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In what was my final image with the Optolong L-eXtreme filter before I had to send it back to FLO, I turned it over to Cassiopeia. I knew that the Lobster Claw nebula was hiding there somewhere by using Telescopius and framing it that way (since it doesn't show in Stellarium). I realised that with the field of view achieved by the 80ED, reducer and 071mc Pro I could fit no less than 4, possibly 5 or even 6 DSOs in one frame. I love this part of the night sky. The final image is composed of 31 x 300 second exposures, gain 95 at -5c. I ended up using the wrong dark frames by accident to calibrate it, and in all honesty I was too lazy to go shoot the right dark frames and re-edit it. So I just cropped out any nasty parts and edited it as normal. Not great practice I know but I really didn't get enough time with this target anyway. Either way I'm sharing the result and I hope you enjoy it! Clear skies all, keep looking up & keep them cameras clicking

I'm new to the astrophotography hobby. I have experience with astronomy. I am struggling to make decent deep sky images (other than M42). The images don't seem to have much definition or brightness despite a decent overall exposure time. See the below images. I have seen on this forum that people are able to take awesome images of the below objects with my same setup. Is anyone able to tell me if I am missing something, please? Do I need even more exposure time? I use a Celestron 6SE with unmodified Canon 600D. It has a goto alt az, no EQ. I use a bahtinov mask to focus. Both images were taken with the native focal length of 1500mm, no filters or eyepieces. The image of the Triangulum Galaxy is 180 x 15sec ISO800 images. The Crab Neb is 250 x 15sec ISO800 images. Both images had their appropriate flats, darks and biases (30 of each). I use SIRIL to stack the images, which I have had good success with M42 before (see below). Any advice would be appreciated!

A quick sketch from the 1st September (sorry - date is wrong on the image). M15 was still fairly low in the east but the central condensation of stars really stood out, even in a 5.5inch scope. The bright field star intruding on the edge of the image was distracting. If I had a tracking mount I'd have banished it permanently! A lot of the extended GC was on the threshold of vision and the resolved stars faded in and out. M15 will always have a special place for me as it was the first GC i ever saw Thanks for looking. Jack

Greetings everyone. Few months ago I wrote a post about a small refractor to mount on a Star Adventurer, but I'm now considering fast tele lens like the Nikon 80-200 f2.8. My question is: what is the best tele lens to get pictures of Andromeda galaxy, Orion, Soul, Hearth nebula and stuff like these? If I'd pick a 70-200 f2.8 lens, can I plug a teleconverter 2x to get better crop without losing details? I've attached a picture taken with my Nikon D3300 and 18-105 kit lens, as you can see it's quite small (forget about the quality, it was also quite foggy back then). Thanks in advance.

Having spent some time using my Nikon D90 on a fixed tripod to take wide field images, last night I moved on and took the image below using my DSLR, William Optics Z61 combined with the field flatter on a polar aligned AVX mount. Using APT to sight and frame the cluster, I then switched to an intervalometer so I could capture 2 minute subs. Overall there are 37 lights combined with 5 darks and 10 flats, then stacked in DSS and processed through Photoshop. Would welcome any feedback. Cheers, John

Hello all Just thought I would share my first go at M101. Hope it's ok! http://www.astrobin.com/full/289155/0/ Kind regards Gerry

Hi I've got an 8" dobsonian and I just got a dslr to connect to it. Obviously there's no tracking so what kind of things can I capture. Will I be able to do dso and planets? Thanks

Hi everyone, i was looking for narrow-band filters and i came across the Baader UHC and the Baader OIII. I was reading up about these filters and it says they're "stackable". I wasn't to sure what this meant so i came here to ask. Does this mean that you can physically put a filter on top of another filter and if so would it be advisable with these two filters (Baader UHC and the Baader OIII)?. My telescope is a Skywatcher 130p Synscan GoTo if anyone needs to know. Thanks

