Summer nights, hopeless for imaging

[ollypenrice]

Move south! We have a minimum of 4 hours' darkness and lots of clear nights in the summer. Wonderful. (Sorry!!! Don't hit me...)

Olly

[Gina]

Move south! We have a minimum of 4 hours' darkness and lots of clear nights in the summer. Wonderful. (Sorry!!! Don't hit me...)

Olly

Yeah!!

[lensman57]

Move south! We have a minimum of 4 hours' darkness and lots of clear nights in the summer. Wonderful. (Sorry!!! Don't hit me...)

Olly

I knew there was a reason why they built Jodrell bank up here and not down south, is there a 4" dish for radio astronomy anywhere for sale?

A.G

[davew]

Hi AG,

I'm just a few miles away at the most. It's dark

Get out there this minute. Why should I suffer alone ?

Dave.

[lensman57]

Hi AG,

I'm just a few miles away at the most. It's dark

Get out there this minute. Why should I suffer alone ?

Dave.

Hi Dave,

Last night was a liitle better than the two previous nights but I had to cook and after acouple of glasses of the rose wine, I decided to just relax so no imaging frustrations tonight.

Regards,

A.G

[Gina]

The nights are drawing in again now - I can start imaging a good half hour earlier that at the solstice.

[ncjunk]

I'm with olly on this, summer is fantastic here! Better 3 weeks of clear 4 hour imaging sessions than 3 months of staring at clouds.

Winter really is a pain for imaging cloud just streams off of the atlantic.

Sent from my GT-I9003 using Tapatalk 2

[iksose7]

I'm loving the summer night. I live in Southern France and up until a couple weeks ago this year was just no stop rain and cloud. Now its clear every night! Only thing i have to put up with now are the high noise inducing temps during the night.

[iksose7]

I'm loving the summer nights. I live in Southern France and up until a couple weeks ago this year was just non stop rain and cloud. Now its clear every night! Only thing i have to put up with now are the high noise inducing temps during the night.

[Gina]

The nights are drawing in now and imaging time increasing Nothing like the south of France though I love Devon though

[Davey-T]

Well I've spent the last week of clear nights trying to set up and guide my iOptron ieq45 mount without a lot of luck, last night the Polar scope fell apart and I dropped a tiny black grub screw on the ground, just glad the sky has been pretty pants for

imaging so haven't wasted any good skies

Dave

[lensman57]

Well I've spent the last week of clear nights trying to set up and guide my iOptron ieq45 mount without a lot of luck, last night the Polar scope fell apart and I dropped a tiny black grub screw on the ground, just glad the sky has been pretty pants for

imaging so haven't wasted any good skies

Dave

Hi Dave,

I set up the EQ5 last night , polar aligned it, put the scope on and got Alderamin lined up to go to ic1396, by the time that I had set PHD up it clouded over. Packed up and went in in disgust, I went to bed at 1 am as I was working this morning, the sky was quite clear by then. Sometimes the magic does not work. Wish you all clear skies.

Reagrds,

A.G

[kirkster501]

Hi Dave,

I set up the EQ5 last night , polar aligned it, put the scope on and got Alderamin lined up to go to ic1396, by the time that I had set PHD up it clouded over. Packed up and went in in disgust, I went to bed at 1 am as I was working this morning, the sky was quite clear by then. Sometimes the magic does not work. Wish you all clear skies.

Reagrds,

A.G

Happens all the time mate. Indeed, I have done that sequence three times in a night. Set up, and then it clouded over. Waited an hour, still cloud. So gave up and packed away. Of course, it then clears. Give it half an hour to see if it stays clear. It does, wonderfully so, So set up again. Clouds over. GIve it another hour, still cloud. So give up and pack away. Clears up... This sequence happens all the time. That's why an observatory would be so nice to have. I just don't have the horizon views for it, I have to move the scope all around the garden depending on what I want to image/view.

