Tonight was about using both the 150 Esprit from the observatory and the Sky-Watcher 180 Mak outside. I setup before darkness fell and then proceeded to send the 150 Esprit to image M56, one of the Messier objects I had still not imaged. I decided on 120s exposures and in the end took 90 of them, with a handful or so having to deleted due to movement issues, probably when I stood next to the pier.
M56 120s Exposure
The dome would not rotate at sidereal tonight. Every time I set it to 1x sidereal it would after a while run away and just keep turning. This meant I had to manually move the dome every 15mins or so during imaging.
With the Sky-Watcher 180 Mak I imaged Saturn. This time I caught it before 3am, but I also managed to work out how to use the ADC and apply colour channel shift before saving the image.
Saturn best 30% of 8,000 frames
Whilst I had a lot of frames and the colour shift is much better than the other night, the seeing was not as good tonight. The Jet stream is still out of the way, however the air was very turbulent, thus the gap in the ring cannot be seen as well tonight.
Russell Croman of RC-Astro has released a major update of his excellent toolset – BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator and StarXTerminator. These are now available as a standalone version which means that they are no longer tied exclusively to being used with the PixInsight ecosystem but means they can now also be used by SetiAstroPro and Siril – both of which are free.
Although I use PixInsight and I have not yet put aside the time to learn either Siril or SetiAstroPro …. sorry Frank ! I think AstroWizard by LukoMatico also now supports the standalone tools.
The main release I was pleased for this set of releases was that Russell included GPU support not only for NVidia but now also for AMD and Intel. Oh what joy – I now have no reason to be forced to purchase an over-priced GPU by greedy and monopolistic NVidia.
In Windows the standalone binary displayed via a cmd shell –
RC-Astro Standalone Binary
There appears to be no way to call the standalone tools within PixInsight currently but Cuiv discussed his custom script (RC-Astro Universal Standalone Engine) for calling the toolset on his Youtube channel here.
RC-Astro Universal Standalone Engine – Cuiv The Lazy Geek
Using a APS-C OSC drizzled, debayered and registered master (~817MB) of the Cocoon Nebula (IC5146). This area is a star and dust dense field so we can show the realised speed improvements made to the workflow when using an aging (2020) AMD RX6800 (16GB) GPU coupled with a AMD Ryzen9 5900X (12c/24t) AM4 processor and 32GB of DDR4 memory.
Mode
BlurX 2.0.4 AI version 4
NoiseX 2.3.3 AI version 3
StarX 2.3.11 AI version 11
CPU
202.85s
186.88s
812.92s
GPU
21.67s
36.35s
27.84s
SpeedUp
9.36x
5.14x
29.20x
My gratitude to Mr Croman for this work but the real icing on the cake was that the standalone toolset is also free to download for existing licensees – thanks Russell !
I uncovered the scope to cool it down and then went to bed until 1:30am. I then got up and went out to image Saturn which would appear around 2:30am from behind my Oak tree. The outside temperature was still 19ºc so pleasantly warm.
Temp from Air Source Heat Pump sensor
I will attempt to capture the charts for the Jet stream from net weather.tv, and the charts for cloud cover, transparency and seeing from skippysky.com.au both excellent sources of information for lunar and planetary imaging. As can be seen below it was a perfect night.
Jetstream – netweather.tv
Total Cloud Cover – skippysky.com.auTransparency – skippysky.com.auSeeing – skippysky.com.au
I had many challenges. Not least adjusting my polar alignment that had shifted slightly since the previous night out. I then struggled for an age to get SharpCap to plate solve, finally realising that it was due to being out of focus!
Once focused it was easier to polar align. I did need tonight to rack up the exposure to 37s to do so, so I must go back and look at my original settings from my other session and compare.
After that I could get Saturn on the chip after a manual spiral search and Saturn was only slightly misaligned on the OTA and I started imaging.
Saturn 3:50am using SharpCap
Here is a video of one of my capture sessions.
Raw video of Saturn
The settings I used were based on hitting Auto sharpen and then adjusting slightly. I did try Auto sharpen more but this was too much.
Sharpening & Adjustments
This means you go from this unsharpened image to this sharpened one. So much better but I could get better focus and improve my use of the ADC.
Unsharpened SaturnSharpened Saturn
I then took the tip from Mark Radice and set the stack to only use the best 30% of frames and just drop the rest.
Best 30% of frames stacked
Once this was done it was time to head back to bed at just gone 4am.
Saturn right of the Moon, the steak on the right is a plane
Luke and I setup the S30 Pro with the Antlia Triband RGB filter to see what difference it makes.
Meanwhile I have taken the Telegizmo cover off the 180 Mak ready to go after the Moon at midnight and Saturn again after 2:30am.
