AstronomyUkraine Posted June 9, 2021 Share Posted June 9, 2021 (edited) 21 minutes ago, Jkulin said: Nah it was just a single sub Brian, I have yet to process more than about 30 odd subs, but the framing was crap and the flats were old as I hadn't taken them until yesterday. I am finding that WBPP script struggles when it has to debayer the flats and have had better results debayering before stacking. I have never used WBPP for calibration, always do it the manual way. I found with frame and mosaic wizard in SGP, sometimes if it downloads a bad image to frame to, I adjust the FOV and it usually downloads a different image. I did a frame and mosaic on the Shark Nebula at 3° FOV, and got a really good image. Although with my resolution of .9, I only got half the shark in the frame. Edited June 9, 2021 by AstronomyUkraine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkulin Posted June 9, 2021 Share Posted June 9, 2021 1 minute ago, AstronomyUkraine said: I have never used WBPP for calibration, always do it the manual way. I found with frame and mosaic wizard in SGP, sometimes if it downloads a bad image to frame to, I adjust the FOV and it usually downloads a different image. I did a frame and mosaic on the Shark Nebula at 3° FOV, and got a really good image. Althoug with my resolution of .9, I only got half the shark. Problem is Brian, if you look at the single image I posted, with a 300s CMOS Colour image, there is bugger all to see, and as I don't have a motorised rotator, I have to guess, but this is the first image where I cannot see anything definable. I'd love to have a rotator but it would mess up the back focus completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstronomyUkraine Posted June 9, 2021 Share Posted June 9, 2021 9 minutes ago, Jkulin said: I'd love to have a rotator but it would mess up the back focus completely. I don't have a rotator myself, I use the manual rotator in SGP. I can adjust the rotation with my field flattener which screws into my scope, thus losing no backfocus. SGP tells you how much to rotation you need. You can also adjust the parameters. I have mine set to 3° of error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkulin Posted June 10, 2021 Share Posted June 10, 2021 14 hours ago, AstronomyUkraine said: I don't have a rotator myself, I use the manual rotator in SGP. I can adjust the rotation with my field flattener which screws into my scope, thus losing no backfocus. SGP tells you how much to rotation you need. You can also adjust the parameters. I have mine set to 3° of error. Problem I have Brian, is that with the Skywatcher Esprit is that it has a very clumsy means to rotate the image and I can't add anything in as I am bang on 55mm Same problem with my Newt as with the corrector I have only 55mm back focus, so no chance of fitting a rotator and then back to the balance issue. With my 10" RC, if I were to rotate then it would mean a complete rebalance, which can bugger up the guiding, although I do have room to add a Rotator such as the new Pegasus one and I may look into that and then spend some time with some additional weights to counterbalance the rig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS Posted June 10, 2021 Share Posted June 10, 2021 On 6/8/2021 at 12:00 AM, DaveS said: Well that was a waste of time. Had clear sky forecast so set up another run on M13. filter wheel didn't rotate. Went out to the obsy found the lead from the camera to the wheel was loose (Why??). Sorted that out (Had to close and restart Maxim). Changed plans to a shorter Luminance run. Set it up then went out to look at the sky. Where have all the stars gone? Clouded over. Warming the camera up now, will shut down when it has reached 0% power. Quoting my own post (Narcissistic or what lol), after the camera was warming up I had another look at the sky and decided it was good enough to attempt some Luminance on M13. So restarting in a hurry I set up a 3 hour run which would have taken me beyond nautical dark but was prepared to sacrifice the odd sub at the end of the run. Long story short I only got 8 subs before cloud caused the weather monitor to shut everything down, and only 4 of those were good enough for DSS to want to stack them. Here then is a first pass LRGB with 5 subs each RGB, and 4 subs L. Too many things wrong to list, but will have another bash the next clear night. Need to reduce the L sub length as I'm getting bloated stars in the centre where I should be getting resolution. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstronomyUkraine Posted June 10, 2021 Share Posted June 10, 2021 3 hours ago, Jkulin said: Problem I have Brian, is that with the Skywatcher Esprit is that it has a very clumsy means to rotate the image and I can't add anything in as I am bang on 55mm Same problem with my Newt as with the corrector I have only 55mm back focus, so no chance of fitting a rotator and then back to the balance issue. With my 10" RC, if I were to rotate then it would mean a complete rebalance, which can bugger up the guiding, although I do have room to add a Rotator such as the new Pegasus one and I may look into that and then spend some time with some additional weights to counterbalance the rig. I'm guessing your Esprit is the same as mine, and has the ships wheel to rotate the whole imaging train. I've only tried that once, never again, it was right pain to get everything working correctly again. I have the Pegasus rotator on my wish list. It seems to be a straightforward operation, and just replace one spacer with the rotator on my setup. I will have to buy an M54M to M48F to connect the rotator to my flattener, which is disappointing for a piece of kit costing 650 Euro. They should know that any serious astrophotographer is not going to use a 2" nose piece, I would have preferred the adapter instead of a nosepiece. