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Summer Solstice today for us Brits and tonight I will bring in the photopaper from the pinhole camera that has been imaging from December 21st 2021 until today. Piccie of the pinhole camera is attached. Greg

Here is an image of the Running Man nebula which sits just north of M42. This is many hours from both the Sky90s and the Hyperstar. How many hours? Well more than 20 Greg

Wow, excellent spotting Greg! Sure is a tiny sucker! http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=w+cas&submit=SIMBAD+search I have a real affection for Carbon stars, DY Crucis being my favourite Cheers, Ken

Incredible Prof. To think we only see a small amount of our galaxy's stars. Astronomy is pretty cool Ray

Great write up Professor. However I am surprised that people are thinking along these lines. I had a Takahashi Epsilon which was F3.3, and it was like a Ferrari compared to my F11 C14. In fact for years I have been eyeballing the Tak F2.2 for this reason. That would give me two rigs, an F11 for super close up work and an F2.2 for widefield super fast imaging. I went up to Payne's Find over the weekend with some amateur astronomers from Perth Observatory. We had some incredibly dark skies. First time I've been into the outback for a few years. One day I will have to setup a permanent observatory out there, the dark skies are quite addictive. Ray

Weather has been quite abusive here of late, heat, hurricanes and what not. Finally have had a couple of great nights where it's been cool and clear, (yes, both at the same time. Can you believe it!) My first two nights out my images sucked. I blamed the seeing as per usual. After the second night out I decided something was amiss. After I had built my observatory, (mine, mine, mine...) I set up everything as per usual. Everything leveled, plumbed, drifted in the tracking, collimated the scope, (wait, what!) Yep collimated. It was perfect just through an eyepiece. NOT, through the imaging train! I believe K-man (Daryl,) had mentioned this once before. An example forthcoming... Just a couple of more very fine tweaks and I believe The collimation will be perfect. Still using the Celestron C9.25, ZWO120mm cam, Telvue Powermate, Baader LRGB filters, a 685nm on Saturn, and a 742nm on Jupiter every now and then for luminence. Really liking the iOptron CEM 70 (at least till it craps out on me...) Here's any ugly one... Much better! Maybe with that final tweak to the collimation I will be able to get the Encke. Well, that's about it for now folks, Peace out, Tim.

These are from the 9th and 10 respectively. Best Jupe so far, the Encke still elusive. Cheers!

Ohhh, so close!

Excellent work Prof. The only pods I get are my morning coffee pods, and they aren't even that tasty! Ray

That really is fascinating! Nice work Greg. Luckily the camera didn't move much. Ken

That's incredible Prof! Ray

Great work Prof. Ray

From 03-06-2015 a 2-frame mosaic of Arcturus taken with the Sky90 array and the M26C OSC CCDs. Each frame was 30 subs at 4-minutes per sub. In the 5 o'clock position is the asterism called "Napoleon's Hat".

This is my second reprocess, this time it is Hind's Variable nebula taken on the Sky90 array using the M26C OSC CCDs. This is a single frame image cropped down to the nebula itself and it is a staggering 22-hours of 20-minute subs. Greg

I have just found a huge pile of images I didn't process properly the first time around, so I have just spent all morning processing just a few of them. This is a vertical 2-frame mosaic of the Ursa Major region just to the right of the bright blue star Merak. The asterism towards top-centre is called the Broken Engagement Ring. Each frame is roughly 4-hours of 10-minute subs taken on the Sky90 array using the M26C OSC CCDs. Greg

Got today's EPOD https://epod.usra.edu/ Note the above address is only valid for TODAY. Greg

Noel has some good skills Prof. That's for sure. Only when I did a deep comparison I could see the subtle differences. Ray

Pretty incredible photos when you see those galaxies lined up like that. Well done Prof. Ray

And here is another 20 subs on top of the first 20 giving 40 x 15-minute subs, or 10 hours worth of data. As long as I get clear skies I will try and add another 20 subs at a time. Greg Hopefully I have now put up the new image instead of the old one

Managed to get 28 x 150 second subs using the Hyperstar 4 and ASI 2600MC-Pro camera on M44 last night. Greg

Lovely shot guru. Ray

Hmm, could be just a slow moving satellite or bit of space debris. Did you check your software to see if this is a known NEO? So much junk up there now. The slow speed is the clue. Ray

Well done Greg. Its always a sigh of relief setting up a new rig. Ray

Been a slight delay in getting all set up due to a complete re-drilling of the top plate to get the lenses and finder in a much better position. I did however manage to get the lenses autofocusing under FocusMax and it not only works perfectly, but it is also extremely fast as well Really looking forward to the first light from this new beast Greg

Pristine.

