ONIKKINEN

Thank you for taking time to write an explanation. I think i understand the why part. Just scratching my head on the how part now. I carry my kit outdoors to use it every time anyway so in theory i could haul it somewhere i can hang a phone off a tree far away or something like that. I just need to understand the actual process of what im doing in what software and what exactly the phone screen should be showing and then ill do it with my scope and the 678MC. Not sure i will bother doing that in processing, but then again i said that the first 3 times you mentioned split debayering and here i am, splitting a thousand subs regularly as part of the process so maybe this will be one of those extra "hoops" to jump through in the end.

Some lunar work with my 8'' f/4.4 newtonian + paracorr + 678MC. Starting off with a bang with a rusty saturated rendition. By far the best shot of the 2 nights, a 5 panel mosaic of the 91% illuminated moon on 11.10. 5000x5000 pixel mosaic, worth checking out in full screen, there is loads to see: Captures were 2000 frames each at full resolution of 3840x2160 resulting in 16gb files. Best 200 frames per panel stacked and composited in Microsoft ICE. Im afraid its all downhill from here with the higher resolution shots as seeing was very soft, but here goes anyway. Some of them are pretty decent i think. 11.10 - Petavius with paracorr + 2.5x barlow. First with UV/IR, second with a Celestron #25 red filter that acts as a 600nm longpass and an ultra budget IR filter. Terrible seeing, as is evident from the difference in detail between the 2. Both downsampled to 70%. UV/IR: #25 red: 12.10 - 3 targets, again not great seeing but better than it was the night before. Captures as before with paracorr+2.5x barlow+678MC downsampled to 70%. First, Aristoteles. I tried to take a long recording with a tiny ROI to capture the maximal amount of detail of some crater that fit the field of view, this just happened to be the one. 120k frames, best 1% stacked: Next is Theophilus: And lastly a dramatic looking region to the south with Metius and Fabricius in the center: Im afraid i only had time to stack the day 1 results after finishing night 2, otherwise i would have used the #25 red for all the closeups, its much sharper in comparison to the rest considering the soupy seeing. The last one may have had better seeing as it appears much sharper than the rest. Thanks for looking, it was a lot of work to capture and stack. Well over 200 gigabytes of data... Also did planetary on both nights which went mostly south so went through 400 gigabytes of .SER files just now 💀.

Does the CT8 come with the same focuser as the VX8? Looks like this, might even be this but without the logo: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-essentials-focusers/astro-essentials-2-dual-speed-low-profile-crayford-focuser-for-newtonian-telescopes.html If that is the case then i can answer parts of the question below. This particular focuser is ok, workable for light loads. But not ideal for imaging and wouldnt recommend for heavy mono setups. For ease of use and reliability i would recommend a better one, like the Baader diamond steeltrack. Will need to drill holes for it, but you could ask Orion optics to install one from the factory and they might comply. Drilling the holes is not rocket science however and is easy to do yourself.

Thats a nice Mars. You could image for a lot longer, and with a smaller ROI. That will also pump up your framerates and give you loads of frames. With 320x240 and 4ms exposures youll be racking 100k frames quite fast so might be worth trying that next time. Not sure what the lowest useful exposure time is though, often have read that 5ms is the seeing limit.

Is there an explain like im 5 years old type of explanation for the colour issue? This topic is always difficult to follow.

Sure, but some things like liquids and certain foods shouldnt be frozen. Its not a disaster in cities where heating is often remote and will flow through radiators even if the apartment building is cut from power to prioritize healtcare and infrastructure. Mild inconvenience at best. Cooking wont be happening though. I could theoretically run a microwave with my river 300 as it can supply 1200w AC for short periods.

One of the "smart" power stations is a good purchase instead of the typical cheaper battery banks. Jackery makes many models, I have an ecoflow river 300 which is similar from another brand (this one not for sale in UK i think). Not sure which brands are available local to the UK but amazon will surely have some for sale. I have actually run my fridge with it during a power outage when some kind of oopsie on a construction site nearby cut power for several hours. Will probably have to do that again in the coming winter as power outages are expected if and when it gets colder than -15.

Didn't really take me anywhere special, nor did a browse through the google suggested articles explain much. This was quoted in two sites of the results: So was it in fact an aerial telescope or not? "tubeless" sounds like it kind of has to be. The picture results all seem to point to the monstrosity of Hevelius' 150 foot refractor and no mention of a 120 footer.