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS Posted June 10, 2021 Share Posted June 10, 2021 Actually I got my dates confused due to imaging after midnight. Monday was when the filter wheel borked, posted Tue just after midnight. Tue I ran a big sky model, had shut down but hurriedly restarted, Imaging was on Wed just after midnight again. I hate British Stupid Time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkulin Posted June 10, 2021 Share Posted June 10, 2021 6 hours ago, AstronomyUkraine said: I'm guessing your Esprit is the same as mine, and has the ships wheel to rotate the whole imaging train. I've only tried that once, never again, it was right pain to get everything working correctly again. I have the Pegasus rotator on my wish list. It seems to be a straightforward operation, and just replace one spacer with the rotator on my setup. I will have to buy an M54M to M48F to connect the rotator to my flattener, which is disappointing for a piece of kit costing 650 Euro. They should know that any serious astrophotographer is not going to use a 2" nose piece, I would have preferred the adapter instead of a nosepiece. Brian Yep I know what you mean Brian, virtually impossible to lock tight. Even using the main 68mm adapter, it stills buggers up balance and as I use OAG on all my rigs there is no room when working with 55m backfocus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkAR Posted June 11, 2021 Share Posted June 11, 2021 Hi All, been a while since I've posted. Not had any real chance to get out except two nights ago I set up and got PA just as the clouds rolled in. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstronomyUkraine Posted June 11, 2021 Share Posted June 11, 2021 Got a clear night ahead of me according to Wundermap. Will be gathering Ha data on the Cave nebula. Got 6 hours so far, hope to get close to 10 tonight. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstronomyUkraine Posted June 11, 2021 Share Posted June 11, 2021 5 hours ago, MarkAR said: Hi All, been a while since I've posted. Not had any real chance to get out except two nights ago I set up and got PA just as the clouds rolled in. That is the most frustrating part of astrophotography, for guys without an observatory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstronomyUkraine Posted June 11, 2021 Share Posted June 11, 2021 (edited) 16 hours ago, Jkulin said: Yep I know what you mean Brian, virtually impossible to lock tight. Even using the main 68mm adapter, it stills buggers up balance and as I use OAG on all my rigs there is no room when working with 55m backfocus. Not much to play with John once you have an OAG and a filter wheel in place. Not sure how you would fit a rotator in the available space remaining. Edited June 11, 2021 by AstronomyUkraine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkulin Posted June 11, 2021 Share Posted June 11, 2021 6 hours ago, AstronomyUkraine said: Not much to play with John once you have an OAG and a filter wheel in place. Not sure how you would fit a rotator in the available space remaining. Yep that is certainly the problem, with the RC I have plenty or room to play but not so with the Newt or the Esprits. So back to guess work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstronomyUkraine Posted June 11, 2021 Share Posted June 11, 2021 40 minutes ago, Jkulin said: Yep that is certainly the problem, with the RC I have plenty or room to play but not so with the Newt or the Esprits. So back to guess work There is always the expensive option John, buy a NiteCrawler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstronomyUkraine Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 Will be setting up shortly. It seems I will have another full night of imaging. Collecting OIII data on the Cave Nebula while there is no moon. Got 8 hours of Ha in the bag, I think it will be enough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damo127 Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 I'm on it tonight. First ever attempt at AP. Not setting up till about 9. I'm going after M81 as i've darker sky and views north/west. Wish me luck! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marmot Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 1 minute ago, Damo127 said: I'm on it tonight. First ever attempt at AP. Not setting up till about 9. I'm going after M81 as i've darker sky and views north/west. Wish me luck! Good luck. Hope you get something, and if you do I hope you will share the result.🤞 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Padraic M Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 2 hours ago, Damo127 said: I'm on it tonight. First ever attempt at AP. Not setting up till about 9. I'm going after M81 as i've darker sky and views north/west. Wish me luck! Good luck! No such luck for me, full cloud for the rest of the week. 😞 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stub Mandrel Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 Having a shot at the Sadr area using my 135mm Zeiss Sonnar. Just checked it and picking up loads of Ha in 150s, but I looked closely and saw my stars were tiny doughnuts. Two tiny tweaks and getting really tight stars now 🙂 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 Running the first set of pick-ups on M13. Getting 9 subs each Red and Green, then I'll get 9 subs Blue tomorrow with the longer exposure time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkAR Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 Evening all, got started a while ago, nailed PA and was getting great guiding. Three subs in and guiding went haywire. Restarted and all was fine for a bit but just had another spike and had to restart again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkAR Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 Sub from earlier. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob-c Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 Hi decided to have a try tonight, and things don't want to play ball...and a few light clouds around also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkulin Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 23 hours ago, AstronomyUkraine said: There is always the expensive option John, buy a NiteCrawler. Nah Brian, I have had Moonlite stuff and their focusers are not R&P and I don't really rate them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkulin Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 Evening All, I am grabbing some more on Coddington's whilst we don't have any moon. I just hope that Linear fit will sort the exposures out accounting for little darkness. Nights like this make it all worth while though: - 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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