Bit quiet on VA - hang overs,back skies ????????

[stash_old]

Been very quiet here of late - No pic's for Don and the like.

No Davy with his new Xmas presents !!!!!!!

Too many mince pies, drinks etc 

Happy New Year (bit late !!)  to all who do/follow VA - Clear Skies 

 

 

[RobertI]

Thanks Stash , happy new year to you too!

It has been quiet hasn’t it? I have had a couple of sessions. One was to see if I could get better results with my C8 than with my RC6. Results were inconclusive as it was a freezing night with poor visibilty so nothing really worth sharing. The other was some quick ultra wide field captures using an F1.0 lens on my Lodestar - interesting results, will share when I get a mo. 

Rob

[Martin Meredith]

Happy new year to all! I agree it has been very quiet. My Lodestar had to go back to Old Blighty to have the USB repair done in mid-November but now it is back (actually, Terry et al at SX did the work really quickly but for some reason it seemed to get lost in the local mail system here for a month or more).

But I have been using the absence to prototype a new EAA app which, if all goes well, will be ready in the next couple of months...

Martin

 

 

[RobertI]

3 minutes ago, Martin Meredith said:

to prototype a new EAA app which

Ooh, sounds exciting.  Something you are building yourself? 

[Martin Meredith]

Indeed yes. So this will be a dedicated EAA app based on my own workflow with some new features (more stretches, screen inversion, arbitrary rotates, flips, flats, LRGB/LAB colour processing, gradient removal, and the ability to revisit previous sessions). I'm targeting the Mac initially since we don't have a whole lot of choice. However, since it is being written in Python along with a modern user interface toolkit that is OS-neutral, it ought to be possible to port to any device including tablets (not that they will have the umph to handle the processing side). 

At some point I'll put some details on a blog here on SGL -- perhaps when the layout is nearer to being finalised. In the first instance it won't handle the capture side itself as this is a huge amount of work that I don't want to get into. Instead, it can either be used in 'watching a folder' mode or integrated with Nebulosity. The great thing about Neb is that it gives access to a whole bunch of cameras and better still allows scripted captures including control of the filter wheel, so from my app I will be able to issue a single command to e.g. take RGBs or darks and let it get on with it. 

If all goes well and it turns out to be useful, I will open-source the project because I feel its about time we had a community-driven app...

Martin

[RobertI]

Thanks for the info Martin, sounds like a great project that will be well received by the EAA community, very exciting. Worth going out and buying a Mac now. ?

[stash_old]

3 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

Indeed yes. So this will be a dedicated EAA app based on my own workflow with some new features (more stretches, screen inversion, arbitrary rotates, flips, flats, LRGB/LAB colour processing, gradient removal, and the ability to revisit previous sessions). I'm targeting the Mac initially since we don't have a whole lot of choice. However, since it is being written in Python along with a modern user interface toolkit that is OS-neutral, it ought to be possible to port to any device including tablets (not that they will have the umph to handle the processing side). 

At some point I'll put some details on a blog here on SGL -- perhaps when the layout is nearer to being finalised. In the first instance it won't handle the capture side itself as this is a huge amount of work that I don't want to get into. Instead, it can either be used in 'watching a folder' mode or integrated with Nebulosity. The great thing about Neb is that it gives access to a whole bunch of cameras and better still allows scripted captures including control of the filter wheel, so from my app I will be able to issue a single command to e.g. take RGBs or darks and let it get on with it. 

If all goes well and it turns out to be useful, I will open-source the project because I feel its about time we had a community-driven app...

Martin

"I feel its about time we had a community-driven app" -like that idea.

Python cross OS platform portable - Hmmmmm easier said then done in my experience when you get down and dirty depends on the libraries being used.

Tablets have the power - just depends on which you choose .

The Neb route makes sense and the "watching folder" sounds like Astrotoaster(dss) which works fine for me.

Any chance it will be Ascom compat or maybe Indi ?

You will have a lot of competition lots of people working on similar things - Good Luck I will watch with interest.

[HiloDon]

9 hours ago, stash_old said:

Been very quiet here of late - No pic's for Don and the like.

No Davy with his new Xmas presents !!!!!!!

Too many mince pies, drinks etc 

Happy New Year (bit late !!)  to all who do/follow VA - Clear Skies 

 

 

Not sure I’m the Don you’re talking about, Stash, but thanks for waking us up.  I think many of us are happy doing video and EAA and let things go a bit.  Martin’s posts were very encouraging seeing that Paul has disappeared for some reason.  I’m sure we all hope it’s a work related temporary thing.  Martin, I like the Neb connection.  I have the program and felt it just needed some live view features.

