Anne S

What about Erwlon Caravan and Camping Site. They have a field for tents some pitches with electric points. Full facilities. It's just south of Llandovery but walking distance into town. According to Clear outside it's bortle 3.

Llandovery is around 20 miles west of Brecon along the A40.

Here is my version of the Californa Nebula imaged in my back garden using an Atik 428 and Altairastro 70mmEDT Starwave refractor. I used Ha and Sii filters, processed as a bicolour image, Ha to red and Sii to blue and green. At two panel mosaic with 10x600s for each filter on each panel. Taken over a couple of nights in April when we had a fortnight of mostly clear skies. I was careful to complete both panel with each filter on the same night. I did try a few Oiii subs but didn't perserver as I would have need a very large number of subs to show anything other than stars!

Stacking and calibration was done with Astropixelprocessor. Further processsing done with Pixinsight.

One of my best images I think.

Anne

My eq6 was a lot noisier before I had it done but it was an old eq6. Your heq5 may have been quieter to start with.

2 minutes ago, Anne S said:

I've also got a 6 inch RC. I think the size is closer to an 8 inch SCT, which I've also had in the past. It's certainly a very generous 6 inch external dimension.

What about this.TS-Optics padded Carrying Case for SC RC MAK from 6" to 8" Aperture

it states RC6.

found it on another vendor site.

I've also got a 6 inch RC. I think the size is closer to an 8 inch SCT, which I've also had in the past. It's certainly a very generous 6 inch external dimension.

I had my eq6 belt modded years ago. Afterwards is was mostly a high pitched wine, a bit like yours. Is yours quieter with the cover on?

I thought I'd try the Abell 31. Couldn't see anything other than stars on the pc. Stacked 2 hours worth and got the image below. I'm trying for another 3 hours tonight.

I can't believe ha is so weak!

No processing other than calibration and stacking.

This star party has been postponed twice due to covid. We'll be arriving on 27th.

Maybe OnStep assumes that the mount is in the correct position when you start it up. As I said above, you won't know how accurate that is until you've been able to synchronise the mount with your software. Then they will agree.

At starparties the gotos on the first night after setup can be way off. Once I'm synced with my software and parked the mount, gotos are extremely accurate next time out. You need to be under the stars. You can then mark the home position. I used a strip of insulating tape for a while till it fell off!

1 hour ago, adyj1 said:

This isn't quite right - when you connect to EQMOD it *will* have a co-ordinate for the mount (normally the default park position of polaris) which you can check in the EQMOD driver software. If you ask it to slew to an object, as @scotty38 says, the mount will slew to where it thinks that location is. It won't be accurate (that's what alignment is for), but it will be approximate. If the mount slews off in a different direction altogether then there is something other than alignment going awry

 

I understood that it was new equipment. It's being pointed roughly. My thought was that the mount didn't know the exact home position. Hence the discrepancy.

You need to do a star alignment before you try slewing to anything. In Nina you'll platesolve to achieve this. You need to be under the stars to do it though. As to the numbers being wrong have you set your home position accurately? Most mounts don't have any marks on the axes so it will be approximate until you've aligned the mount to something. If you hen slew to the home position you'll be able to mark it.

How old are the flats?
My flats are normally taken around 30000 ADU, they're for a SX694 with a max ADU or 65000 ish, can't remember the number! It depends upon pixel size as understand it. Having said that the dust could have moved! Flats can stop working if you're using the same ones for a while.

Do the remaining dust bunnies on the stacked lights show in the same places as those on the individual flat frames?

I'm sure you'll get some more suggestions shortly.

On 12/09/2021 at 14:48, dnl said:

Hi 

I have skipped through the post so may have missed something. 

But I've just setup a mini pc using win 10 which I remote desktop to. 

I found a piece of software that turns the mini pc into the access point and gives an IP to your controlling laptop so no need for additional kit. 

Seems to work OK if you want to try it I'll fire up mini pc and find name of software for you. 

 

Dave

Please can you let me know the name of the software. I'm in the process of sorting out my mini pc to use at starparties.

Thanks

53 minutes ago, powerlord said:

I agree, the only thing to remember is, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

my asi1600 is 12mp. My asi533 is 9mp, but heck lets just pretend it was 12mp..

when I shoot mono, every single one of those 12m pixels is capturing L, R,G, B. Or S H O depending on how I'm shooting. I get a resultant sub where every single one of those 12m pixels is a 'real' colour pixel.

With the (imaginary 12mp for easy comparison) asi533 I have a 4 colour RGGB bayer mask. So I'm only capturing 3mp of R, 6mp of G, 3mp of B. Actually with an L-extreme you can pretty much forget about the B as it's usually trashed since it's just a noisy version of G. So I get 3mp of R and 6mp of G - which the camera/bayer mask interpolates up to be a 12mp colour image.

i.e. once debayered, it appears that I have the same 12mp colour image I get when I composite my asi1600 subs into an LRGB or SHO image, in fact, the majority of the data for each pixel is 'made up'.

Now my asi533 isn't 12mp, its 9mp. But the difference is still visible enough in lack of resolution on the same targets to see this affect isn't just a lack of 3mp - its the nature of an OSC. In reality something between 25% -50% of the resolution/detail from the same size mono camera.

