The Astronomy hobby thread

[Eric Hahl]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

That being said, since Eric mentioned set and forget scopes,

Well, not really set and forget. I do have to polar align it. Then do a plate solve to let it know where it's pointing. It is pretty straight forward process though compared to the older times, pre digital this and that.

My process:
Place telescope roughly pointing towards the north polar axis. Level the mount.

Connect the ZWO ASIAIR computer via wi-fi to my tablet.

Fire up the ASIAIR app and get the camera cooling.

Place the filter I am going to use it the filter holder.

Go to the focus portion of the app and run the auto focus procedure. Usually takes about 3-4 minutes. Auto focus is amazing. You can set this to run at anytime during the night, when the temp drops by x amount or every half hour or so.

Go to the polar alignment process in the app.
Take a photo with the main camera and scope. The mount then rotates 60 degrees around the polar axis and takes another picture.
It compares the two photos and shows the alignment.
Adjust Alt and AZ until you are satisfied with the proximity of polar alignment. The ASIAIR continuously takes photos during this process to help solve polar alignment.
I usually get to within 2 arc seconds of PA. in less than 3-4 minutes. Best to take as much time as needed during this process to get the best PA.

Turn on tracking.

Sit my butt in a chair and fire up a cigar.

Once that is done you can slew to any part of the sky, take a photo and run a plate solve. This will let the system know where it is pointed.

Then I pick a target for the night. I can pick the target in the app and it will slew to target and take a quick pick to make sure it is centered. It does a plate solve and re centers if necessary. I usually take a test pic of 30 seconds on BIN 4 to verify placement of object...sometime I don't want it centered.

I rerun the auto focus at this time.

Then I set up the capture procedure based on the night. How many light frames and duration. If I had more tech on the system I could capture darks, flats and bias file automatically but I do not have automated flippy do dads for the objective so I simply do those in the morning when the light frame captures are done or I wake up.

Next, go to the guiding portion of the app and fire up the guide camera. The first time this happens it needs to run a calibration. The apps version of guiding is just a slightly stripped down version of PHD guiding. It works great.

Once the guiding settles I start the capture process and can relax while it does its thing.

I'm really amazed and thrilled with the technology that allows this. Capturing these shots back in the day with a film camera and your eye on crosshair eyepiece and your hands on manual controls really is crazy hard.

[Pazuzu]

I assumed you were still on a pier, if you ever were.

The technology that vexes me the most of the plate solving and plate scaling. Taking images on different sides of the pier, different days, different cameras, different scopes, different alignments, different seasons...and making them all come together?

No way. I don't accept it. Not possible, it's a sin against imaging. Imaging must be done in one run, one night, no change in equipment, and if you need to do a pier flip? Goodbye, you only get half the night then, no flips allowed. You'll never get an image stack to align unless it's all done at once, under highly controlled regulations. NEVER. Do all of your colors, all of the lights in one session, or give up and make it a mono image.

So saith I.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

I assumed you were still on a pier, if you ever were.

The technology that vexes me the most of the plate solving and plate scaling. Taking images on different sides of the pier, different days, different cameras, different scopes, different alignments, different seasons...and making them all come together?

No way. I don't accept it. Not possible, it's a sin against imaging. Imaging must be done in one run, one night, no change in equipment, and if you need to do a pier flip? Goodbye, you only get half the night then, no flips allowed. You'll never get an image stack to align unless it's all done at once, under highly controlled regulations. NEVER. Do all of your colors, all of the lights in one session, or give up and make it a mono image.

So saith I.

I've been perusing this site, Rogelio Bernal Andreo & Ariana Fu, Astrophotography - DeepSkyColors.com, off and on for years. This guy, Rogelio, (in Spain, I believe) used to just have his pics up to view, but these days he's selling them. Ariana is, I think, a new addition to the site. I'm not sure what her contribution is. One of my favorites a composite of Orion head to toes. He used to have text on his site that described how many photos and how much time he had in it (including you could download a hi-res copy, which I still have an use as a desktop wallpaper). I think he was also active on the Cloudy Nights forums. I think the image was a composite of thousands of photos taken over something like 6-9 months. I find that hugely impressive.

