[stewie]

Originally Posted by graaja

First Astrophotography Session of 2022

Those are some amazing captures. I've been reading Asimov lately and these are just *chef's kiss*

I guess you are now officially allowed to use the Windows update meme pack


Hope you've turned off auto updates for the NUC.
Looking forward to more captures!

[Miyata]

Originally Posted by graaja

I also have plans to switch to narrowband imaging using monochrome camera in the future.

Monochrome camera or choice of filters with single, narrow bandpass?

I was also looking for those features you spoke of towards the edges. Not too obvious on visual inspection...at least at the resolution I am looking at on the screen. In other optical imaging systems, it could be indicative of wavefront distortion at the edges of one or more of your filters / optical elements.

Coming as they (rays/waves from the object) are already are from the practically infinite distance, focus on the image plane seems good. Look forward to seeing the (very) long exposure shots and further work / analysis / resolution on the edge distortion effects.

[AnandB]

Subbed. Great work @graaja and those are mesmerizing pictures!

[graaja]

Originally Posted by satishv1987

Brilliant captures @graaja. Looking forward to many more such photographs.

As a beginner, I am looking for a telescope to do some star gazing myself. I intend to pursue this as a hobby. My budget is <15K . Any recommendations ?

Thank you for the kind words. For visual astronomy, I would suggest you start with an 8" dobsonian telescope for which you may have to step up the budget to maybe 25K or 30K. But this will be a worthy buy and will serve you for a long time as you can view lot more types of objects with an 8" dobsonian than some basic beginner telescopes that cost around 10K. These cheaper ones will have low focal length and aperture such that you will not be able to view other than moon and some planets in very small detail.

Originally Posted by VamshiV

Wow, those are some beautiful pictures there. Looking forward for more pics.

Thank you for the kind words. Will update more frequently in the coming months till summer showers start.

Originally Posted by stewie

Those are some amazing captures. I've been reading Asimov lately and these are just *chef's kiss*

I guess you are now officially allowed to use the Windows update meme pack

Hope you've turned off auto updates for the NUC.
Looking forward to more captures!

Thank you for the kind words. Ha ha. That is a nice one about windows update. Strangely, there is no option to permanently disable automatic updates of windows. It only allows to pause for 5 weeks max. And I have paused it for 5 weeks.

Originally Posted by Miyata

Monochrome camera or choice of filters with single, narrow bandpass?

Initially narrow band like Optolong L-Enhance with my color camera, and later monochrome camera with single band filters like R,G,B, Ha, Oiii etc.

Originally Posted by Miyata

I was also looking for those features you spoke of towards the edges. Not too obvious on visual inspection...at least at the resolution I am looking at on the screen. In other optical imaging systems, it could be indicative of wavefront distortion at the edges of one or more of your filters / optical elements.

Actually, the images I have posted are cropped. The artefacts are visible towards the edges. I will post a comparison of a full uncropped frame pre and post back focus adjustment and explain this.

Yesterday, I got both the polar alignment and backfocus (it is almost perfect now) fixed. And when I started the data integration, clouds rolled in. Will wait for another clear night to start data collection.

Originally Posted by AnandB

Subbed. Great work @graaja and those are mesmerizing pictures!

Thank you so much for the kind words!

Originally Posted by maheshm619

This one was absolutely majestic . I went on to search more images and its simply beautiful.

Thank you for the kind words. Yes. The horsehead nebula is an awesome target with lots of colors. With more integration time, the red clouds can be enhanced a lot. Will post an update once I collect enough data.

[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by graaja

As I assembled all the gear after such a long time, I was expecting some glitches. But surprisingly I was able to get everything working within 30 minutes.

Going back to the subect of setting up / assembling time. Would it be an idea to have a rooftop observatory with openable roof? Something like this:



And then you can simply keep your equipment covered and the assembling time goes to almost nil.

