The inaugural StuPOD, winner announced!

[Soupy]

Nice images al,by the way! 

[mapstar]

4 minutes ago, Soupy said:

So this is where you hide your dirty little Moon loving secret Damian! Taking pictures of it is the first step in admitting your obsession! Moon lovers anonymous...

Damn knew someone would find it 

[Stu]

Having had a nice little session last night with the 12", I think the moon is a perfectly decent (and admitable) target for a big dob. The resolution is well worth seeing!

[cotterless45]

Noooooo! The Moon is just more light pollution, she's burn tha' eye patch. She pulls at the sea , arrghh big tides ! Treasures be hidden in the dark sky, arrrghh!

old Nick.

[estwing]

Gather moon is great...if you're duck shooting!

[Alien 13]

I only wish we had lots of moons so that there was a full one every night 

Alan

[Soupy]

Or one that was tidally locked, so we could decide where to live, then you could either have a full moon every night with a full range or phases every 24 hours and solar eclipses every day or you could have no moon at all with lovely dark skies! 

Edited December 17, 2016 by Soupy

[Size9Hex]

What a cracking thread. Here's my own contribution to keep it going. This is for anyone who might doubt that you can get exceptional results...

... using a wide field sub f5 achromatic,
on a bright planet like Venus,
with a high power 4.7mm eyepiece,
and then barlowed to 212x,
with a pretty dubious focuser,
mounted on a manual az,
from comfort of a nice warm house,
through a latticed window.

It's the ideal scenario and I think the results speak for themselves...

[Roy Challen]

As usual I'm late to the party, but I do have the excuse of being on holiday for a week. Anyway, to all the bemoaners of the Moon, it's not so bad when it's the only thing visible in the night sky, as is often the case in Watford.

Posted on here before, but it's the best image I've taken through a scope - I give you.........the Moon! Taken with a hand held Galaxy S3 (obviously Samsung's astro-imaging phone) through 76mm f/16 Skylight, 28mm Edmund Scientific RKE and not processed at all.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Roy Challen

[Knight of Clear Skies]

2 hours ago, Size9Hex said:

What a cracking thread. Here's my own contribution to keep it going. This is for anyone who might doubt that you can get exceptional results...

... using a wide field sub f5 achromatic,
on a bright planet like Venus,
with a high power 4.7mm eyepiece,
and then barlowed to 212x,
with a pretty dubious focuser,
mounted on a manual az,
from comfort of a nice warm house,
through a latticed window.

It's the ideal scenario and I think the results speak for themselves...

I believe you'll get even better results if you use a net curtain as a diffraction grating, helps bring out those subtle cloud patterns and on a good day you may get a hint of the canals.

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Size9Hex said:

What a cracking thread. Here's my own contribution to keep it going. This is for anyone who might doubt that you can get exceptional results...

... using a wide field sub f5 achromatic,
on a bright planet like Venus,
with a high power 4.7mm eyepiece,
and then barlowed to 212x,
with a pretty dubious focuser,
mounted on a manual az,
from comfort of a nice warm house,
through a latticed window.

It's the ideal scenario and I think the results speak for themselves...

Excellent results there under some quite challenging conditions! Can you let us know how the image was captured? Smartphone handheld at the eyepiece? What settings did you use?  

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Roy Challen said:

As usual I'm late to the party, but I do have the excuse of being on holiday for a week. Anyway, to all the bemoaners of the Moon, it's not so bad when it's the only thing visible in the night sky, as is often the case in Watford.

Posted on here before, but it's the best image I've taken through a scope - I give you.........the Moon! Taken with a hand held Galaxy S3 (obviously Samsung's astro-imaging phone) through 76mm f/16 Skylight, 28mm Edmund Scientific RKE and not processed at all.

Actually, let's cut to the chase. It's been a few days since an award, and I'd like to announce that today's StuPOD goes to Roy!

Despite some stiff competition, his moon shot is very sharp, particularly given that lack of processing. The quality of the f13 shines through  

Well done Roy!