[Gina]

Yes - that's the way it goes! I've often had that Of course it's not such a problem with an observatory as it's relatively quick and easy to open up, set up and start imaging and quicker to pack up. I really sympathise with those without.

[lensman57]

Glad you got something last night - I'll take a look Think there's some haze here too. Gook luck with your imaging tonight

Well, last night I managed to set up and do an experiment with the old Atik 16IC and my Baader 35nm Ha filter, M27 was the target and managed 15 subs of 600s each, 11 usable. Tonight I have set up for M81 82, but it took me a bit longer to set up as the polar alignment was way off and PHD kept on crashing for some reason. At last I have managed to do something with all the gear, not very good I might add but it is something after all.

Wish you all clear skies,

Regards,

A.G

[Gina]

Bugged with thin high cloud or haze the last couple of nights here I think the heat is now ruining the atmostphere for AP. We need some rain or showers to clear the air now.

[Breakintheclouds]

The high cloud was ridiculous last night. I took a couple of images and found the faintest stars were about Mag 16, when normally they'd be more like 19+. I gave up at that point.

[Gina]

Yes, it's getting worse as the heat wave continues The fine weather is nice but it's too hot for me. And it's no use having so called clear skies when there's all this haze and high thin cloud around!!

[Breakintheclouds]

Wednesday's looking promising here. Fingers crossed.

[lensman57]

Well, I think that I wasted 3 hours of imaging time last night, everything was set up for M81-82, guiding was good with a good flat graph and I was excited that I was going to get a cracker with the Atik. Started imaging just past 11.30 pm and after 17 subs I packed up . I have examined the subs today and they are useless. I should have known that with all the haze and thin clouds there will be nothing worth salvaging from the session. The subs are full of strange gradients and I thought that I coulld have a nice image with subs of 600s at F5.6. I have learned my lesson now.

Regards,

A.G

[Gina]

Ah - the strange gradient phenonenum again then like I had a few days ago Only had it on one night - next session was fine.

[James]

I've had four nights out imaging in the last week or so - the skies have been hazy, too short, too light and generally not conducive to getting a decent image but I've been having fun all the same. I've redone my polar alignment on my pier, rejigged my Borgs, adjusted one of the cameras for a tilted CCD, all stuff that I hate spending time doing skies are really good.

I've been working on a mosaic of the Veil region for fun... although on stitching together six panes it looks like I've managed to mess them up a little... the image when it's done won't be the best in the world but it's all practice for those long clear winters nights we're going to get this year.

It's nice to be able to do all this in jeans and a t-shirt too

James

[lensman57]

I've had four nights out imaging in the last week or so - the skies have been hazy, too short, too light and generally not conducive to getting a decent image but I've been having fun all the same. I've redone my polar alignment on my pier, rejigged my Borgs, adjusted one of the cameras for a tilted CCD, all stuff that I hate spending time doing skies are really good.

I've been working on a mosaic of the Veil region for fun... although on stitching together six panes it looks like I've managed to mess them up a little... the image when it's done won't be the best in the world but it's all practice for those long clear winters nights we're going to get this year.

It's nice to be able to do all this in jeans and a t-shirt too

James

I have had a lot of fun too, at least it looks like at I have managed to get the guiding on the EQ5 to a fine art ( I was told that EQ5 could not be guided successfully), the periodic error is something else though. I have to get a set of decent flats for my new Atik 428 Ex osc, the two different sets that I have done show a hell of a lot of circular marks on the subs, I hope these are on the filter and not the sensor.

Regards,

A.G

[kirkster501]

Where i live its a waste of time setting up the imaging rig these last few nights. So much haze and high cloud. I have contented myself with binoculars when it does - eventually - get dark.

[nytecam]

Yep AG that sensor needs a clean !

I usually start imaging in late twilight but then my exposures are brief and stacked. But then I'm used to LP and twilight is another version. Must be nightmare on a long run and very frustrating for some :-/