Is Astrophotography in the UK Pointless?

Stuf1978 · September 23, 2023

There's some great responses here chaps, it's all greatly appreciated. I've never know a hobby that's so equally rewarding and frustrating in equal measures.

As others have mentioned this year has been particularly awful which hasn't helped with my mojo in the slightest.

Ouroboros · September 23, 2023

18 minutes ago, Stuf1978 said:

There's some great responses here chaps, it's all greatly appreciated. I've never know a hobby that's so equally rewarding and frustrating in equal measures.

As others have mentioned this year has been particularly awful which hasn't helped with my mojo in the slightest.

Personally I find that an interest in visual astronomy helps. Let’s face it there are only a few nights on which clear skies, opportunity and enthusiasm align to make imaging really worthwhile. But there are probably more nights on which patches of clear between the clouds coincide with a half hour or so opportunity to get out there with the mark 1 eyeball and a pair of bins. On even clearer nights, but not “imaging clear”, or perhaps rain threatens in an hour or two, I like to get the telescope out. Recently I have found that using the ASIair to control the mount, and the guide scope to plate solve and point the telescope dead centre at the object of interest, has been a great boost to my enthusiasm for visual astronomy. GOTO is good, but not as good as GOTO plus plate-solving. Oh, and you can do a bit of EAA too, which is imaging of a sort.

tooth_dr · September 23, 2023

If I didn’t have a permanent setup these days though I don’t think I’d bother. I did my time setting up an imaging rig (and ripping down an hour later when cloud appeared), and saw the only way out was an observatory.

saac · September 23, 2023

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

Especially if it's on a mountaintop in Chile.

My AsiAir wifi won't stretch that far

Jim

tomato · September 23, 2023

If good data and lots of it is what you are after then selling up and renting a remote rig would seem to make sense, but I still like communing with the equipment too much to go that route. I kind of derive some weird enjoyment from getting a half decent image from the UK, our weather is yet another AP challenge that has to be overcome.

WolfieGlos · September 23, 2023

4 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

We had some clear skies last week, and I captured 50+ hours on IC1396, 46 of which are good and usable. I have the opposite problem in that I capture data but dont get around to processing it! I had a look on my hard drive and I have unprocessed data on the following, somewhere in the region of 300 hours, 10k+ subs I'm sure.

WHAT! My brain wouldn’t allow me to do this….if I have it, I have to finish it, process it, and move on 🤣 Fair play, that’s a lot of data for cloudy nights….in fact this years “summer” would have been ideal to process it ! If you post them up, can’t wait to see them all.

Veloman · September 23, 2023

Well, this isn't reassuring. Here am I thinking of investing in suitable equipment for starting out in AP and now I'm not so certain that it's worth it....

Rob

windjammer · September 23, 2023

It makes life a lot easier if you have a permanent setup. Setup and teardown is just a fag, and disturbing the image train from one set of exposures to the next just adds pointless issues that have to be sorted. Having a permanent setup, which only needs waterproof covers to be viable, means that one can work on reliability: I used to sit through 5 hours of 600 second exposures ready with the toolbox for emergency surgery. Now I can set the cams running, go to bed, sleep through (most of) it and process data the next day. And this with home made kit: its just a matter of tackling the next bottleneck that is holding you back.

I'm in London so rubbish Bortles, but I have found narrowband can blast through light pollution and pretty mucky skies: not a star visible but the cameras returning acceptable exposures. SHO is worth experimenting with if you have never tried it.

I also think the UK cadence of cloud and clear skies is not so bad! 4 -5 days on the trot of astronomy nights brings out my inner zombie so not too many of those is desirable. My target is one imaging project per month - data collection to 'final' product. This year has been pretty dodgy weather so far, but I have actually done more, and better, than any year to date!

So: never give in, never surrender!

Simon

fwm891 · September 23, 2023

1 hour ago, Veloman said:

Well, this isn't reassuring. Here am I thinking of investing in suitable equipment for starting out in AP and now I'm not so certain that it's worth it....

Rob

Rob, if you look back through the moans on this forum it’s a wonder anyone is still practicing this hobby. People here (me too) will moan about the weather whichever way it swings. It’s a great hobby. You’ll get frustrated and elated all. In the same evening. USB cables will have rude words uttered on a regular basis but you’ll gaze at that image as the detail unfolds before you and all the woes will vanish…

Until the next night…

Dip in with some used kit first to get the hang of things. If you get hooked then start emptying the piggy bank.

Jonny_H · September 24, 2023

I went through this exact scenario a number of months back and did actually sell some of my core AP kit. I just didn't see the point anymore.

Cut to a few weeks back however and I started getting the itch again so purchased some new equipment, slightly smaller and lighter than my last which makes it less of a chore to setup (I too do not have an obsy......the wife won't let me 🫥)

Still haven't been able to really use it in anger though due to all of the issues mentioned in this thread 😆

Stick with it!

Edited September 24, 2023 by Jonny_H

SteveNickolls · September 24, 2023

19 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Having a permanent set up must make all the difference though.

Sorry to read of the frustrations with tne hobby in tne UK. I've never known a week of sucessive clear nights to image under and don't think I'd have the stamina to stay up consistently into the wee hours.

As regards an observatory unless you fully automate it you need to be awake to open and close it! Maybe better to have arrangements in place as other have said to be quickly able to set up alightweight rig in a pre-marked location? I think if you have the passion, (t's in the word amateur) try diversifying to overcome the lack of long, clear night skies-solar imaging, EAA, meteor imaging, lunar imaging, double stars. One weather defying hobby is detecting meteors with an sdr radio and diy parts from Wickes or B&Q. Having an alternative, quick set up rig means you can get out under the stars and Moon or the Sun and take images; or try a pait of 10 x 50 binoculars and see more objects on one night than ever before. I have wondered if the Dwarf 2 and SeeStar units would be useful for less than perfect nights? Certainly they will help pay for new children's ponies ar FLO this Christmas.

Hope you can keep on in there. 👍

Cheers,

Steve

Edited September 24, 2023 by SteveNickolls

tooth_dr · September 24, 2023

9 minutes ago, SteveNickolls said:

As regards an observatory unless you fully automate it you need to be awake to open and close it!

I open mine in the evening, and close it when I wake up for work in the morning, occasionally I'll get up in the middle of the night to check things, if I'm concerned about something. Not in any way comparable to setting up and tearing down a rig each time you want to image though