Good evening dear members. Could you please help me choose a telescope: I would like to be able to see nebulae, galaxy, star clusters for example, and surely Jupiter, Saturn, To start first: I can spend 400-500£, I understand this is not much, but for now I am ready to get started. My wish is to photograph as well, but in a distant future, like 2-3 years from now, because when I look at my mother's pictures I understand -this is what I would like to do. Obviously the outcome will be different if I choose for viewing or for photography. I was advised a Dobsonian will be good for viewing DSOs, and a refractor for photography. What about reflector telescopes? I have found one Bresser reflector telescope (Bresser Messier AR-152S/760), is it any good? If I will find a decent telescope what upgrades will I need (lenses)? Your help is very much appreciated. PS: I live in Haslemere, Surrey, the sky is not as polluted as in London, where I used to live. Lovelight.

I was wondering what images of dso I could get with this setup. How and how much would my images improve if I added in a decent file flattened and what would happen if I exceeded the maximum telescope magnification with Barlow lens.

Hi After a break of some years, and having sold my equipment, I am being drawn back into doing some deep sky imaging. The thing that stopped me before was the long cold nights with usb connections meaning I had to be near the scope. I have been looking at wifi control and the ASIAIR system looks really good but it is expensive (on top of re-equipping with scope and camera etc.) and nobody seems to have stock. So I am trying to find out about the Skywatcher synscan wifi adapter. However, I cannot see a way of connecting a guide camera without a usb cable to the laptop, which rather defeats the object. I do not really want to leave a laptop out and connect via TeamViewer. On the FLO site it says that the wifi adapter supports ASCOM guiding. How does the camera connect? Thanks in advance and apologies for the ramble! Barry

Hi everyone! I was lucky enough to get a clear night last night, and have the first chance to test out my new Explorer 200p. Some of you may remember me posting a topic about how people lift such heavy things, and I got a huge amount of replies. In the end, I decided to split the scope into four parts: 1. Tube 2. Counterweights - to lighten the load as I move the mount 3, Accessory tray - So I could fold the tripod legs in 4. Mount + Tripod In the end, it took me about 15-20 minutes to set everything up, then I had to wait about 20 minutes for the sky to darken. In that time, I looked for an iridium flare, which the iflares app predicted. In the end, it never happened (Though I saw one at Magnitude 0 later on). Because it was nowhere near dark, I just pointed the scope at Vega. After that, I took a look at Albireo, looking as colourful as ever. I then looked for the double-double, but I struggled to split it - possibly because of seeing. After that, it became sufficiently dark to start DSO hunting. My first target was the Ring Nebula. I'd seen it with my old 150, but it was quite hard to spot. With the 200p, it jumped out at me! I added more zoom, and the nebula filter, and the ring shape was clear as day! My next target was M13, an old favourite. It was easy to see, with a somewhat mottled surface at low zoom, but when I cranked up the power, the stars were easy to see - much more so than in my old 150. After that, I looked at the Andromeda galaxy. It was a lot lower down, in hazy sky, so it looked little more than a hazy blob. Hopefully, it should be better when it's better placed in the autumn. Finally, I found the dumbbell. It was easy to see at low power, without the filter, but when I zoomed in, and added in the filter, it showed some good detail. However, even with all this, the dumbbell shape was still quite subtle. Still, even in photos, it's not as contrasty as the Ring. After that, it was getting on for eleven, and if I was up any later, my parents would kill me (not literally of course), so I came in. It took me about half an hour to bring my scope back in, and in that time, I let a couple of large moths in. Overall, it was certainly a good first observing session with my new scope! Thanks everyone for the advice you've given me with carrying my scope, as well as other things! David