OT: I have my home workout setup (link to post) (My Home Gym: A guide for anyone wanting to set up a gym at home!) just upstairs so that I am then and there when it's time for workout. Saved me driving/cycling time to and fro gym + sundries.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by carthick1000

Going back to the subect of setting up / assembling time. Would it be an idea to have a rooftop observatory with openable roof?

OT: I have my home workout setup (link to post) (My Home Gym: A guide for anyone wanting to set up a gym at home!) just upstairs so that I am then and there when it's time for workout. Saved me driving/cycling time to and fro gym + sundries.

Yes. A full observatory with a sliding roof is in my wish list and I will do this some day.

But for now, I have a slightly smaller setup with a pier on which the equipment is permanently mounted and a rolling enclosure. I just roll out the enclosure connect the power and the set up is ready to shoot. This takes about 5 minutes to set up. I have explained this setup in the below post.

Installation of Pier and Enclosure

Due to the monsoons, I had removed and dismantled and stored the telescope, camera in their respective boxes (to protect from moisture) with only the mount left on the pier. That is why it took 30 minutes to setup the first time. Now everything is assembled and is left in the terrace with the rolling enclosure protecting it.

With the full observatory, I can leave the full setup even during the monsoon. That is the advantage. Hope I get to do this sometime soon.

PS: You got a nice gym setup there.

[Jyotil]

As always fantastic pictures and great to see this thread active again. One question - as this passion evolved how much time do you still spend on visual astronomy and do you use the same scope or a different setup?
Secondly, I ended up capturing entirely by fluke, an object in front of early evening moon few days back - What could this possibly be? You may need to zoom

[graaja]

Originally Posted by Jyotil

As always fantastic pictures and great to see this thread active again. One question - as this passion evolved how much time do you still spend on visual astronomy and do you use the same scope or a different setup?
Secondly, I ended up capturing entirely by fluke, an object in front of early evening moon few days back - What could this possibly be? You may need to zoom

Thank you for the kind words!

I hardly do anymore visual astronomy. In fact, I was into visual astronomy very briefly before getting interested in photography. For visual astronomy, I use the Celestron SE6 telescope and a pair of 10x50 binoculars.

The object looks like a satellite. This type of transit is also done by many - like ISS transit before the moon or sun. You got a nice transit of a satellite. That is a good one

[Jyotil]

Originally Posted by graaja

The object looks like a satellite. This type of transit is also done by many - like ISS transit before the moon or sun. You got a nice transit of a satellite. That is a good one

Thanks - that’s what I thought as well, probably a Starlink - 1871 of them going around the planet, I end up spotting atleast 1 every evening just after sunset.

[graaja]

As sky was cloudy during new moon, could not get any astrophotography time. But got a couple of days of clear sky a few days after new moon.

M45 - The Pleiades (Seven Sisters, Karthigai Natchathiram, Subaru)

The Pleiades also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45, and other names by different cultures (called Karthigai natchathiram in Tamil, and Subaru in Japan), is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth. It is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.

The cluster is slowly moving in the direction of the feet of what is currently the constellation of Orion. The cluster is also moving through a dust cloud which forms the nebulosity around the stars. Like most open clusters, the Pleiades will not stay gravitationally bound forever. Some component stars will be ejected after close encounters with other stars; others will be stripped by tidal gravitational fields. Calculations suggest that the cluster will take about 250 million years to disperse, with gravitational interactions with giant molecular clouds and the spiral arms of our galaxy also hastening its demise



Exposure Details:
Lights: 81 x 120 seconds (2 hours 42 minutes)
Darks: 25

Equipment:
EQ6 R Pro mount
WO GT81 APO triplet
WO 50mm guide scope
ZWO ASI 2600 MC Pro
ZWO ASI 224 guide camera
Optolong L-Pro filter

Software:
N.I.N.A for capture
PixInsight for stacking and processing

An interesting fact about Pleiades and Subaru:
TBHPian @KiloAlpha mentioned that car enthusiasts know the Pleiades by another name - Subaru. I was not aware of the connection between Pleiades and Subaru. After some Googling, came to know that Pleiades is know as Subaru in Japan and the 6 stars in the logo of Subaru represent the 6 bright stars in the Pleiades. Below is the tweet by Neil deGrasse Tyson on this subject.



