Highly portable EEA device

[Astrowl]

I took advantage of the terrible weather in recent months to continue to develop the internal program of the Astrowl Box by adding the possibility of making timelapses (very useful for producing video sequences of dynamic scenes such as solar activities) and by developing an in-house algorithm to reduce light pollution or more broadly reinforce dimly lit objects. I was finally able to test this algorithm last night between two cloud gaps in the Paris suburbs (therefore heavily subject to light pollution) and the result is really promising.

I am attaching a photo of M13 without activation of this algorithm and with activation, we do not lose the luminous objects, but the background of the sky becomes really black.

The 3rd image still uses this filter, but also a Wiener deconvolution.

The 4th image pushes the exposure to 4 seconds, compared to 3 in the first 3, while retaining the anti-light pollution filter

And finally the last image shows the activatable filter whose power can be adjusted.

I would like to point out that all these filters can be activated live on the astrowl box as desired and that the images below are exactly those that appear on the astrowl box screen, without any processing other than those applied live.

[StevieDvd]

The new case looks a lot better and more commercial. Though given the price it's getting into the territory of the Seestar S50 & Dwarf 2 (which have their own telescope, go-to & guiding embedded). As I mentioned earlier adding the option to do a polar alignment & plate-solve would hopefully expand your potential buyers market., as would a push to target assistant. A lot I know but with the right software features I think the product would be great.

And given that a lot of users of the Dwarf & Seestar post processing are you saving the raw data for later processing?

 

 

 

[Astrowl]

I did a short session the day before yesterday with the AstrowlBox to test some corrections and the light pollution filter which is really effective. Attached the Ring Nebula and M5

 Some hot or defective pixels appear in streaks with the automatic image alignment...
The images below are exactly those displayed on the AstrowlBox screen, they have not been subject to any post-processing

Images were done with a 120mm apo refractor with f/d 7.5 (no corrector, reducer or anything else used), under the wonderful sky of Paris suburbs.

For the purpose if this forum, I have compressed and converted original pictures to jpef format. Original format is PNG with no compression, picture size is around 7Mo.

Edited 11 hours ago by Astrowl

[Vroobel]

It's really surprising, I found it right now. Jupiter, M5 and M57 look at least not worse than some quality pics from the Seestar S50 or from beginning imagers using typical equipment. 👍 I like the idea of the flip mirror, the device gives colours, which is rare for visual astronomers.

 

[Astrowl]

17 hours ago, Vroobel said:

It's really surprising, I found it right now. Jupiter, M5 and M57 look at least not worse than some quality pics from the Seestar S50 or from beginning imagers using typical equipment. 👍 I like the idea of the flip mirror, the device gives colours, which is rare for visual astronomers.

 

Thanks Vroobel. I think the AstrowlBox is quite better on Jupiter and planets in general than any "smart scope".

Seestar, eVscope or Vaonis explicity say that their scopes are not really dedicated to planets.

Attached is a picture of Jupiter done last January with AstrowlBox and I am pretty sure it can even be far better. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Astrowl

[Vroobel]

Here is my first and the only picture of Jupiter taken using a dedicated planetary 102ED F/11 scope and an atmospheric dispersion corrector. It's not the best, but you know, it was a proper planetary imaging. Taking it into account you can be proud of the quality of your device. 🙂

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Vroobel

[Astrowl]

Nice shot ! Just to clarify, AstrowlBox is not an astrophoto system, its purpose is not to challenge astrophotography which need strong hardware, and long time of image post processing.

It is really an ultraportable and realtime Electronic Assisted Astronomy system.

[Vroobel]

That's it! That's why I'm impressed! 🙂