Leaderboard

The old NEQ6 has been sold and moved into her new home. The new owner is absolutely loving it and having a ball learning to drive it, as evidenced by the numerous messages I get on a daily/nightly basis. Like myself, Leon, the new owner, has made a huge leap in equipment coming from a EQ2/3 to a goto mount. I well remember the overwhelming feeling with such a huge jump in technology. Shane

Here's the reprocessed image using up to date calibration files. The two bright red stars over to the left are both Carbon Stars. Greg

BTW here are the kits. Eric

Very nice mate. I so need a terrestrial digital camera for AP. I still have over 20 rolls of kodak elite chrome 200 and three film bodies, which I will certainly use. when I upgraded my mount from a Losmandy G11 to an AP, the new owner of the G11 also loved it, as I did when I first bought it. AP is a journey of technical, scientific and cosmic knowledge. It is an incredibly rewarding and sophisticated pastime. Ray

Getting New or Used equipment that is in good functional condition is always a joy to experience. I have sold used gear and bought used gear as part of upgrades. One cannot always afford new. I sold my EOS 350D to a friend and she is having great experiences with it. Last week I took delivery of an used Canon EOS 7D Body, with low shutter count. Functions like it just came out of the new box. At $425 it has given me a step up in the photography world. Waiting now for the storms and clouds to disappear to try it on the 10" Skywatcher. Of course my collection of Canon EF mount lens are all compatible for terrestrial photography. Dave

This is a composite image of Coddington's nebula together with Carbon star SAO 15274 (bottom left hand corner) taken with the Sky 90 array. 5 hours last night and around 12 hours over 2 nights some time ago. Greg

Thanks Shane and Ray Here's 2 more from last night. These two were taken with the 6" f5 Achromat Focal reduced 0.7x Who says fast Achromats are crap? Cheers, Ken

I have been very impressed with absolutely every facet of the Moravian cameras. I would certainly get another if the need arose. Shane

Since getting into this hobby, I've moved through several mounts beginning with a Meade LX90 on a wedge, ETX125, Vixen SX Star Book, Celestron CGEM and now a iOptron CEM60, its been a frustrating journey but learned a lot along the way. My last durable mount was the CGEM with which I took many satisfactory images with guiding that allowed up to 15 minute sub frames on a pier mounted in my light polluted area of metropolitan Los Angeles, California, Pasadena actually. After about 6 years the CGEM movements were getting a bit sketchy and from time to time fount it had a mind of its own when trying to align it to the night sky. So I started looking about for a replacement. I settled on a portable light weight iOptron CEM25 for my lighter optical tubes. This experiment proved very successful with smooth opteration and exceptional guiding performance one aligned to the north celestial pole which was fairly easy with the given polar scope. I was so impressed with its smooth operation and ease of use, that I decided on replacing my pier mounted Celestron with its big brother, the CEM60. I had to have a new adapter block made to secure it to the pier, but once set up it has turned out quite well following a few pilot error hiccups. Pay attention to the owner's manual when plugging in the cables! I plugged my Starlight Express guide camera into a power outlet by mistake and seem to have fried the connection from it to the scope. A GPUSB cable and box from Shoestring Astronomy has become a very good work around so it now works great. I'm impressed with the smooth operation and guiding I have gotten with this set up as being ligh years ahead of my prior struggles. I don't like to endorse products because your experience might be quite different, but so far this has exceeded my expectations. I use a Celestron 9.25" SCT, Stellarvue 102SV refractor and Celestron 6" SCT on this set up. Its a bit too robust to balance m 66mm Williams optics refractor, which resides happily on the smaller CEM25P.

I got 18 x 15-minute subs with the 200mm lenses on this region last night and combined it with some earlier 200mm data. Greg

This is an image taken from suburban Pasadena Ca. under light polluted skies, using OPT Corp's TRIAD filter. Lets ionized H alpha, Beta and Oxygen wavelengths only through so it pretty well cleans up light pollution. This was 10, 15 minute exposures, with a QHY8L camera and Stellarvue 102SV Refractor on an iOptron CEM60 mount.