After waiting for the majority of the “night” as it is, at 10 past 1 I slewed to the Moon and started to image using SharpCap 4.1. The image was not great as the seeing due to the Jet stream being overhead was not ideal, but it gave me a start on re-imaging pieces of the Moon. I managed to at least grab a single stacked image of the 3 large craters at the edge of Mare Nectar’s, namely Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina.
Bottom left to top right of the crater chain – Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina
I must admit to having problems with remembering how to use the ADC so I will watch a video over the next few days.
Meanwhile the S30 Pro also struggled under the not dark skies but again produced an ok image given the lighting conditions.
I setup the Sky-Watcher Mak 180 this evening to make sure I could get everything working on the new ZWO AM3 mount ahead of starting my imaging on Saturn and Jupiter along with the Moon.
First I had to install a new battery box inside Telrad as the previous one had split. Once completed I installed on the top of the OTA. I setup next to the observatory on the step to give some height. Later in the evening it was apparent from this position I could see objects including the Moon and planets appearing above the Oak tree across the road at around 00:15am at an altitude of 8º near the ecliptic.
Based on the above I estimate Saturn will be visible possibly around 3am. Until then I will continue to refine and test the system.
I opened the Windows laptop I have for astronomy and started SharpCap v4 from Robin Glover. This looks to be a fantastic piece of software, not only for capturing lunar and planetary images but also for automatically processing them using the Live View. It has come on a huge amount since I last used the software.
It now also has a polar alignment built in. This transpired to be fantastic. It is automatic and works on plate solving. So once I got focus, I switched to PA starting in the home position pointing to just near Polaris and clicked start. After a few screens and a little adjustment I was there.
I then slew to Arcturus but it was definitely not on the screen. I must have been close though as the scope looked to be pointing in that direction. I found Sharpcap had a plate solve feature which undoubtably is what is used during PA. I found the star it was pointing at.
I looked at Sky Safari on my phone and found Arcturus was next to this. I moved the mount using the Sky Atlas app on my phone that comes with the ZWO AM3 and Arcturus slewed into view. I synced and was good to go once the Moon rose.
Soon the Moon rose and at full chip resolution it still did not fit in, however given the suggestion (the best one I have heard in a while) from Robin Glover was to ditch the planetary camera I had from ZWO due to the small chip, and instead use one of my deep sky ZWO cameras, so an ASI 2600MC for me, this made finding stars, the Moon etc so much easier.
I then used the Region of Interest feature to zoom into the Moon. You can see how grainy the original unstacked image is.
Then I confirmed the settings for the stack and for set to live view the Lunar surface. The menu option for this was under Tools rather than the Live View on the quick link bar. A small stack of the ROI gave the following.
This was not bad given the currently low altitude of the Moon but also the Jet stream being overhead as detailed on the brilliant weather website SkippySky.Com.Au
Screenshot
The cloud cover, transparency and seeing were excellent tonight, however with the jet stream being overhead the air was just bumping around too much.
At 2am Saturn was still behind my own oak tree.
Finally at 3am Saturn appeared out the side of the oak tree.
I need to understand how to adjust the ADC correctly as it was definitely not easy. Also I need an EAF as manually focusing makes the planet wobble too much.
One of the problems I did have was thinking I was adjusting the gain on the image when I was actually just adjusting it on the screen rendition. This meant I was underexposed on what I was capturing.
The planet looked tiny on the APS-C chip
By 3:35am the sky was visibly bright and my practice session came to an end.
I had been seeing a small problem with the Seestar S30. I noticed on holiday that the top left corner looked out of focus. I contacted the brilliant ZWO support and they suggested it might be a focus issue in that it was not focused properly. Tonight I thought I would refocus and take some more images to see. This is what I saw.
As you can see the image is almost perfect. Much better than the affending stars from the trip up Tenerife’s mountain Teide recently. Problem solved. It had clearly not auto focused correctly. If I see the same problem again I will simply re auto focus. Here is another of Mizar and Alcor in the handle of Ursa Major.
Mizar
Onto the other test for the night was the Canon 6D that I have and testing it again with the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens for use in Namibia. I set about shooting so images on the twilight sky and the stars were pin sharp.
I also liked this one with a longer exposure and thus the clouds captured in motion.
I’m out with the 22″ Obsession again doing visual. The images below are from the Moon Globe HD app on my iPhone, not focal this time. I have included as an aid to what I saw visually.
I could see huge Plato crater and Archemedeis to the top. I could make out 3 small craters, Bancroft, Beer and Feuillee before getting to Timocharis near the terminator.
I could just make out Heinrich and then Pytheis at the terminator
• ⁃ Beer & Feuillee stand out so much more. Also Montes Archimedes is very prominent and the 3 main ranges. We are in the middle of a heatwave with a very unusual heat dome sitting over my part of England. This is causing the air to be very still and thus the seeing is astonishing. The Moon is still not wobbling at all.