M42 - The Orion Nebula (and Running Man Nebula)

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. Orion nebula is situated at about 1350 light years from earth and is about 12 light years wide.

To the left of the Orion Nebula is the running man nebula which is situated at 1500 light years from earth.

As Orion has a very bright core and very faint clouds near the tail, I used a method called HDR processing. In this method, we combine a picture of short exposure (30 seconds in this image) that shows the details of the core and a picture of long exposure (300 seconds). Each picture is again an integration of multiple frames of the same exposure.



Exposure Details:
Total Exposure: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Lights: 21 x 300 seconds, 50 x 30 seconds
Darks: 25 x 300 seconds, 25 x 30 seconds
Bias: 25

Equipment:
EQ6 R Pro mount
WO GT81 APO triplet
WO 50mm guide scope
ZWO ASI 2600 MC Pro
ZWO ASI 224 guide camera
Optolong L-Pro filter

Software:
N.I.N.A for capture
PixInsight for stacking and processing (HDR, Histogram, DBE)
Adobe Lightroom for final touch-ups

Last year I had captured the Orion nebula with my Canon EOS450D camera. Below is the image captured then. As this image was an integration of 1 hour of data, the nebulosity at the tail end of the nebula and the colors in the running man nebula are lacking detail and also there is lot of noise from the Canon's sensor at ambient temperature. The latest image has better details due to longer integration time and also the superior sensor in the dedicated astrophotography camera which is cooled to 0 degrees celcius to reduce thermal noise.



As the moon now occupies the sky for the better part of the night, next imaging will be near new moon in first week of March. Will post some images if skies are clear around new moon.

That's all folks, I have for now!

[graaja]

There have been no further updates on this thread as it has been cloudy all these months. Now the monsoon has set in. It may be another 5 months before we may get some clear skies for astrophotography.

During cloudy season, what do we do? We collect gear

Bringing Home a 10" GoTo Dobsonian:

One of the equipments that I had wanted to purchase was a good dobsonian telescope for visual astronomy. I was looking for a GoTo model for ease of locating objects. Dobsonian telescopes are usually manually operated and can be moved in two axes - Altitude and Azimuth. A GoTo dobsonian adds a couple of motors, one for each axis and a hand held controller that can automatically control the motors and move the telescope to point to the desired object.

The only operation needed is a 2 star alignment where the telescope is manually moved (using the hand controller) to point at two known stars. Once these two stars (can be any bright star in the sky) are located manually, the onboard computer calculates the exact position of the telescope and after this, it can slew to any desired object.

However, I could not find any stock with Indian vendors. A couple of weeks back, someone in the Bangalore Astronomy Society (BAS) had put up his Skywatcher 10" GoTo Dobsonian telescope for sale as he was going out of the country. I immediately called him and after a video call where he showed the functions, confirmed the purchase with a token advance.

Last Tuesday, I drove to Bangalore and brought the telescope home.

The telescope loaded in the car. Placed the optical tube in the front passenger seat and fastened it with the seat belt.


Placed the base in the rear seat and strapped the seat belt.


The packing cartons were huge and occupied the complete boot with 60% of the back seat folded down.


The telescope assembled in the living room. The telescope is almost 5.5 feet tall.


The 10" main mirror can be seen from the top. Light is collected and reflected from this primary mirror to the secondary mirror that hangs at the top. The light reflects from the secondary and passes through the eye piece located on the side of the scope.


Now waiting for clear skies for some good observation sessions.

[Ravi.Zedd]

Congratulations on your new acquisition Ganesh! The SkyWatcher 10" is a mighty fine scope for sure. Did you get any eyepieces and other accessories with it?