Tracking with PHD guiding is really superb

Happy Australia Day Dave

15 hours worth of 40-minute subs using the Sky 90 array Greg

Here's a quick process of last night's M31 data taken with the Sky 90 array. This is 9-hours worth of 20-minute subs. Weather permitting I will go for a LOT more data on this one and may start off with 30-minute subs Greg

Got out for a couple of hours last night before the Moon rose. This is 11 x 10-minute subs using the Hyperstar III on the C11 with a Trius 814C OSC CCD. Noel Carboni processed this one as it was very difficult to sort out (flatten) with a large bright nucleus in the middle of the frame. Greg

Caph is in the lower left. This is another 200mm lens image, 18 subs, 15-minutes per sub. Processing for this one by Noel Carboni who screwed the pants off it trying to bring out CTB1 which you can barely make out bang in the centre of the image. Greg

A reprocess of the Kemble's Cascade data sans spikes Greg

Hi all! After a very long hiatus from anything astronomy I took a vacation and went to the Nebraska Star Party. My main goals there were to do some visual observing with my 20" Obsession Classic telescope from a pristine dark site. The goals were achieved in spades! I took one night there to set up the AT72ED and do some imaging. Well things went wrong all over the place and needless to say due to blue screens and a portable storage device failure I thought I was left with nothing. I did find 1 image that somehow was saved. It was a single raw frame of 180 seconds at ISO 800 with an unmodified Canon T3i. I shot this with the AT72ED on a guided Sky Watcher EQ-6. Image was processed with Digital Photo Professional, Photo Shop Elements 2018, and Astronomy Tools for Elements. After many iterations, I am satisfied that I have pulled as much information out of one frame of data as I am capable of with the tools I have. I tried very hard not to over cook or use to much noise reduction. I was lucky to be at such of a dark site that just one frame held so much information. Eric

Well here is my rusty effort done in PixInsight. I hope you approve Eric. Shane

As I finished this imaging session it fogged right over - I was extremely lucky to only lose the last pair of subs!! One of my favourite areas, the Caph region of Cassiopeia with NGC7789 in the bottom right hand corner. 200mm lenses with Trius M26C OSC CCDs. 14 subs at 15-minutes per sub. Greg

Here is the light pollution chart for the NSP. Eric

Wow, one sub! The question begs, why do we need an hours worth if you are getting results like that with one sub? I was in the U.S recently. I was in San Fran, San Diego and then Tuscon. Tuscon has the dark sky laws for Kitt Peak Observatory, the skies were amazing. Regards Ray

The above Caph data combined with some earlier (2-frame) data. Greg

Open that beer and prep that gear! First light is coming. I have no idea why I get excited when I see others buying nice kit. Ray

Last week I went to a place called Thornwick Bay in Flamborough on the East Yorkshire Coast to shoot some time lapse and star trails. It wasn't the perfect night for it although the sky was clear as the moon was quite bright and high in the sky for the whole night. I set up two cameras, my Sony A7Sii and Samyang 24mm f1.4 lens to do a Holy Grail Time lapse and my Sony A7iii and Samyang 12mm f2.8 fisheye lens to do an ordinary time lapse and some star trails. I set both tripods up about 15 yards further in than the tide would go (worked out by deposited seaweed on the shore). I had a few people who showed interest and asked about what I was doing and there was also a couple of families out of camera shot on the right of the beach having a BBQ, they packed up just as the sun was sinking behind the cliff tops when it got quite chilly. Due to the moon being quite bright I had to use a much lower ISO than normal and even with this it looked as though the beach was bathed in sunlight even though it was midnight. Out of all the data I have done a selfie, a star trail image an animated star trail video, a normal time lapse and a holy grail time lapse so I still managed to get a fair bit done in the 4 hours of darkness. I have incorporated all this in the video clip below which can be seen in HD and 4K https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEqUYNyVVmg

couple of stock pics from Ioptron website.

For a number of reasons I've decided to quit Facebook - so it's either here or www.newforestobservatory.com for my latest piccies Greg

There are a lot of good mounts out there if your are prepared to spend some money. I bought an iOptron CEM25 and was so impressed I traded out my CGEM for its bigger brother iOptrons, CEM60. with which I am equally impressed for guiding consistency. It claims to carry up to 60 pounds, but I have not yet pushed it beyond about 38 and that has been near perfect guiding. Everything depends upon the mount! if that is screwed up, nothing else matters. The minister of finance might be most pleased that its price is modest.