[Hadron]

May I be so bold as to submit this fine offering? I'm sure you'll all agree it's a stunning example showing M13 in all its glory taken with an iPhone se hand held at the eyepiece. With perfection such as this you have to wonder why anyone would go to the time and expense of the space based observatories (does anyone honestly believe the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to do any better?) 

IMG_0013.TIF

[Stu]

4 minutes ago, Hadron said:

May I be so bold as to submit this fine offering? I'm sure you'll all agree it's a stunning example showing M13 in all its glory taken with an iPhone se hand held at the eyepiece. With perfection such as this you have to wonder why anyone would go to the time and expense of the space based observatories (does anyone honestly believe the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to do any better?) 

IMG_0013.TIF

Nice effort. That one goes into the next round  

[Size9Hex]

34 minutes ago, Stu said:

Excellent results there under some quite challenging conditions! Can you let us know how the image was captured? Smartphone handheld at the eyepiece? What settings did you use?  

Phone held at the eyepiece. Tricky lining up a tiny camera lens against a tiny exit pupil. The trickiest thing however was figuring out how to switch off the flash, but having got that sorted, I picked up Venus' huge bright yellow and purple aurora no trouble at all. 

[Helen]

The moon over Cardiff Bay (tree).  Hand held (badly) Nexus 5, auto everything and no processing (and it shows!)

Or how about Over the Moon with the Fireworks??

 

Helen 

[Astro Imp]

16 hours ago, Hadron said:

May I be so bold as to submit this fine offering? I'm sure you'll all agree it's a stunning example showing M13 in all its glory taken with an iPhone se hand held at the eyepiece. With perfection such as this you have to wonder why anyone would go to the time and expense of the space based observatories (does anyone honestly believe the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to do any better?) 

IMG_0013.TIF

With results like this available on an iPhone why do the imagers amongst us spend a fortune to engage their passion?

[Stub Mandrel]

On 20/12/2016 at 18:50, Size9Hex said:

What a cracking thread. Here's my own contribution to keep it going. This is for anyone who might doubt that you can get exceptional results...

... using a wide field sub f5 achromatic,
on a bright planet like Venus,
with a high power 4.7mm eyepiece,
and then barlowed to 212x,
with a pretty dubious focuser,
mounted on a manual az,
from comfort of a nice warm house,
through a latticed window.

It's the ideal scenario and I think the results speak for themselves...

It's clearly Venus... mostly armless...

[johnfosteruk]

I give you a masterpiece, one of the finest examples of the form you will see this side of Christmas. M42 captured on iPhone through the f10 frac and a 25mm EP. 

Note that in spite of heavy light pollution this is still an APOD quality image  

In light of this I'm now going to stop saving for a premium mount it's clearly just not necessary. 

Edited December 22, 2016 by johnfosteruk

[Astro Imp]

Lovely image John, I do like the background, reminds me of an old tweed jacket 

[barkis]

17 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

I give you a masterpiece, one of the finest examples of the form you will see this side of Christmas. M42 captured on iPhone through the f10 frac and a 25mm EP. 

Note that in spite of heavy light pollution this is still an APOD quality image  

In light of this I'm now going to stop saving for a premium mount it's clearly just not necessary. 

Class Act me lad. All over a Winner, and far too good even for APOD .

[johnfosteruk]

4 hours ago, Astro Imp said:

Lovely image John, I do like the background, reminds me of an old tweed jacket 

Thank you so much Alan, that really means a lot. If you're looking to replicate the OTJ palette (as I'm sure you and many others are) it's done with the Harris filter in PS Express

Edited December 22, 2016 by johnfosteruk

[Helen]

I've got the PI book for Christmas, I expect that technique is in the advanced section though ?

[johnfosteruk]

It will be a long while before you attain the high levels of competence to use the technique but if it helps I'm putting together a series of instructional videos. Its the least I can do for the community which has helped me to achieve greatness.. 

I'll have them done in about 2036. ? 

[Mr Spock]

All too good for me