Mare Tranquillitatis, above Rupes Cauchy I can see what looks like the straight wall a rile going diagonally 9 o’clock to 4 o’clock and Rima Cauchy below the crater and the Hussain crater below that at 4 0’clock
Back in Mare Fecundities I can see rays coming off the crater to the right of Messier crater
In Mare Nectaris, crater Rosse is very obvious
At this point there was some cloud to the South West as the Moon was setting behind my neighbours tree
Moon 5 Days old
Time – 22:38 / Object – M106 / Eyepiece – 31mm
M106 not seen due to cloud, I could see HD 107610 though
Time – 22:41 / Object – M12 / Eyepiece – 31mm
Moved to south east near Vega where no cloud.
M12, seen with direct vision, faint against bright sky. I could see a fairly bright star to the top on the outside of the cluster. Not sure if it is part of the cluster or not
Time – 22:53 / Object – M10 / Eyepiece – 31mm
M10 seen direct vision. Slightly brighter than M12 but not prominent star. Then it got cloudy so packed up
The temperature was 17° at midnight and 80% humidity, clear and dry
Time – 22:15 / Object – Moon / Eyepiece – 31mm
Note that all observations are made North South flipped. First I viewed Mare Crisium
Picard and then Peirce and the smaller Swift crater can be seen easily
In Petavius crater you can see Rimae Petavius and a small crater to the top
Mare Fecundities you can see ripples on the floor
4 Day old Moon
Time – 23:20 / Object – M5 / Eyepiece – 31mm
5 Serpentis can be seen in the same FoV
M5 has a compact centre and I can make out a couple of prominent stars to the top right of the cluster in a line from 4 o’clock to 10 o’clock
Time – 23:50 / Object – M51 / Eyepiece – 31mm
I can easily make out M51 and the interacting NGC 5195 with direct vision, although I cannot see the connecting spiral arms. I can see some of the spiral just not extending all the way to the adjacent NGC
Time – 00:02 / Object – M63 / Eyepiece – 31mm
This spiral galaxy is seen with direct vision
I can seen a mag 11.53 star and 3 others in a line starting with Tyc 3024-1007-1
I can see the bright star next to M63 although the galaxies spiral arms do not reach out as far to it as in a photo on Sky Safari. I can see 2 faint stars diagonally placed on the opposite side of the galaxy in the plane of the disc, not sure of the names
Time – 00:17 / Object – M94 / Eyepiece – 31mm
A very bright and tight core easily seen direct vision, so much tighter than the previous M63
Time – 00:24 / Target – M86 and M84 / Eyepiece – 31mm
• Both galaxies can be seen but they are very faint. I can make out the very faint edge on spiral which is probably an NGC, however I cannot find a reference as of yet. This forms a triangle with the two Messier objects as can be seen in this screenshot from TheSkyX.
I opened the dome tonight and looked to image something with the Esprit 150. I quickly found a Lynds Dark Nebula in the Milky Way just rising, LDN 621
LDN 621 – 1 hour 30 mins of 300s subs
This was particularly low down when I started imaging at 23º altitude. The sky was still rather bright as we were approaching the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere on 21st June. There is definitely some interesting structure within this part of the sky, I will surely revisit once astronomical darkness returns and the altitude is higher.
I collected the new ZWO Seestar S30 Pro (S30P) today. I thought Luke and I could give it a little run, even though astronomical darkness is no longer with us until August.
I setup the S30P here on the observatory patio. Luke setup the S50 at his house. We then took a variety of test images on both to compare the different scopes.
Whilst I waited for darkens to fall I took a quick phot of Venus and Jupiter close together on my iPhone.
Venus & Jupiter – iPhone 15 Pro Max
Then we setup the S30P so that it could be used remotely. You can share the scope but only 1 person can be logged in at any one time.
Screenshot of sharing scopes
First we tested out just getting focus on Arcturus and seeing what FoV we would get with the much larger chip of the S30P.
Next we slewed to M13. Given the light nights it’s better not going for a galaxy or nebula.
M 13M 13
Then I went fore M27 on the S50 only but I had problems with red banding on the photo. It must have been some interference, however I was not quite sure I knew from where.
M 27
Then I did M10 on the S50. At the same time I did M92 on the S30P as M10 was poorly positioned.
M 10M 92
I then tried a Milky Way shot but this was too faint due to the night sky being so very bright.
Milky Way
Lastly I set the S30P performing a short Star Trails image on Polaris.
Tonight I thought I would continue my testing of the ZWO ASI2600MC Duo camera for performing photometry on T Coronae Borealis, HR 5958, as Wednesday night I realised the Antlia filter was in the imaging train and because even with the filter in, at 1s the maximum the star was, was .1 in green so far from saturated which gives a chance of being able to compare to a mag 2.2 star, Epsilon CrB in the same field of view.