The very first processing step is the one that helps the most and that is Noel Carboni's AstroFlat tool for Photoshop. Greg

Some great detail inside that object. Ray

Only that you have to make sure you have a good flat image before the heavier processing, and for that I use Noel Carboni's "Astroflat" program for Photoshop. Greg

As the result was nothing to shout about - I can reveal it was a 10-stop neutral density filter Greg

Awesome Prof. Ray

It's a OSC so not the best thing to use (as only 1 in 4 pixels is red) - but if I'm really stuck, I'll give it a try. Greg

Great result for 30 minutes. Ray

Here is a 5th order Menger sponge I put together from 20 4th order sponges printed out on a 3D printer using PLA filament. A 30cm ruler is included for scale. Greg

Always a buzz watching that craft. Good work Prof. Ray

Here's a bigger bit to drool over Greg

The idea is WAY better than the reality Ray. I find it very difficult (typical male can't multitask). Greg

A beautiful (extremely rare) clear and Moonless night last night - so I was out until 3:00 a.m. this morning Two jobs on the go, Hyperstar imaging the Pleiades in the South Dome, and polar aligning and setting up in the North Dome. I will start with the North Dome antics. I am using Sharpcap for polar aligning and it was less than a 30-minute job to get "Excellent" alignment in the South Dome. In the North Dome it was giving me nothing but trouble. Last night I actually packed up and gave in before pulling myself together and going out again to sort the bastard out. At some times I would get plate solved, at other times I would get intermittent plate solving, and at yet other times the bloody thing would not plate solve AT ALL. By times I really should say ANGLES. So what was happening? Like an idiot I have 2 apple trees too close to the observatory in the North, no problem with stuff to the North, unless of course you need to see Polaris for Sharpcap polar alignment. Still no great problem, all I have to do is take the top off the apple trees and I'll still see Polaris OK as it is well above the roof of the house. So a couple of weeks back I took the top off both apple trees and thought everything was O.K. But I see in the cold light of day, that I didn't take enough off the top of one of the trees, and it was at that angle (of the mount) that the polar aligning plate solving was failing. Well in the end I managed to work around the offending branches and finally got "Excellent" polar alignment - PHEW! Whilst I was playing these games in the North Dome I was imaging the Pleiades in the South Dome with the Hyperstar 4. The image shows 27 x 3-minute subs with the HS4. The result is VERY interesting. It is NOT perticularly deep, but it is EXACTLY the depth I would expect from (the equivalent) 15-minute subs from the Sky90s. Now it took 1-hour exposures from the Sky90s to show the Taurus molecular clouds in the region which equates to 12-minute subs on the Hyperstar 4. So the final experiment I am going to do on the HS 4 to finally bring this all together in a way I can understand, will be to take 5, 10 and 15-minute subs with the HS 4 and check out the resulting depth of the images. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to see - but it would be great if the experiment confirms. One massive bonus from this HS4 - no ghost flares from bright stars!! Yipeeeeee!!!!! Greg

Very nice Prof. Be interesting to turn the mount off for a minute and watch the circular drift to pinpoint the exact pole. Ray

48 minutes of data? Gotta love that Professor! You don't need to go any deeper. P.S It might be the Universe, but statistically speaking, you could still run out of objects to shoot with those fast optics. Ray

And here is Andromeda on the 2600MC with the new colour settings. This is a poorly process of 16 subs at 3-minutes per sub. Greg

Interesting Prof. I'll have to try this. I have a few RGB and NB images where the green is overpowering. I have a few tools to reduce the green already, but I rarely use Maxim's enhancement features because they are fiddly (though I am using an older version of Maxim - Maxim DL5) P.S that link is not working. Ray

You will see people on several different Forums stating quite forthrightly, that the Hyperstar is a gimmick and that all this talk of faster imaging with an f#2 system is just hype advertising. The reason they feel like this (apparently) is because you can have an 11" SCT (say) operating at either f#10 (native) or f#2 (Hyperstar). Now the incorrect line of thought says if you have the same size collecting mirror collecting the photons - then you will get the same photon density (photons per unit area) on your sensor. This is incorrect!! At f#2 your focal length is much smaller than at f#10 and that smaller focal length gives you a much bigger field of view. Since you are now collecting photons from a much bigger region of space, you will get more photons per unit area on your sensor at f#2 than you do at f#10. f#2 is FASTER than f#10. Below you will see two pictures of the Pelican nebula. One is taken by an f#4.5 Sky90 array and consists of 12 x 10-minute subs, i.e. 2-hours of total integration time. The other Hyperstar 4 image is taken at f#2 and is only 3 x 10-minute subs, i.e. 30-minutes total integration time. What is the difference between the two? Well the Sky90 image is a bit bigger as it has a shorter focal length than the Hyperstar, and the HS & Sky90 sensor sizes are the same. Also the Sky90 image is a bit closer to natural colour - but that's simply because I haven't got the colour processing sorted out properly for the new Hyperstar sensor yet. But the BIG difference between the two images is that the Hyperstar 4 image is a LOT DEEPER than the Sky90 image. How can that be? Well it all comes down to that difference in speed between an f#2 and an f#4.5 optical system. The f#2 Hyperstar 4 is 5x faster than the f#4.5 Sky90!! That means a 10-minute sub on the Hyperstar requires a 50-minute sub on the f#4.5 Sky90 to achieve the same depth. It doesn't matter how many 10-minute subs you put together on the Sky90, you will only increase the DEPTH by going to longer sub lengths. If this is true then you end up with a situation that defies common-sense. The 8-foot diameter Hubble Space Telescope mirror is f#24. Are you really telling me that Hubble is 144x SLOWER than the telescope you have in your back garden. Yep - strange but true Greg

I am not envious - I am not envious - Greg

http://www.newforestobservatory.com/2021/10/08/a-10-year-journey-on-speed/ Greg

No darks, no flats and you know what? No hot pixels either!! What a camera. Greg

Typical Sony chip Greg. Noiseless. Are you taking any darks? Lovely two tone shot BTW. Ray

Wow, that's some serious real estate Prof. Well done. Ray

Got out the macro a couple of days back and managed to grab these guys in the garden. Greg