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crashtestdummy

By crashtestdummy
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Soupy

Soupy

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Glad dentist went well Kieran, I'll be setting off around 9.15 so will meet you and Damian and anyone else making their way there about 9.45. Skies looking great for now, fingers crossed they stay that way.

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Nephalem

Nephalem

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Sorry not been on in a while guys, had a few weddings to shoot. I probably wont be out until after July due to holiday and work. If anyone is interested I have booked an imaging course on 20th July http://s175657640.websitehome.co.uk/CCDLandWebSite/courses.html

Seems to cover a good area on imaging, something which I need!

Hope you have a good night tonight.....for once the weather seems to be kind to us!

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Sammyb

Sammyb

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Sammy it's Cgem DX 1100, 80mm short guide scope, Orion SSAG cam, DSLR

Oooo nice bit of gear. I like SCTs. Are you not experiencing problems with the long focal length? Are you using the f6.3 reducer/flattener? (apologies if this has been discussed already)

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crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

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Well what a waste of time for me tonight.clear all the way up until about 20miles out then 100% cloud cover and the net office forcast that had been clear all week for tonight had changed on the way up to cloudy!!good job theres a swear filter on the forum so 280mile round trip for nothing.clear now at home but cant be bother so going to bed.that it for me until the nights start getting longer arround august onwards

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Soupy

Soupy

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Great night at winscarr with Damian and Kieran, shame you ere clouded out Rich.

bagged a good dozen or so Messiers, Venus, mercury and Saturn with 7 moons through Damian's scope.

got a good image of m10 and some cracking startrails with ISS included. Guiding went well for both me and Kieran.

excellent night and company

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mapstar

mapstar

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A brilliant night guys and had some great views especially of Saturn which was simply stunning from a dark site with better contrast.

Only down side is very little sleep before work so I feel extremely tired !

Hope to see some good images today from both your scopes as you seemed to have got them guiding really good. Well done Kieran for your research paying off.

I really got into star hopping by the end of the night when I'd finally got my eye in with the star charts .No new messiers though but there's aways another night possibly Sunday?

Sorry to say at the end of the night whilst packing away I accidentally stood on Kierans bhatinov mask so I'll have to make amends for that one.

Sounds like you had a disastrous night crash sorry to hear.

The dew was quite bad last night my star charts were wet through!

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nicks90

nicks90

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i had an awesome night last night with my webcam and saturn - managed to get my little ra motor working and with a rough polar align (house is in the way) using my compass, I was able to get 3 minute avis with my asda webcam with 2 stacked x2 barlows (does that give x4 or is that too simplistic?)

did about 12 movies, over 17Gb of data to process. Did each one with slightly different settings so that once stacked I can work out which is best and do some more next clear night. Hopefully several of them will come out right and i can stitch those together too.

quick question regarding focussing, with the webcam in and 2 barlows stacked - the point of focus was an INCREDIBLY fine point, whats the best way of ensuring you have focus right - as its not massively clear when viewing on the preview pane?

in between taking movies, i had my meade 6.4mm and one barlow in and the cassini was sooo easily split with 3 very obvious moons. I think flocking was a jolly good idea, helped by brilliant seeing conditions.

nick

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Sammyb

Sammyb

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Hi Nick - yes the focussing is hard - espcially as the image will go all blurry as the atmosphere shifts. I think its just trial and error. Depending on your scope/camera with Saturn/Jupiter you can use the moons/Cassini division to check focus.

Also - have you thought of a Bhatinov focussing mask? I used to use one of those when trying to image deep space stuff. Incredibly useful

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Nephalem

Nephalem

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On the plus side the Cawfields site is pretty good so will definately be paying a visit when the nights are dark again

I was staying at Heydown Bridge not far from Cawfieklds, great area! We stayed at Hadrians Lodge Hotel outside of Haydon Bridge, that would be a great place to stay if we wanted to make a few days of it. I bet we could even set up the scopes in the hotel car park. Does anyone fancy making a weekend of it later on in the year, if we can guarantee the weather ?

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nicks90

nicks90

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Hi Nick - yes the focussing is hard - espcially as the image will go all blurry as the atmosphere shifts. I think its just trial and error. Depending on your scope/camera with Saturn/Jupiter you can use the moons/Cassini division to check focus.

Also - have you thought of a Bhatinov focussing mask? I used to use one of those when trying to image deep space stuff. Incredibly useful

with the webcam i've got you cant see the cassini division on the laptop screen - i just dont think its sensitive enough and having a limited 130mm scope too doesnt help. Cant you use a bhatinov or Y mask on a planet, or is that for pin point stars only?

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Sammyb

Sammyb

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Cant you use a bhatinov or Y mask on a planet, or is that for pin point stars only?

Yes you use it in the same way as when doing deepspace stuff. point at a bright star with the mask on, focus it, lock the focus if you can then slew to the planet. I've never used one for planets though... just fiddled with it until looks rightish. Some people on here use them all the time. The first one I had I made. There is a website that does you a template for your scope then you use that to cut out some stiff card. Takes ages and its fiddly... or you can buy one.

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Astronomer69

Astronomer69

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Kieran, is this software used only for setting up and capturing, I assume not processing ? Is it easy enough to use ?

It's basically used for focusing and shooting your deep sky objects and yes it's very easy to use and very useful you just set your exp time ISO setting etc and the press start and it does all the hard work for you and shows you each image on the screen after its been took so if things don't look right you just press pause and adjust to suit and then press resume, it's a great peice of software.

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mapstar

mapstar

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It looks another cracking night, hope some of you get out? I may do when I get back in after an evening out but thankful of some much needed sleep this aft!

Hope your teeth are much better today Kieran.

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Soupy

Soupy

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I have my girls too so don't think I'll even get to the garden! However they did babysit for me and misses so we could do a 20 mile bike ride. Sunset was amazing tonight hope you all got out to see it :grin:

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