Nice Greg, one I've not seen nor heard of before. Shane

3's a magic number Greg. Very cool. Ray

Dragon Man! Where have you been hiding! Good to see you are getting some photons my friend. 19 cameras is a bit steep, my missus would kill me. Welcome back. Ray

I have a water cooler for it but I have never used it. I sometimes put the aircon on inside the obs to cool it down from the day time heat, but that's about it. Ray

Just realised that last night's data was actually buggered because the calibration files weren't right for one of the cameras. End of last year one of the cameras went back for repair - I didn't redo the BIAS and FLAT frames, and a close look at last night's image shows artefacts. So right now I'm making up new sets of BIAS and FLAT frames for both cameras, and then I'll redo the last 3 sets of data. Greg

Excellent Prof. Shane

No defocusing, that is animated star trails effect using starstax and Premier Pro. I only use my Sony cameras now. I sold all my telescope kit as I had nowhere to set it up to use it Best wishes Gordon

Ha ha try working on an Oil Rig (Big John) in the Timor Sea with those sort of temperatures accompanied by 90 to 100% humidity for 2 weeks at a time. Water literally ran down the bulkheads (walls) of the rig It was hell for those on the drill floor and not much better in the so called airconditioned offices and messrooms etc. I also spent 2 years in Bahrein back in '54 It can get well up in the high 40's in summer especially daunting for newcomers when coming in on a plane, when they open the doors the heat rushes in like when you open an oven. That's when BOAC Argonaut's and DC3's regularly flew the skies. Had those long whirly things on the wings! At least the money was good on the oil rigs Dave

Welcome to my world (sky). That's an old cluster my friend. Not an easy nut to crack under a bright moon. Ray

Hi Dave, Yes, we went down to the coast to see this and the geminids, and of course, cloud rolls in. Annoying considering the time of year. Regards Ray

I spent yesterday afternoon and all night at Fewston Reservoir in North Yorkshire shooting a Holy Grail time lapse, some star time lapse and star trail images. I used my Sony A7Sii and Samyang 24mm f1.4 lens and Dynamic Perception slider gear with my Timelapse+ view intervalometer for the Holy Grail time lapse and my Sony A7iii and Samyang 12mm f2.8 fisheye lens for the other work. The drone footage was shot with my Mavic Air. It was quite cold and within a few hours there was a thick layer of frost on my bags and the slider rails had ice on them by the morning but it carried on working ok. Altogether I took over 3,500 images with exposures ranging from 1/8000 second at f1.4 and ISO 100 to 30 seconds at f2.8 at ISO 6400. A friend of mine Simon Bennett mentioned about Comet 46P being in the sky and I didn't think I would catch it with a fisheye lens, but if you check very carefully in the third clip where Orion is already in the sky there is a very faint smudge in exactly the spot where Simon showed me so it looks like I managed to catch it, it is very faint though so it is difficult to see. I carried all my gear in my Benpacker hiking trailer. I processed all the data using a combination of Lightroom, Premier Pro, Photoshop and Starstax. The video can be seen at the link below in HD and 4K, as I've only just uploaded it the 4K version may not be available yet but it will later on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDBAb5-dTD4&feature=youtu.be

Nice work Prof. Ray

Lots of dust in there. Shane

Not in Pasadena where we live, but along the coast about 50 miles away its horrific and smoke is everywhere. this area of the coastal plain has a history of burning to the sea when off shore winds pick up for centuries, but now people have populated the slopes so its dangerous. I was out of the imaging business for nearly six months after changing out my mount and getting the new one up to performing. when skies clear I hope to do more.

Incredible work Prof. Ray

Stunning mate. Well done. Ray

Yeah totally agree with Shane. That light pollution map is good. Ray

Holy Moly - just a single (short!!) sub - that is an amazing place to image Greg

For the fist time in yonks, the skies have been clear today until some idiot decided to start a bush fire. Moon came up almost full looking very bilious in the face. Probby dept doing a burn off. Anyway, I had made an adapter V Bar to fit the Mak90 scope I have and mounted it on the EQ6. Somewhat overkill but far more stable that the rickety EQ1 that came with it. Whacked the old Canon 350D on in prime focus and banged off a few shots. Not the best due the smoke etc, but the first time I been able to anything much for over a year. Tidied it up in "Paint dot net" (sort of a lightweight clone of Photoshop. Free & and has some nice features) At least managed to do something. Hopefully more as weather starts to warm N-Joy Dave

Any questions you have like this in future Shane - just ask me on FB - it was pure luck I saw it on here Greg

The main point of a UPS is not to keep your whole system going during a power cut - but only to let you close things down in an orderly fashion when the power goes off. So you don't put things like the dew straps and any heaters (dome rotators, aperture openers) or anything else on the UPS. So with a PC, 2 monitors and the mount (plus camera) as the only thing on the UPS, something around 1500W capability should be more than enough. Greg