Seeing you want some pics, Stash, here are some captures we got just last night broadcasting on NSN from Mauna Kea at 9200’.  All were live view captures with no post processing.  We had a number of viewers and everyone seem to have a good time.  The amazing thing for me was that everything worked without any glitches.  Very strange.

All captures were done using a CPC1100HD with Hyperstar at f/2 and the SX Ultrastar C with Paul’s (still best) live view Starlight Live software.

Happy New Year to all!

Don

[RobertI]

6 hours ago, HiloDon said:

All captures were done using a CPC1100HD with Hyperstar at f/2 and the SX Ultrastar C with Paul’s (still best) live view Starlight Live software.

Superb captures Don. I reckon you have the ultimate EAA setup there, it just hoovers up the photons, gives a good image scale for a huge number of objects and is colour! The objects are just so bright, helped I guess by some of the best skies in the world - heaven! 

I'm not sure if you have ever posted images taken with this setup from your home (closer to sea level I believe?), but I would love to see the sorts of results you can get under conditions closer to my backyard, so I can see whether it's worth  looking at such a setup in the future. Also I'd be interested to see how that setup gets on with the fainter stuff (eg: the Dolphin Neb and Medusa Neb which) and some of the smaller stuff suh as galaxy clusters  - I think I can guess! 

A couple of questions - do you get much mirror shift when you focus (ie: do the stars fly accross the screen?). Do you lock the mirror once focussed to stop mirror flop? 

Sorry to divert thread a bit, hope no one minds.

[AKB]

7 hours ago, HiloDon said:

here are some captures we got just last night broadcasting on NSN from Mauna Kea

 Fabulous haul, as ever, Don. Must try and catch up with your NSN broadcasts sometime soon!

[Martin Meredith]

13 hours ago, stash_old said:

"I feel its about time we had a community-driven app" -like that idea.

Python cross OS platform portable - Hmmmmm easier said then done in my experience when you get down and dirty depends on the libraries being used.

Tablets have the power - just depends on which you choose .

The Neb route makes sense and the "watching folder" sounds like Astrotoaster(dss) which works fine for me.

Any chance it will be Ascom compat or maybe Indi ?

You will have a lot of competition lots of people working on similar things - Good Luck I will watch with interest.

Cross-Platform: this is what I am using https://kivy.org/, which in principle will work on the systems listed. 

I've not used Astrotoaster (Windows only?) but I'm aware of the general approach. My code is not dependent on DSS though. In fact, the live-stacking code has been written from scratch and the same will be true for the calibration stuff.

ASCOM/INDI. Again, never used these as I don't use Windows or Linux. FWIW in my opinion the ASCOM industry promoters should have set the bar a little higher and aimed for OS-independence (much harder of course, but the claim to be supporting 'astronomy standards' rings a little hollow from where I'm sitting; one could also argue that ASCOM has served to limit the amount of development for the Mac platform). But what I'm writing has no driver interfaces so the question of ASCOM/INDI compatibility doesn't really arise.

What is this competition of which you speak? ;-) There's very little available natively for the Mac as far as I can see but of course other stuff might be in development that I don't know about. The more the merrier and the open-er the better! 

I should say also that I started off in large part to enable me to better understand EAA algorithms -- nothing like coding something up to develop an appreciation of the great work others such as Paul have put into their tools. 

cheers

Martin

[stash_old]

1 hour ago, Martin Meredith said:

Cross-Platform: this is what I am using https://kivy.org/, which in principle will work on the systems listed. 

I've not used Astrotoaster (Windows only?) but I'm aware of the general approach. My code is not dependent on DSS though. In fact, the live-stacking code has been written from scratch and the same will be true for the calibration stuff.

ASCOM/INDI. Again, never used these as I don't use Windows or Linux. FWIW in my opinion the ASCOM industry promoters should have set the bar a little higher and aimed for OS-independence (much harder of course, but the claim to be supporting 'astronomy standards' rings a little hollow from where I'm sitting; one could also argue that ASCOM has served to limit the amount of development for the Mac platform). But what I'm writing has no driver interfaces so the question of ASCOM/INDI compatibility doesn't really arise.

What is this competition of which you speak? ;-) There's very little available natively for the Mac as far as I can see but of course other stuff might be in development that I don't know about. The more the merrier and the open-er the better! 

I should say also that I started off in large part to enable me to better understand EAA algorithms -- nothing like coding something up to develop an appreciation of the great work others such as Paul have put into their tools. 

cheers

Martin

Tried Kivy but went back to WXpython(but not Mac) - more support with the latter IMO. But ask 100 people and you get 100 different answers.