I found that some of his old site that just shares images is still on his site. https://deepskycolors.com/deepsky.html

[Eric Hahl]

I remember that picture and thread. Incredible devotion.

[Eric Hahl]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

I assumed you were still on a pier, if you ever were.

The technology that vexes me the most of the plate solving and plate scaling. Taking images on different sides of the pier, different days, different cameras, different scopes, different alignments, different seasons...and making them all come together?

No way. I don't accept it. Not possible, it's a sin against imaging. Imaging must be done in one run, one night, no change in equipment, and if you need to do a pier flip? Goodbye, you only get half the night then, no flips allowed. You'll never get an image stack to align unless it's all done at once, under highly controlled regulations. NEVER. Do all of your colors, all of the lights in one session, or give up and make it a mono image.

So saith I.

I used to have an observatory and pier before the big divorce. Scaled down and went portable.

[Racerbvd]

[flatbutt]

G1 CME alert for the 20th / 21st .

https://spaceweather.com/

Only a G1 so no threat at all but if your stuff starts going bonkers....

[flatbutt]

Cool animaation of the CME here

https://spaceweather.com/

[masraum]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

G1 CME alert for the 20th / 21st .

https://spaceweather.com/

Only a G1 so no threat at all but if your stuff starts going bonkers....

The sun is really cool and something that doesn't get as much attention as the night sky. When the solar eclipse occurred for a lot of the US several years ago, I got a set of solar binoculars and a tripod mount. I used them to look at sunspots many times in our old apt. It was really cool to see the motion of the spots across the face of the sun and the changes in the spots.

When I got my scope several years ago, I also bought a solar filter for it. I need to get that out and use it more. I suspect looking at sunspots via a scope is much more impressive than a really cheap set of 10x50s.

[flatbutt]

I have a Lunt 80 Ha that gives nice views. I get beautiful views of spots and prominences. When I nail the focus I get surface granulation as well. The next cycle is gearing up too.

[Eric Hahl]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

I have a Lunt 80 Ha that gives nice views. I get beautiful views of spots and prominences. When I nail the focus I get surface granulation as well. The next cycle is gearing up too.

Nice. Need to get a camera on that Lunt!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

I have a Lunt 80 Ha that gives nice views. I get beautiful views of spots and prominences. When I nail the focus I get surface granulation as well. The next cycle is gearing up too.

That sounds great.

[flatbutt]

It's different for sure. I had a neighbor see me out in the garden with it and she asked" what are you looking at? There aren't any stars out now." I foolishly mansplained that "sure there are you just can't see them because of that one big star right up there."

She didn't get it.

[flatbutt]

The sun is definitely waking up:


not my pic

[Eric Hahl]

I've been imaging the same object over the last 4 nights, IC1396. Managed to capture 15 hours of exposure. Pretty happy with this but found one problem...sensor tilt. The stars aren't quite round away from the center of the image. Will have to work on the tilt issue.

[flatbutt]

A couple of references just in case:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/561107-methods-of-dealing-with-imaging-tilt/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/648128-sensor-tilt-adjustment-methodology-proposal/

[Eric Hahl]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

A couple of references just in case:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/561107-methods-of-dealing-with-imaging-tilt/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/648128-sensor-tilt-adjustment-methodology-proposal/

Thank you sir!

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

Thank you sir!

You're welcome. The knowledge base of CN is impressive.

[plexiform]

I find the moon to be one of the most rewarding celestial bodies to photograph. Always the same, yet always different. And compared to deep sky objects so much easier to capture.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by plexiform

I find the moon to be one of the most rewarding celestial bodies to photograph. Always the same, yet always different. And compared to deep sky objects so much easier to capture.

Nice. And so many folks like to capture it when it's full, but it's so much more interesting when it's not full.