As a long time visual stargazer (30+ years), I currently own a SkyWatcher 10" classic Dobsonian. Last year I converted it to a "push-to" telescope (DIY) and built an Equatorial Platform (DIY again). Might write about it if anyone is interested.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by Ravi.Zedd

Congratulations on your new acquisition Ganesh! The SkyWatcher 10" is a mighty fine scope for sure. Did you get any eyepieces and other accessories with it?

Thank you so much for the kind words. I got a 25mm, 6mm and 4mm eyepieces, sun and moon filters and a battery with the scope. I have ordered a Hotech SCA laser collimator as I was told this scope needs collimation everytime I set it up.

Originally Posted by Ravi.Zedd

As a long time visual stargazer (30+ years), I currently own a SkyWatcher 10" classic Dobsonian. Last year I converted it to a "push-to" telescope (DIY) and built an Equatorial Platform (DIY again). Might write about it if anyone is interested.

That is an awesome setup you got there. Please share pictures of your setup and more details of your DIY. It would be very interesting and a good learning.

One drawback I see with this scope is the focuser. The single speed focuser seems to have lot of play and when using the eyepieces with longer focal length, when I tighten the focuser screw that messes up the focus. Did you face any such problem? I saw many posts in Cloudynights where people had this complaint and have upgraded to better dual speed focusers.

Also, are you in BAS telegram group?

[Ravi.Zedd]

Thank you for your reply!

Originally Posted by graaja

One drawback I see with this scope is the focuser. The single speed focuser seems to have lot of play and when using the eyepieces with longer focal length, when I tighten the focuser screw that messes up the focus. Did you face any such problem? I saw many posts in Cloudynights where people had this complaint and have upgraded to better dual speed focusers.

I find the single speed focuser adequate for visual observation. I have no experience with dual speed ones. However, this focuser is a badly designed one. It is unnecessarily tall causing a larger central obstruction. I do not tighten or loosen the focus locking thumb-screw every time. I tighten it just enough to support the heaviest accessory and it supports nearly 1kg of barlow + eyepiece weight without much trouble.

Originally Posted by graaja

Thank you so much for the kind words. I got a 25mm, 6mm and 4mm eyepieces, sun and moon filters and a battery with the scope.

You should buy a 2X barlow first, which will double the possible magnifications. Depending on the quality (or lack of it) of your existing eyepieces you can decide to buy new ones. The ones I received with the telescope were not upto mark; so I have bought new ones over a period of time.

Originally Posted by graaja

I have ordered a Hotech SCA laser collimator as I was told this scope needs collimation everytime I set it up.

I use a cheshire eyepiece for collimation, which can help in collimating the secondary too. I do have a laser collimator, but is is not self centering like the Hotech. Mine is a solid tube OTA and the only collimation I need to touch up is on the primary. I don't know how well a collapsible tube OTA of SkyWatcher holds up the collimation.

Originally Posted by graaja

That is an awesome setup you got there. Please share pictures of your setup and more details of your DIY. It would be very interesting and a good learning.

I will share and post the details on another day; it will be a lengthy post!

Originally Posted by graaja

Also, are you in BAS telegram group?

I am not on BAS group. I once tried submitting a request sometime back, it didn't work for some reason. Let me do it again!

[graaja]

Originally Posted by Ravi.Zedd

You should buy a 2X barlow first, which will double the possible magnifications. Depending on the quality (or lack of it) of your existing eyepieces you can decide to buy new ones. The ones I received with the telescope were not upto mark; so I have bought new ones over a period of time.

...

I am not on BAS group. I once tried submitting a request sometime back, it didn't work for some reason. Let me do it again!

The accessories I listed were what came with this scope. I already have a 2x barlow and a 8 to 25mm zoom eyepiece that I bought when I got the Celestron 6SE scope. Will use these with the scope. The first goal with this scope is to observe and also shoot the planets with the 2x barlow and the CMOS planetary camera. Waiting for the sky to clear up.

Please do retry the BAS registration. It is a nice group where lots of discussion happens on visual astronomy. We also do star parties mostly in Coorg during winter.