This and that

[Carole]

All is quiet on the Western Front.  We have had a few clear nights lately, any-one taken advantage of them other then me?

Any-one bought any new kit?

I have recruited another person to join the happy throng at Cairds, called Roland who lives in Woolwich and just buying his first astroimaging rig having previously used a Dob.  He's younger than most of us but keen to learn and was looking for company to go to a dark location.  He's made a note of the March date so hopefully will be coming then.

That's 3 new people in the last few months, so should improve the social side at Cairds.

Who went to Astrofest and what did you buy? 
I went but did not buy anything, just went to meet up with people.

Hope every-one is well.

Carole

[ApophisAstros]

Bought a nice book at the Cambridge University Press stand about the Messier Objects.
Thought i would use my Messier images as bookmarks in the appropriate place in the book and try and complete all the Messier objects. 15 done 95 to go plus the double cluster which he didn't put in list because of unknown reasons.

Link to picture on Facebook

Roger

(Edit: Fixed link; it seems Facebook pictures can't be displayed in IMG tags here, so there's just a link now. -- Rick)
Thanks Rick

[doug]

Are you going to persuade Roland to come along to one of the OAS meetings or an Observing evening, Carole? If he is new to the scene, he might enjoy himself ...

Doug.

[doug]

... and howza `bout some of our imagers using my reports of interesting objects to image them ... such as visible comets, minor planets, etc.... 

[Carole]

try and complete all the Messier objects

I could mention it to him Doug.

Carole

[MarkS]

All is quiet on the Western Front.  We have had a few clear nights lately, any-one taken advantage of them other then me?

I became a bit disillusioned when neither of my big Winter projects managed to get off the ground because of the weather.  I also missed a couple of recent clear nights because of being poorly - some virus or other.  Anyway, over the last few days I put my unmodified Canon 600D on my Tak.  Why you ask?  Well there's an interesting discussion going on over on DPReview about the "true colour" of the nebulosity around Pleiades.  The main proponent (a very vocal contributor who claims his colour is the one true colour) has been subtracting his light pollution in Adobe's raw converter, which is completely the wrong thing to do.

I demonstrate the problem here:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60746280

Original thread is here:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60664093

Read them if you have a few hours spare 

Anyway, it's a very fascinating(*) excursion into camera colour science (colorimetry(**)) and the end result (once I've written it all up on my website) might have long-term practical implications for how we process one-shot-colour and DSLR data.  My colour preserving stretches are already out there being used - that was stage 1.  Next stage is chromatic adaptations and compromise colour matrices.

Mark

(*) Fascinating for me at least.  What would the universe look like to us if it were bright enough to view the wonderful colours directly?
(**)  Colorimetry as in the measurement of colour.  Not calorimetry as in the measurement of heat.  Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimetry) helpfully says "Calorimetry: Not to be confused with Colorimetry"

[The Thing]

After getting a scope full of rain and a damp observatory I've had a couple of clearish nights with my new ASI294 camera, I even got 48mins of the Fish Head and its surroundings, but not enough for more than a basic noisy picture.

I'm experimenting with exposure length and gain combinations and haven't come up with a good combination yet. The processing is wierd as well, it should be the same as a DSLR with a OSC CMOS security camera chip but debayering the FITS files is problematic. I suspect I need a UV/IR cut filter as well. So I'm very interested in what Mark is up to with colour processing.

Next project is to motorise the obsy roof to avoid the rain in the scope scenario!

Duncan

[Carole]

The processing is wierd as well, it should be the same as a DSLR with a OSC CMOS security camera chip but debayering the FITS files is problematic.

I had problems with debayering with my QHY8L.  It was fine all the time I was using APT but then that kept crashing, and when I tried capture with Nebulosity and the weird software that comes with the QHY8L I think it was called EZcap, I could not get it to work at all even with the correct debayer settings.  One of the reasons I gave up on OSC.

I am sure with your technical skills you will work it out though.

Carole

[Carole]

try and complete all the Messier objects

Moving to the Southern Hemisphere to get the whole lot then Roger?   

Carole

[ApophisAstros]

try and complete all the Messier objects

Moving to the Southern Hemisphere to get the whole lot then Roger?   

Carole

As Mr Spock in StarTrek said"There are always possibilities".
Roger

[Mac]

Try adding the Cadwell objects to the Messier ones as well.

Mac.