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So here's a thing - it seems to me that astronomy is one of those not very straight forward hobbies. 

 

Last night I though it would just be the same as Friday night - set up, look at the moon take some pictures! Simples...

Aw but not to be!! I'm good at setting up in the daylight, get my mount bang level (checked with electronic level app on phone...) Get it facing north with my beautiful brass compass and enter coordinates back to Kidderminster from Thame, then you would think just observe... 

 

Nah! Moon very wobbly with tinges of green on the edges... Barlowed it and got some superb views of Gassendi and the Hippalus Rilles albeit a bit wobbly... Then the tree came so I thought check out Jupiter the other side of the tree with the camera. Once again folks it appears I have a great deal of Astro luck! Couldn't find Jupes at first, camera in and out of diagonal, EP in and out of diagonal... Shall I just go to bed? 

Then just before my capitulation - Boom she appears as a large white circle! Mmm something to work on I thought... Messed with the Gain and Exposure, what's Gain mean? Now it's a smaller white ball no moons... Then after another stop and start - Boom!! a ball with bands on... Hello Jupiter my old friend I whisper like a sniper lining up a kill! 

Brainwave, blue filter! in she goes and Boom again deffo a Jupiter view (although very wobbly) Quick action - click the 'take a picture or million' button... Next quick, take a video or million button.

 

Amazing here I am with a table chair laptop wonderful AVX mount and my Starwave 102 doing EAA.... 

It's not that clear and it looks like a black spot just above the main band... Er it couldn't be could it? Could it be? Not another transit surely.... Run indoors get the phone check my Jupiter moons app and Bingo is Io, only Io transiting Jupiter... Wonderful how lucky am I?

 

I call my girlfriend down out of bed, look look she's sat at the table looking and and "can you get the image any sharper? Oh that's funny I thought the band's go horizontally".. a quick turn of the camera in the diagonal and she's happy! Flipping heck is it me how can she not be doing the I've just bagged a great target dance?? 

 

Amazing, another example for me of when things don't go perfect at the beginning, decide it's better to just give up and then a little while later having a wonderful moment.

This hobby never lets me down! 

 

So today the result of all that is I have a million pictures (exaggerate a bit there) and not a clue what do so with em apart from maybe trying something I heard of called deep sky stacker... Should be interesting later. 

 

What a fun night in the end... never give up hang in there the joys are just a moment away..... 

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I enjoyed the write up, astronomy has those things when nothing seems to work and another day everything works. 

As for the pictures you can use autostakkert2  to stack and later use registax to process.  Deep sky stacker is used for dso stacking. I'm afk right now but can link you to it later. 

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4 hours ago, Patbloke said:

So here's a thing - it seems to me that astronomy is one of those not very straight forward hobbies. 

Couldn't agree more, 17 years into owning my telescope, and nothing has changed for me!   Two steps forward one step back.  But over the years I've made some lovely images.   Keep going, keep learning and keeping enjoying, whether others get excited or not.

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