difference! Also this was my first time seeing the GRS, although im not quite sure if that was it. Contrast on other parts of Jupiter was very low, definitely less pronounced than all other atmospheric bands for example and i don't really agree that it was red. Seeing improved consistently as time went on and it was somewhat more obvious towards the end, but not what i expected. As far as i know the GRS is shrinking all the time, i dont think it would be given the same name if it was discovered today. The great red spot is in my opinion not great or red. It is a spot, ill give it that. Still great to actually see it myself.
  4. I am running an EQM-35PRO quite near its maximum payload capability and can confirm that small differences in voltage are a big deal. My RA stepper motor can start slipping at below 12.5V while it never happens above this. Under 12V is a complete no-go especially anywhere near the meridian. Switching to a car plug (with the engine running and producing over 14 volts) and/or a proper 13.6v output powerbank pretty much eliminated all slewing problems.
  5. 10 minutes of rotation on Jupiter on 12.7. Still starting out with video capturing but i think i got the hang of it now, at least im not getting worse. Shot with a OOUK VX8 and a Canon EOS550D in movie crop mode and magic lantern raw video. Each frame is 35% of the best frames from a 2 minute 38fps video, shot roughly back to back over a span of 10 or so minutes. Effective focal length is hard to say, but i would assume just under 5000mm. I used a 2x barlow on top of a 2.5x barlow, but Jupiters size appears a bit larger than what it should be if the focal length was increased by 5x. I am guessing that either or both of the barlows increase the focal length more than intended with a longer than eyepiece backfocal distance like with a DSLR. Videos captured at 02:10-02:20 local time, which is unfortunately still very bright this time of the year, Skies were noticeably blue-ish when looking through an eyepiece visually. Very surprised to see good detail, both visually and on video! Processed with PIPP, Autostakkert2, Registax for wavelets and photoshop for a bit of curves/colour/levels adjustments. I was extremely surprised to see such an obvious amount of movement over a short amount of time which leads me to believe i should take shorter videos next time, maybe i could recover more detail if i get lucky with seeing.
  6. Its definitely possible, in fact the opposite is impossible as i have no place at home to put down a telescope and see anything other than concrete or city lights. Fields i can find left and right, hills maybe not so much even if i wanted to carry my kit up a hill. What about lakes/the ocean, would evaporation from a body of water be better or worse than ground thermals? My telescope is certainly not a mewlon but seeing that an image like that is even technically possible at low altitudes is crazy.
  7. On my latitude Jupiter will be at 18 degrees and Saturn at 10-11 this season. I had my first quick try at video lucky imaging on Jupiter and while its not great i can certainly recognize it as the planet (attached pic). I got this dawn/twilight when the skies were still very bright, not that it matters with Jupiter being so bright right? I am running an OOUK VX8 with a 2.5x barlow and a Canon EOS 550D. The 550D is workable in the way that it can capture at "movie crop mode" which is a 640x480p 50fps uninterpolated sensor crop (just the center pixels of the sensor) but obviously it is not all that great QE and noise-wise. The 2.5x barlow is less than ideal for sure too, i think a 4x or 5x would be more optimal. I am not a stranger to general long exposure stuff but planets i haven't gotten to yet. The fast newtonian is also not ideal but should be workable, i hope. Lets say i buy an ADC and a 4-5x barlow and maybe even a planetary camera with smaller pixels. Is it fighting a losing fight that i could just try another year or would i be getting reasonable improvements? I do have better uses for money too but seeing Jupiter just got me anxious to improve. 120s video at 50fps, stacked 10% best, some sharpening etc. It looks quite soft, focusing was difficult since there were no stars i could bahtinov mask focus on (too bright). Focusing on the target is guesswork with the low resolution un-zoomable video live view, but focus is definitely improvable by luck and repetition if nothing else.
  8. My very first DSO astrophoto from last september. Taken with a DSLR at 100mm focal length piggybacking on a Celestron Asstromaster 130MD. The motor kit allowed me to take 12 second exposures without noticeable trailing. This is i believe around 12 minutes of exposure, processed in DeepSkyStacker and GIMP. I didnt know what i was doing at the time so that is why there is a gradient, satellite trails and weird colours. Still this started my descent into the rabbit hole and neither the bottom or the hole in which i fell are visible anymore.
  9. New user but not quite new to the hobby, i am now almost a year into the hobby with most of it being dominated by trial and error in astrophotography. I have made many bad decisions already and know how to fix them (money...), but as im stubborn i will still attempt to make things work for far longer than i should. I am currently running an OOUK VX8 on a Skywatcher EQM-35PRO (bad idea, just dont do this) with a 10 year old DSLR and a basic guiding setup. I am sick and tired of the Finnish summer and cant wait to get back to astronomy when we actually have something that could be called "night", well at least a month to go in the mandatory break and plenty of time to browse forums!
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