Hi All, August is one of my favourite months for astronomy - it gets dark at a slightly more reasonable time but the nights are still tolerably mild. Tonight was hot and clear, with a little haze around the horizon so I trotted down to the park with the agenda of pushing my ST80 to its limit in these urban skies and hunting down some nice elusive DSOs. With no moon and no cloud I had the killer combination! I could see stars down to about Mag 4.5, which for Bushy is a really good, dark night. I started with M11, still sparkling wonderfully at 16x. I'm declaring this my new warm-up object now that Saturn is too low to observe. I then hopped over to M13 to make sure I had my eye in and the 'scope was cooled. It glowed wonderfully, the best I've seen it yet with the ST80, so I was feeling pretty hopeful for some new Messiers. M27 was one I struggled to find as a teen. As a relatively bright, concentrated object I knew it was a good one to seek out now that the moon was out of the way. At first I was squinting into the eyepiece at random faint stars, but I wasn't convinced I'd found it, especially because it's described as being spectacular. So I referred to good old TL@O and found out I was using the wrong star of Sagitta as a guide. So I tried again and straight away got the elongated blob slap in the middle of the field of view. This was a big moment for me because I'd never found the wretched thing with the Tal - at 40x it even started to show a little shape but made me realise that I need to find a way to get more apeture. After some time of viewing M27 I went for something a lot more challenging; the open/globular/whatever cluster M71 in Sagitta. It's easy to locate but with the small scope and the urban skies, its diffuse glow was always going to be tricky. I managed to find it - a very faint smudge in the telescope, but this will be one to seek out when I'm in dark skies next. I shifted my focus next to Lyra's two Messiers. The Ring Nebula is easy, even from an urban park, and with a bit of magnification revealed its Cheerio shape. I tried to use the barlow but it appeared the skies weren't as stable as I thought they were and I struggled to see anything with it. Finally I aimed for M56, another faint globular. High in the sky I stood a really good chance with it, and I managed to get it first time. It was surprisingly easy to spot and seemed quite bright, probably a result of altitude. Even with higher magnification it didn't really require any averted vision. Before I packed up and ran home to Mrs Dangerous I had a quick look at M31 - the view was awful to the north and east with the orange sodium glow of the city making most of the galaxy invisible. Just the bright core could be seen as a slightly fuzzy glow. I think it'll give more as it shifts round to the south come the autumn, but right now it's easier to see from the doorstep. These are the challenges of urban astronomy though - one might say the Vega-ries. Ho ho ho... DD