I took 100 x 50ms of TcB, stacked them and this increased the signal to noise which helped. I then downloaded AstroImageJ for the Mac which I will use to perform photometry. Now I just need to learn the software.
Started work on my first photometry project tonight which I will do with my friend GingerGeek. T Coronae Borealis, which is also known as HR 5958 in that constellation is the target. I have been working on the information provided by the BAA
Both the above have proved useful in understanding both the situation and the comparison star/s to observe too. In my case I will attempt to image T CrB along with Epsilon CrB as this is a non variable mag 2.2 star.
T Coronae Borealis
Tonight I managed to take a few different subs at varying exposures, both to characterise the behaviour of the camera on this Field of View, but also to create an annotated overlay to help pinpoint T CrB on other frames.
After taking exposures ranging from 1s to 300s, the latter being for the annotation, I slewed to the Moon to take my first image through this new Sky-Watcher Esprit 150EDX.
Whilst in Tenerife on a family holiday I was fortunate to have some clear spells in the cloud cover that seems to build up in the evenings on many occasions and hug the mountain side. Fortunately I have moved to a different villa, this time down at Playa de la Arena in Santiago del Teide. Whilst the villa is further away from the central mass of the mountain, the light pollution at the coast is much higher, not just moonlight, but also streetlights and wall lights!
But this did not deter me. I setup the Seestar S30 behind a chair, believe it or not it helped. I then setup a path to image between the wall on the left and the larger house roof on the right as South was directly towards the main gate. I could not go the other side of the covered seating area due to further street lights.
I slept for a few hours from 1pm before I started imaging as all the interesting objects in the Milky would not rise and appear in my small window until 3:30pm. The slot I had was from 153 degrees to 184 degrees at an altitude no less than 33 degrees so just past the Meridian.
First up was M20 and I could fit M8 in at the same time. I took 30s subs with a total of 30mins for the final image. I dropped a few frames due to wind gusts that were knocking the little scope about every now and then. I then processed the image in PixInsight. Note that due to the excessive light pollution I had to go easy on the sharpening with NoiseXTerminator and also on the colour saturation, even though I was using the light pollution filter built into the scope.
After this I slewed over to NGC 6520 an open cluster which includes a Barnard dark nebular B86. I did struggle with the colour on this as it really should be a golden hue to the whole region, but alas I put this down to the light pollution and possibly the abilities of this little scope.
The last deep sky object for the night was M16 the Eagle nebula. Again I used 30s subs and a total of 30mins, then processed in PixInsight.
Last up for tonight is the Moon at 21.6 days old waning 56.4% Seestar S30 cropped.
I have the travel scope setup on the patio next to the observatory. Unfortunately I’m waiting for my camera to come back from the dealer so I cannot use the 12”. So instead I have the 100Esprit ready to image SH2-129 an emission nebula with an OIII object called The Squid in front of it. I have the Askar C1 filter in place and will see if this filter which covers Ha + OIII emissions catches it.
I have decided tonight to start to retake the 6 objects from the previous two nights. The Moon definitely had a massive effect and so did the cloud. I want to see what it’s like imaging without the Moon and clear skies. The Moon comes up at 11:16pm so I will image from when it is dark until then.
I have had a few intermittent problems with focusing over the last few nights. I have now realised it is worse when their scope is pointing directly up so the ratchet focuser must be slipping. I have taken it to pieces this evening and then reattached the EAF ZWO electronic focuser and bracket. It now seems to be working fine. Due to this issue I lost the first 90 mins of imaging this evening. It’s now 9:30pm and I’m back up and running, but will need to delete the first 7 or so images from this evening that are out of focus.
I started with M38 the open cluster in Auriga and managed to capture around 1 hours worth of 120s subs.
120s M38
It’s worth noting that there is a large black circle on the flats, I thought this was due to a smudge on the filter, however I have now cleaned that and it is still there. Therefore it must be on the corrector plate so I will look tomorrow.
Also I had some problems tonight with the guiding suddenly jumping. I put this down to the stretchy USB cable running to the mount getting caught, however on changing how it was connected I still had the issue so I need to further investigate. I will change the cable tomorrow to using WiFi which I have just found out I can do.
I took flats and darks.
By way of an update, it transpired that some of my problem with the guiding jumping was the 4s exposure I was using, reducing this to 0.5s-1.0s resolved the problem in the main. The only time I saw this again was then when the scope was pointing low to the North Western horizon possibly being effected by the street lights.
Following on from last nights cloudy weather, I have setup again tonight, and it is looking clear. I am imaging M38 again, I will use 120s subs and take the appropriate Flats at the shorter exposure as with the Triband filter it suggested 750ms on Auto however these are far to bright so I will reduce back to 500ms.
After 3 hours I had not only gathered much better data for M38, but also the clouds once again on this mountain had formed. I waited until 1:20am and then packed up as it was not clearing.