Ascom - totally agree - great on windows and a good standard but then as you say it stops - too Windows orientated but to be fair that's Apple's fault - remember until the hacker showed how to "hack" into Apple to develop Apple app's they were not interested in "opening up" development (Been true IMHO since 70's). Not that Windows are that helpful to the Open Source community. There does seem to have been some movement from Ascom in that Peter Simpson has developed  a server  to allow cross platform communications but again using Windows Dcom.

Competition -  As you say.

"Understand EAA algorithms" totally agree - its always easy to say than do.

Again good luck.

[stash_old]

12 hours ago, HiloDon said:

Not sure I’m the Don you’re talking about, Stash, but thanks for waking us up.  I think many of us are happy doing video and EAA and let things go a bit.  Martin’s posts were very encouraging seeing that Paul has disappeared for some reason.  I’m sure we all hope it’s a work related temporary thing.  Martin, I like the Neb connection.  I have the program and felt it just needed some live view features.

Seeing you want some pics, Stash, here are some captures we got just last night broadcasting on NSN from Mauna Kea at 9200’.  All were live view captures with no post processing.  We had a number of viewers and everyone seem to have a good time.  The amazing thing for me was that everything worked without any glitches.  Very strange.

All captures were done using a CPC1100HD with Hyperstar at f/2 and the SX Ultrastar C with Paul’s (still best) live view Starlight Live software.

Happy New Year to all!

Don

Yes I did mean you Don - Allows love your pics. Just as a comparison on how fast EAA can produce pictures here is my "Non EAA" picture of M42 taken "The Other Way" - I normally dont do this but I wanted to watch something on the "box" so I set it up to run while I was "away".  It just shows how much time you can "waste" when fast EAA gives you the same  - mine took 1800 secs yours 50 secs = 29 mins wasted (IMHO).   

[HiloDon]

10 hours ago, RobertI said:

Superb captures Don. I reckon you have the ultimate EAA setup there, it just hoovers up the photons, gives a good image scale for a huge number of objects and is colour! The objects are just so bright, helped I guess by some of the best skies in the world - heaven! 

I'm not sure if you have ever posted images taken with this setup from your home (closer to sea level I believe?), but I would love to see the sorts of results you can get under conditions closer to my backyard, so I can see whether it's worth  looking at such a setup in the future. Also I'd be interested to see how that setup gets on with the fainter stuff (eg: the Dolphin Neb and Medusa Neb which) and some of the smaller stuff suh as galaxy clusters  - I think I can guess! 

A couple of questions - do you get much mirror shift when you focus (ie: do the stars fly accross the screen?). Do you lock the mirror once focussed to stop mirror flop? 

Sorry to divert thread a bit, hope no one minds.

Hi Rob,

I’ll start by addressing the focus.  About a year ago, I decided to try a Bahtinov mask.  I find it to be one of the best purchases I ever made in this hobby, especially considering the cost.  It just takes me a minute to focus and it is nearly always perfect.  Sometimes as the night goes on I need to refocus because of temperature change.  I don’t lock the mirrors.  Haven’t really noticed any mirror flop.  It might be more noticeable on a GEM.  When focusing, I do see a slight movement of the mirror when changing direction on the focusing knob.  Dean at Starizona told me to finish the focus in the CCW direction to minimize mirror flop.  Don’t really know if that matters, but that’s what I do.

There’s no question that the skies on Mauna Kea are the best in the world.  It’s one of the reasons I like to do the broadcast, so others around the world can enjoy it, too.  They can get .25 arc-sec seeing at the top (13,800’).  We think we can get a half at 9200’ where the VIS is located.  I think there is definitely a difference at my home observatory.  Still pretty good.  I went back a ways to find some captures with the same equipment used at my home.  We’re at 600’ with dark skies.  Hilo is the only light source and it’s about 10 miles away.  They recently changed all the street lights as requested by the observatories on Mauna Kea.  The difference with the new lamps is huge.

Here’s a few captures made using the same equipment at my home.  I remember that the seeing was very good that night, so this is probably the best I can get at my home location.

Regarding Galaxy clusters, we do a lot of that, but usually like using the scope at f/5 with a narrower FOV.  Here’s one of Stephan’s Quintet and NGC7331 we took during the broadcast at f/2.

Hope that answers everything.

Don

[RobertI]

Hi Don,

Thanks for the detailed reply - very informative. 