Hi All, When I first moved out of the New Forest I was advised not to bother taking telescope. I'd always taken it for granted that there wasn't any point pursuing astronomy as a hobby from London because of the light pollution. People will tell you that you can't see faint messier objects, you can't see stuff near the horizon and you certainly can't see the Milky Way. In fact ordinarily this is what I'd tell but sometimes a night comes along that defies common experience, and last night changed every assumption I had about what can be seen from an urban park... Of course I do have certain natural advantages - I have exceptional peripheral vision and I don't quite live in London. Teddington is pretty dark by London standards and Bushy Park is a huge asset for an astronomer because you can get out from all the sodium lamps. The Northern horizon is always a write-off but the rest of the sky can be surprisingly good. Coupled with recent thunderstorms that have washed the sky clean of its usual load of dirt, I did have it particularly easy. Even when I was walking down, ST80 slung over the shoulder, I was surprised by just how clear it was. Even from street level I could make out all the priniciple stars of the summer triangle constellations, even faint little Sagitta showing up. Once in the park I was truly astounded because the Southern horizon, normally an impenetrable glow of pollutants, was as sharp as I could hope with the teapot clearly visible. With this in mind, I immediately set up and went hunting for something I'd always wanted to see, the Lagoon Nebula. I never expected to see it from London with such a small scope but within minutes I had it clear in the viewfinder. Another astronomical lifelong ambition achieved. The stars of the cluster sparkled on their pool of glowing nebulosity, shockingly easy to see. This, I could tell, was going to be an epic one. I followed the advice of another user, andrew63, and swept the area with my trusty Nikon bins too, so I was able to check and double check that I'd seen all these things. I went through Sagittarius and found the following: M8 (Lagoon Nebula) - Beautful, surpassed all expectations M17 (Omega Nebula) - Found this one harder with just a faint glow of nebulosity and no real structure. Better view with bins M18 - Maybe not the most visually spectacular cluster I found M20 (Trifid Nebula) - Best view was with the bins, although clearly visible nebulosity in the ST80 M21, M23, M25 - Again, best views with the bins, although I found M25 especially lovely in the scope M22 - Astounding sight, nice large glow of globular cluster. A superlative object and a new favourite along with M8 M24 - Ah, the advantages of widefield telescope... Countless stars to sweep through. M28 - A little disappointing. Maybe I misread but TL@O seems to confuse the position of this one and M22. After that I moved on up the sky towards Scutum. M11 is now a permanent fixture on any night, but tonight I saw structure in it, and it held up well to a little more magnification. Having never seen M26 I thought I'd "tick off" Scutum, and indeed I did find it, a faint sparkling patch next to delta. The Wild Ducks were still the main highlight. The next bit was something of a shock though, and feel free to be as disbelieving as you like. I wouldn't believe me either, except I grew up in the New Forest. I've always been slightly confused that seeing the Milky Way is such a big deal for people - where I grew up it was just... there. In August it was this ever-present glow down the middle of the sky, and out on the Forest it would start to resolve into its countless stars. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful sight, but I never appreciated how wonderful it is until I moved to London and couldn't see it. That is until I looked up, resting my eyes from the eyepiece, stared into the transparent sky above me and saw a faint, diffuse glow arching through Cygnus and on into Aquila. I had to blink, but I wasn't imagining it because it had a big dark rift in the middle but I was actually looking at the Milky Way while inside the M25. I don't think nights like that come along too often. I should be clear about this though, it was exceptionally faint, but it's something I've grown up with and can recognise a mile off (Or a few hundred parsecs anyway) so I knew exactly what it was. I also had to let the wife know I might be a little late home... I then went ever higher and had another crack at M27 which was a revelation - with averted vision and a bit of magnification it started to reveal some of its structure wonderfully. Am I really still within the GLA I wondered? Next logical step was the Ring Nebula, and with the stability of the sky I was able to power it right up to 80x (Pushing it with my scope) and had the best view of it I have managed, with the hole clear with averted vision - better even than when we were n Pembrokeshire. I took out my bins again and searched out M39 in Cygnus, a lovely little haze of stars. And on a galactic note I finished off by looking for Andromeda as it creeps ever higher in the sky. Although not brilliant, I could make out the shape of the galaxy clearly, and the core was nice and crisp. I was satisfied too to find M32 lurking beneath it. M110 will have to wait until our autumn trip to the West country though. So that wraps it up. My messier count is up to about 34, I managed to find an awful lot I'd never seen before, and I am now perfectly satisfied that, at least from the periphery, astronomy is a worthwhile hobby here in London. I doubt the Milky Way is a regular sight even in Bushy Park though... DD

Hi there, I currently have access to a Skywatcher 200p and am loving it although imaging is a bit tricky with it for deep sky objects. However I will be losing access to it later this year. This obviously means I need to reach into my pockets and buy something for myself. My main aim is to photograph the Messier list of objects which means I need some sort of tracking scope setup. My question is which one...? I'm not looking to break the bank so preferably something under £1000 but if that isn't possible then I could go a little bit higher... Portability would be useful but not an absolute must. I currently have a DSLR so that would need to be able to be fitted to it as I can't quite justify buying one of the proper sky cameras at the moment. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Simon