You could maybe argue that IF that OSC was 12x3 = 36 mp AND had an RGB only bayer mask, that they'd be the same... though of course since the pixels woul;d be a 3rd of the size it wouldn't be the same at all.

Anyhoo - as I say - no such thing as a free lunch. I love shooting with the asi533 - I can get amazing results in a very short integration time, but the results I get with my asi1600 blows it away because of the above really. Horse for courses.

stu

That's why I use the ASI533 for starparties, I may only get an hour or two. At home I can resume images after several weeks if necessary with my permanently mounted mono setup.

I love the field of view I get with my 533, 60mm refractor with focal reducer bringing me to 288mm. Over 2 degrees field of view. You don't need as much resolution for wide field. I can get all the California Nebula  in at once.

I started with a mono camera and manual filterwheel. That worked fine until I upgraded my camera and bought a StarlightXpress original filterwheel. I still use mono at home as I've an observatory so can leave it all set up.

I prefer a OSC for starparties on my mobile rig, less weight and complication. Last year I upgraded my second hand Atik 320e to a ZWO 533. Its giving me a chance to try a cmos camera as that seems to be the way things are moving. If my 11 year old SX694 dies a death it'll probably be replaced with a mono cmos camera. I like large objects so would like a larger sensor which is readily available with cmos and much more reasonable in price. My SX694 cost £2000 and is a 1 inch diagonal sensor.

Pre cmos it was usually quicker to get good data using mono due to the better sensitivity. True narrowband is possible. However the newest cmos cameras such as the 533, 2600 and others, when used with the new multiband filters, are proving to be just as good as the old mono ccds. You do need to process them correctly which is more tricky and time consuming.

I take it your camera is cmos, don't know the QHY model numbers. The main issue with mono is the extra filterwheel and filters which can be eyewateringly expensive, particularly if you need larger ones. I need 36mm ones for my 694 as I use it with a focal reducer. I had bad vignetting.

I know you can see the separate colour channels in Photoshop. I think you can delete unwanted channels which, if you do it three times you'll get separate red, green and blue. I think. I do have a ASI533 OSC but I've only used it a couple of times because I do mono imaging at home.

You can stretch in Photoshop and you can recombine channels once you've stretched them. If you make the red mono image RGB you'll see three channels again, all the same Then you can paste the better of the blue and green channels onto the relevant channel, eg blue and green for HOO. I have a Photoshop astronomy book which shows a method for combining ha data into the red channel.

You ought to be able to make  synthetic green channel by layering blue onto red and trying blend levels and opacity.

This is a bit speculative as I haven't tried any of it. I have the odd OSC image so I can experiment but I've got to go out shortly. I'll try tomorrow. I don't use Photoshop much except for finishing off my processed images from Pixinsight. 
 

There's a topic under Imaging tips and techniques that describes using L'Enhance data being used to create a Hubble palate image. I'd put a link but I don't know how to.

You need to split the rgb image after stacking, Photoshop will do this, as well as Affinity Photo, but there's probably others. You use the red channel  which has hydrogen recorded and other the blue or green one, whichever is stronger, which has the Oiii. Just delete the one you don't use, probably blue as there's more green pixels. Make sure the remaining Oiii channel is called blue the create a synthetic green by combining a percentage of the remaining two channels, probably by layering and adjusting blends etc. Not an expert on Photoshop etc, I use Pixinsight!

Stretch the 3 channels so they look fairly similar then recombine as you want. I may have missed something but it explains it very clearly in the thread I've referred to above.

In any case, to process these multiband filter, at some point you really need to split the channels to you can stretch them appropriately to look like the images online. Here's my first attempt using this method below. The first one done without splitting the channels and looks like a RGB image and hardly shows the Oiii at all as the ha is so strong. Hope this helps. Camera was an Alik320e OSC which is not as sensitive as modern cameras.

I did reduce the star size on the second one!

We're going there too. Same pitch.

Our booking which was carried forward from last year and the year before is Monday to Monday. It does vary. We usually drive over on the Sunday before, 27th, as it's a 300 mile journey. We would have come earlier if it was clear but I've got a concert on 26 March. We may stay on at the end if there's space and clear nights. We're retired.

Depends when you're coming. We're arriving Sunday 27th.  Altair normally arrive on the Thursday. It's easier to ask Ian questions at the shop than when he's at Kelling. We normally cycle down after we've set everything up.

It can be expensive seeing al the toys!

No Altairastro in Aylsham!

How about a trip to Altair........

Anne

And you've transport when you need stuff. We have to cycle which is fine when it's dry. It's too much hassle to get the motorhome off the pitch!

I bought an ASI533 last year for starparties etc. I use ccd cameras at home. I was attracted to the sensitivity, it replaced and Atik 320e colour which needs long exposures. I'm using it with a 60mm F6 scope at 350mm. I've also bought a focal reducer that will reduce the focal length to 288mm. That will get most sensible sized nebulae in. I love the square sensor.

i didn't notice any issues with calibrating but, I admit I've only used it on three targets, a couple with an L'Enhance filter. I used Sequence Generator Pro for all capture including calibration frames. I'm using it on unity gain. Image below using L'Enhance filter, about 60x5 minute subs.

Calibrated with darks, flats and flat darks. Image taken at 350mm focal length.

When I need to replace my SX694 I'll look at the ASI2600 mono. That's a larger chip but double the price.

Norfolk Caravans or something like that.