I use Bhatinov mask too and i agree it is brilliantly simple and effective, unfortunately I have mislaid mine in the house move but it must be around somewhere! I asked about focus shift, flop etc as I tried to use my C8 the other day (normally I use my RC6 as it has a fixed mirror/dual speed crayford and open tube for quick cooling and no dewing) and found the shift a real pain when trying to get accurate focus as, without the Bhatinov mask, you need to see the star size changing to know when its reached focus, very difficult when the object moves, but much easier I would think when I track down the B mask. I was thinking the shift issue would be exaggerated when using Hyperstar and my scope would not be suitable, sounds like mine is worse than yours.  As for mirror flop, I have no evidence it happens on my scope, but I hadnt considered that a GEM might be worse in that regard. I had heard about the finishing focus CCW (ie: moving up against gravity) to minimise flop - I also try and do this. All very useful, thanks.

Also thanks for tracking down some older images. From an initial look, it seems like the setup still produces amazing images under more normal skies and can go pretty deep with 30 second exposures. The last image is really nice.  Comparing the HH/Flame images, the ones from the mountain look a lot brighter - not sure if the exposures are the same, but the altitude seems to make quite a difference, very interesting to see this.Thanks again.  

[shirva]

Easy, stash,, chrimbo kit, kicking in.

Ordered the PC stick and it's arrived,,seven port powered usb 3 , arrived, micro SD 128 ordered, 7nm hydrogen alpha filter,,baader,,

Waiting on Bluetooth keyboard/touchpad arrival

Ooh and 

Triple cigarette lighter,twin usb adapter arriving,,, sorted ?

 

 

[a10ken]

unfortunately lost faith after loosing over $650 to our friend Matt from Florida...

[HiloDon]

On 1/9/2018 at 21:56, RobertI said:

  Also I'd be interested to see how that setup gets on with the fainter stuff (eg: the Dolphin Neb and Medusa Neb which) and some of the smaller stuff suh as galaxy clusters  - I think I can guess! 

Hi Rob,

One thing I didn’t address in your post was the question of fainter stuff.  Last night during our NSN broadcast I went to the Medusa Nebula.  Here’s the capture.  The Medusa is a very old planetary Nebula in Gemini.  The central blue star is what powers the Nebula glow.

Don

[RobertI]

14 hours ago, HiloDon said:

Hi Rob,

One thing I didn’t address in your post was the question of fainter stuff.  Last night during our NSN broadcast I went to the Medusa Nebula.  Here’s the capture.  The Medusa is a very old planetary Nebula in Gemini.  The central blue star is what powers the Nebula glow.

Don

That's really interesting thanks Don. The brightness and colour are amazing considering how dim this object is. I'm familiar with this object having recently viewed it with both my C8 and RC6 EAA setups, and I can confirm it is pretty faint and is a struggle unless conditions are transparent. The best I could manage is shown below as a comparison (same exposures by coincidence), admittedly under less than ideal conditions, but the difference is clear!

[Martin Meredith]

On 1/9/2018 at 19:54, Martin Meredith said:

Indeed yes. So this will be a dedicated EAA app based on my own workflow with some new features (more stretches, screen inversion, arbitrary rotates, flips, flats, LRGB/LAB colour processing, gradient removal, and the ability to revisit previous sessions). I'm targeting the Mac initially since we don't have a whole lot of choice. However, since it is being written in Python along with a modern user interface toolkit that is OS-neutral, it ought to be possible to port to any device including tablets (not that they will have the umph to handle the processing side). 

At some point I'll put some details on a blog here on SGL -- perhaps when the layout is nearer to being finalised. In the first instance it won't handle the capture side itself as this is a huge amount of work that I don't want to get into. Instead, it can either be used in 'watching a folder' mode or integrated with Nebulosity. The great thing about Neb is that it gives access to a whole bunch of cameras and better still allows scripted captures including control of the filter wheel, so from my app I will be able to issue a single command to e.g. take RGBs or darks and let it get on with it. 

If all goes well and it turns out to be useful, I will open-source the project because I feel its about time we had a community-driven app...

Martin

Just to note that I've started to describe the tool I'm building in a blog entry here on SGL (mainly as a spur to get on with it!)

[RobertI]

3 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

Just to note that I've started to describe the tool I'm building in a blog entry here on SGL (mainly as a spur to get on with it!)

Thanks for the heads up Martin. That's a very intruiging interface!

[Martin Meredith]

You might recognise the 'ocular' inspiration. Thanks for that! So one of my main requirements during EAA is to orient the image to line up exactly with my charts, and of course it is very ugly doing an arbitrary rotate with rectangle image...

Martin

[RobertI]

51 minutes ago, Martin Meredith said:

You might recognise the 'ocular' inspiration. Thanks for that! So one of my main requirements during EAA is to orient the image to line up exactly with my charts, and of course it is very ugly doing an arbitrary rotate with rectangle image...

Martin

Ha ha, I hadn't made the connection, but I see now! Looking forward to seeing the interface in action.