After several weeks of not pulling out the scope I was pleased to finally have a chance to hit a clear, dark sky location. Red Rock State Park in California was the location du jour - a Bortle 2 location I hit when ever in this part of the country on business. Conditions were great with temperatures in the low 80s (F) and negligible winds. A light haze lingered on the horizon due to stronger winds earlier in the day. After judging conditions were OK when M65, M66, and NGC 3628 were all visible a great night began. I had wanted to do some deep deep observing so I searched SkyTools3 for quasars within the ability of my scope - the listed came up with a couple that I hadn't heard of before so i got excited. First up was HE 1106-2321 in Crater - listed as a mag 13.7 quasar. Despite not having star hopped in several weeks I found it easiest to hop down from Beta Crt to a mag 8.9 star that served as a base. From there a line of three stars led away to a strong L asterism. The quasar was between the first two in the line...but was FAINT. I had to move magnification up to 240x to pull out the faint photons in averted vision. I was able to get a clear view twice while the scope was slowly moving but upon only viewed faintly a few other times. A mag 13.2 star was more easily visible in the proximity. Next up was moving up to Virgo for SN2012cg. Hopping through several galaxies I was able to find the supernova glowing brightly (may have been a touch brighter than the listed mag 12.0). It overpowered it's host galaxy NGC 4424...with the galaxy's glow only possible with averted vision away from the supernova. The nova is very close to the galactic core. Also in the area NGC 4417 and NGC 4445 were faintly observed - just faint fuzzies. I swung the scope over to UMa and star hopped over to MKN 421 which was supposed to be rather difficult to find because not much is in the local area. But I found a double kite (or diamond) asterism that made locating the quasar pretty easy. The mag 6 stars nearby nearly overpowered the quasar but it was visible with averted vision - not that it was too faint...but the other stars just overpowered it. Taking a break from the ultra deep observing I moved over to Antares and observed M 4 and NGC 6144. M 4 was stunning at 120x looking like the many legs of a spider streaming away from the center point. NGC 6144 is a faint GC that wasn't much more than a grainy cotton ball - I imagine upping the magnification may have given a better view...but I was off again. Next up was the naked eye Lagoon Nebula which glowed very nicely at 120x and 240x. I went with and without UHC filter and was pleased with both views. The dark vein running through the nebula stood out best at 240x but was still visible at 120x. In the vicinity observations included the Omega Nebula (very nice with and without UHC filter), a few open clusters, and even the Ring Nebula which I like best without the filter as I get more color). I split the Double Double while around Vega. The final joy of the night was observing both the east and west parts of the Veil Nebula - just a whisper was visible with an unfiltered view but the UHC filter made it stand out very nicely. I had no idea that this nebula was soo big. Had to go with 46x to see it on any scale. A pretty good night - 2 new quasars, 1 new supernova, and a handful of nebula and faint galaxies. Today I'm off to Las Vegas and if i don't melt in the 100+ (F) heat I hope to put in some Bortle 1 viewing in the desert on Thursday and Friday. My scope has been begging for an even darker location. Could be fun! Happy hunting!