Thanks all! Thanks, regarding paracorr yes i have tried but at the moment i have no focus without it. I have an awkward combination of kit with the paracorr that kicks up the focus by 46mm and a stubby TS 2.5x APO barlow that doesnt lift up the focal point nearly as much as one would expect from a 2.5x barlow. My primary to secondary distance is set so that the drawtube does not obstruct the mirror and cause aberrations when doing DSO work, so as a downside i have no focus without the paracorr with the weird barlow. Should probably look for a good quality "normal" barlow that can be screwed into nosepieces.

I think it is important, most DSO imagers do too i think. Thing is, there are many opinions and few agree with eachother and most have their own style while trying to go real colour. with narrowband anything goes. Its a hot item so to speak. I think i remember a recent lengthy thread that got derailed immediately and the consensus was that brown is not a real colour or something like that.. In that way its the same with planetary. Range of similar but not quite the same renditions of colours that most push out.

Tricky question, one i dont know how to solve thats for sure. DSO imaging has an easy crutch to lean on in photometric colour calibration, no such luck in planetary i guess and the process is more involved.

This one is better than either of the first ones to my eyes. Doesnt jump out as too blue anymore, maybe just the saturation that jumped out to me? Small difference, but big difference, if you know what i mean.

Hmm, i think i prefer the second one actually. On my monitor the first one looks a bit too blue with the whites, but then again neither are what i see in an eyepiece so what is right? Maybe im just used to seeing warmer tones from Jupiter, maybe its my eyes. Cracking image either way.

All taken with 8'' f/4.4 newtonian + paracorr + 2.5x barlow and the 678MC. Jupiters resized to 70%, Mars at capture resolution as it is already a thumbnail and dont want to reduce it even if its oversampled. 11.10 - Seeing was like soup. Focus was mostly a guess and looks like i guessed wrong. Not much to see but thought i would post it anyway. I was shocked at how difficult it was to tell if the image is in focus or not with this one. Jupiter was stable, not boiling or shimmering, just detailless at any level of focus. 4ms exposure and 3 minute recording for a total of 39k frames of which the best 10% went into the stack: And mars, similar story but this time 110k frames (!) with best 5% stacked: Of these 2 i like the Mars one a lot more even if it is very small. 12.10 - Seeing was much better, but still not very good. On the worse side of average i would guess, with occasional pockets of clarit coming through that allowed to have better focus. Jupiter has some detail, not a complete waste. Kind of happy how it turned out despite the difficulties in capture. And mars, this time 90k frames and best 5% stacked: Mars is exciting to image, it can only get better as it gets bigger and higher in the sky. Looking forward to opposition! I just noticed that I took the Mars images 26 hours apart, so there is very little difference as Mars has completed just a little over one rotation.

I dont think i have taken a single shot with enough integration to be fully happy yet. I hope to remedy that now and have some long integrations in the works, but who knows how many years it takes. Im aiming for at least 20 hours from decent skies with a couple broadband targets and if that's not enough ill throw everything off a cliff and pretend i took a shot i was happy with 👍.

Does look like some amp glow. Maybe ask the manufacturer if everything is ok with the camera? Could be some kind of fault. As far as i understand the ampglow comes from the circuitry in the camera and not necessarily the sensor itself, but thats a wild guess at best. I know these new Sony starvis sensors are quoted as completely amp glow free, but my 571 sensor camera (made by touptek, as is the hypercam i presume) has a little bit of extra glow visible at the top of the frame in extreme darks. By extreme i mean 3600s darks running for 15 hours at room temperature with the cooler at 90%+ power all of that time, but still there is some.

I wonder if this was an "aerial refractor" type lens with the lens sitting on top of a pole or a tree and the eyepiece handheld taught behind it with some rope attached to the top. Seems awful long for something to be built to a tube with any rigidity. I swear im not making that up, that actually did happen.

Great shot of Saturn! I like how the shadow has moved on already from behind Saturn to the side 2 months after opposition.

Quality of the particular SSD is also important, the one in my mini-pc starts struggling after its about 70% full and will not be able to keep up with full USB3 transfer rates.

Your results are very admirable with the troubles of manual tracking. Just shows that its not enough to throw money at the sky and expect miracles, it takes effort and skill to tease the end result out of the work put in and you definitely handle that well.

I would say no limit, just keep the target centered as it will drift with imperfect polar alignment over time. File sizes do get ridiculous after a while, more than 50gb files take forever and a half to stack so keep an eye on that maybe.

Universe sandbox on Steam may also be worth looking into. Its fun to experience, especially with VR goggles.

Staggering difference! We have it so good with software availability right now.

Its drizzled? Couldnt tell at all, so must have worked well. Do you have some guidelines on when its worth the effort to drizzle 1.5x or is it a gut feeling based on the conditions each night?

This one might be the best of the Petavius bunch. Looks nicely sharp on mobile zoomed in all the way.