How do you top a night where you observed two quasars and one supernova? You go to a darker location and focus almost exclusively on quasars in the magnitude 13-14 range. On the night of June 14 I drove almost 80 minutes north of Las Vegas to the Paranaugat wildlife Refuge arriving after sunset but well before true darkness set in. A quiet location but for the highway I used to get there - I didn't realize how much traffic this highway received after dark - not a five minute period went by without cars/trucks speeding by washing over my viewing location with their headlights - I got really good at keep my eyes closed to protect my night vision. And it was dark - this was my first Bortle 1 location with the horizon being completely black except for due south where the light dome of Las Vegas glowed dimly on the horizon up to about 10 degrees. The Milky Way was brilliant. Air temperatures dropped from the mid-90s (F) to the mid-80s (F) and winds dropped to nearly nothing in the hour after sunset. Despite being such a dark location my views of galaxies were never 'crisp' - I've had far better galaxy views from other locations (that are less dark) so there must have been a good bit of moisture in the airmass up high. Stars were clear with beautiful spikes coming from the bright ones. Several 'visibility test targets' were jumped through as I was waiting for twighlight to fade. The Hercules Cluster (M15), Alberio, and M92 all old friends revisited. My normal test targets - M65, M66, NGC 3628 - were briefly observed a few times over the course of the night but never impressed (which was disappointing). First hunt of the night was MKN 501 - a mag 14.5 quasar an unknown distance away. I hopped down from Eta Her and found a "V" asterism of roughly mag 8 stars that pointed right to the target area. After camping on a mag 12.6 star I was able to see the faintest galactic haze around a 'star' at the right location - that's the target with the 'star' being the quasar shining bright in the galactic core. Quasar find #5! Staying in Hercules I went hunting for B3 1715+425 - a mag 13.3 quasar listed at 2.1 Gly distant. I found the start of this hunt a challenge as I started star hopping from Iota Her - which was a challenge to find as it's not an overly bright star and doesn't stand out in the finder scope. I could clearly see it naked eye but had difficulty translating that to the finder scope. I eventually did find Iota and star hopped up to the area via a line of mag 5 - 6 stars to M92. I hopped to the correct location, positively identified the mag 8.4 star that was my 'base camp' for this hunt...then could clearly make out the mag 13 and 13.4 stars nearby but the quasar was nowhere to be seen...it was supposed to be sitting between the mag 8.4 and mag 13 stars...but nothing was there. Upped the magnification from 120x to 240x but it didn't help. No joy on this target. I'm thinking my star chart program must have been off in either magnitude of the target or location...because mag 13 targets were easily seen this night. Next I swung the scope over to Draco and PG 1634+706 (A Sky & Telescope target this month) - a mag 14.7 quasar listed 7.6 Gly away (but this month's Sky & Telescope said the distance is most likely incorrect due to time/space expansion). I star hopped over from Pherkhad in Ursa Minor to a grouping of mag 6-8 stars and then down to the target area. Positively IDing the quasar was not that difficult tonight as there isn't much else in the immediate vicinity...but a series of mag 12-14 stars ring the area and were all visible. The quasar stood out as a compact star-like body. Quasar #6! Next down to the tail of Draco for MKN 180 - a mag 14.5 target an unknown distance away. The star hop from the tip of the tail (Gianifar) wasn't too difficult...and I made a postive ID based off where the faint stars were in relation to one another...the quasar formed the corner of a parallelogram with 3 other stars - but it was faint. This was about the faintest target of the night and averted only. Quasar #7. Next moving up Draco's body to PG 1351+640 - a mag 14.3 quasar listed 1.1 Gly distant. A pretty easy star hop and a line of mag 10 stars pointed right to the averted-only quasar. It was faint but there were stars a little further away that were more faint. Quasar #8!! A little further up the body and star hopping over from Ursa Minor led to 3C 305.0 - a mag 13.7 quasar listed at 550 Mly distance. The star hop was the biggest challenge here as so many faint stars were visible it was tough for me to keep track of which star I was really looking at. After about 10 minutes of hunting/checking/moving/hunting/checking/verifying I finally made it to the correct target location and could see a faint star-like object in the faintest of haze - that's the target. Several mag 14.x stars were clearly visibile in the vicinity. Averted vision brought out the most of the haze...but the target was not difficult in these conditions. Mark that as #9!!! Final ultra deep target of the night was IRAS 17371+5615 - a mag 14.0 target listed at 960 Mly. Another challenging star hop trying to pin down faint stars in the head of Draco...eventually did it and camped out on a mag 10.3 star where the quasar was out on a ring of mag 14.x stars in the same EP view. I was able to pin down each of the mag 14 stars with the target quasar being #3 in the line. This was a faint target...but it was there. An even 10 quasars logged! Time to view a few more old friends - M101 with darkness showing between faint farms, M51 which was the only stunning galaxy of the night with the arms showing about as clearly as I've ever seen them, M63 with the bright core and expansive dim glow, and M94 was just a bright core. Then down to NGC 4618 and NGC 4625 - both of which were little more than faint smears. 4618 was clearly brighter and the core stood out well. I finished up my CVn tour with the Cocoon galaxy and companion NGC 4485 - the Cocoon had a bright core and appeared maybe "quarter-on" facing...4485 was non-discript. Their proximity lends itself to interaction but I couldn't see any through the EP. A great, dark night. Very pleased with the very faint targets I was able to pin down. 6 new quasars observed (+1 more missed) and 3 new galaxies. I'm all smiles (well I am now after a decent sleep). Happy hunting.

Hi, I wan't to tell you about a relatively new open source imaging suite that I have been using for around 7-8 months now. Night time imaging n' astronomy or in short NINA! The new website is really quite informative, so check it out here: https://nighttime-imaging.eu/ As a software developer and IT professional I was blown away by this application these guys were creating, when I first stumbled upon it last year. It is a really feature rich application as the very long feature list below will show, and it is absolutely free! I was immediately drawn to the very simple but still quite information rich UI that was presented to me when I tried it the first time. Isbeorn (the developer), Dark Archon (massive contributor) and Quickload (big contributor) have really created something impressive here, and it is constantly being improved upon. It is quite normal to see these guys working on the next cool feature in the middle of the night As it is a "hobby project" and Open Source, and these guys don't have every model of every camera available - sometimes there can be glitches with new equipment, but it is usually sorted out in quick fashion. But this is where we "mere mortals" can help improve this amazing piece of software, by using it and providing feedback and logs (in case of errrors) via. Discord or the Issue tracker on bitbucket. In return for this you get a very comprehensive piece of astro imaging software for absolutely nothing! If anyone needs any help in settings this up, don't hesitate to write in this thread and I will try to help, or jump on Discord and join the "support" channel. I recommend taking the latest beta version, pretty much always, as it has the latest fixes and is generally stable. List of main features as grabbed from the webpage and personal experience (I surely missed some): Equipment control ASCOM Cameras Mounts Filter wheels Focusers Rotators Native camera drivers for Atik ZWO QHYCCD Altair Astro cameras Canon Nikon Touptek Can run multiple camera's and supports syncronized dithering (early version, but tested in the field!) Image analysis Image statistics Auto stretch Full image star detection with HFR calculation (used for autofocus as well) Exposure time recommendation Sequencing Multitarget sequence lists (image multiple targets automatically) Automatic mosaic capture as defined in framing assistant Light, Bias, Dark, DarkFlat, Flat frames of various exposure lengths and gain/iso Automatic filter change Autofocus using full image HFR calculations over time number of exposures Temperature change Automatic centering and rotation of targets using platesolving Save as raw (dslr), fits, xisf, etc. Customizeable filename pattern Automatic meridian flip Can automatically flip and recenter target after flip has been completed Sky atlas Sky atlas with more than 10.000 objects. Filtering on type, magnitude, size, altitude and more Altitude chars showing showing altitude over time for your location Framing assistant Can pull data from various skyserveys, to make framing and planning easier You can see a preview of your fov based on camera and scope details Mosaic planning mode Shows your mosaic tilesin the framing wizard Set desired overlap percentage Offline skymap shows gridlines and all sky atlas DSO's, constellations and coordinates ("Cartes du Ciel'ish") Sleek and customizable UI Imaging tab can be customized to show all the information you could possibly want to see image (duh! ;)) Statistics HFR history PHD2 graph and statistics Mount information Camera information Filter wheel information Platesolve information Weather data and more.. Quick switch between light and dark scheme Customizable colorschemes Flats wizard Set a desired ADU and tolerance for flats Simple mode or multimode where flats are captured for each filter Set minimum and maximum exposure time Guide to help you get the desired flats Can automatically capture matching darkflats Other cool features PHD2 integration with Dithering Weather data from OpenWeatherMap API List of bright focus stars for use with Bahtinov mask, clik and slew to it Polar alignment tools Configuration profiles, so different setups can be used A word about open source: The project is open source, this means that all source code is readily available from bitbucket, and anyone is free to contribute code. The developer is Isbeorn (Stefan) and as the repository manager he decides when and if a submission (pull request) is deemed good enough to enter a release..! There are a couple of other main contributors who do a lot of work, and put in a lot of their free time to this project. You are free to ask for features and request support and people are generally very helpful and quick to implement something if it is a good idea. BUT as this is a hobby project for these people, don't expect the same of them as you would of a company from whom you buy a product, IT IS UNFAIR! A word about Discord: Discord is a free chat (text and voice) platform that anyone can create a server on. Discord as a whole is not run by the people behind N.I.N.A., only the NINA server, and as such is not moderated by the developers.

Well, miracles do happen, just spent an evening with the bins under my first half decent local clear skies of 2017. Bagged the following objects in two stints M81, M82, M92, M13, M3, M42, M45, M31, then later on between 23:00 and 00:30, Jupiter, M44, M51, Leo triplet (very faint with averted vision), M53, NGC5053 and a whole host of very faint unidentifiable smudges in the coma and Virgo regions. Most pleased about M51 and the Leo triplet, first time I've managed to see these with the 15x85 binoculars?