Tuesday Night Saturn

[MarkS]

There were some periods of very good seeing (as forecast) but the transparency started off poor and quickly became terrible.

Nevertheless here is the result of eyepiece projection (15mm eyepiece) on the C11 using the SPC900 webcam.  The best 300 frames (0.2sec each) were stacked in Registax and wavelet processing then applied.

[Ian]

I had a look out last night and was pretty unimpressed by the sky. That's a good result, particularly as Saturn's not the brightest target now.

I'll get in there before JohnP does, have a go at registering the RGB, it looks like the blue is offset low...

[RobertM]

I think that was a excellent attempt Mark considering the awful sky last night.  Just as I managed to get my first sub it the clouds rolled in and it became impossible for deep sky but at least I managed to get my MaximDL guiding sorted if nothing else.

Serves me right, I should have gone for Saturn to !

[Fay]

Very good Mark.
I went outside & decided to guide. Everything was good, spot on target except I could not get PHD to work. Hourglass kept coming up & I had to keep shutting it down & restarting. I don't know why.
The setup was pointing directly overhead & I tried to calibrate while on M81, M51 & NGC6545, may be wrong number. I am thinking M51 & 81 may have been sort of near the pole or meridian & for NGC, there was a lot of dew about on the optics.

The sky was not very good & it soon got quite cold. I was miffed that I hit the target every time & PHD let me down!
Does anyone know why that hourglass comes up? I could be pressing instructions too quick or could have changed some of the settings, wheras if you do that I think you have to re calibrate.

Once it was getting to 50 moves on West calibration I knew what would happen & it kept coming up "star not moving enough" all the time. Any clues on this other than I could have been quite near the above
co -ordinates?

[MarkS]

Fay,

I use PhD.  I've never had the hourglass.  At what stage does it appear.

I often have the "star not moving enough" message.  I just close PhD down and start again - that has always done the trick so far.  I've never spent time to get to the bottom of it.

Mark

[Fay]

Well, I will have to concentrate on when it appears next time. It may be that as I am impatient, I am pressing a button before that last one has started up. It happened about 20 times, so that is weird. I have only ever had it come up once or not at all, before.

[mickw]

Have you recently installed new software ?
You have installed a new camera haven't you ?
Check your settings in PHD to see if it's looking for the right camera.

[Fay]

Well funny you should say that. I installed that PL130 from Optic Star & then sent it back. I was trying to look for anything associated with it today, but I am not an expert & don't want to delete something wrong. I have got a PL 2303 serial driver, but don't think that has anything to do with it.
Phd does bring up the right camera, but you never know if something else is interfering, like a mouse. I did see a reference to an unsuitable Logitech driver, I deleted the messages but don't know how to find the driver.

Mick you are like brains of Britain, a font of information. I may have to have you over to sort out new TV connections if I can't fathom it out.
I have just spent an hour trying to get the digibox working via the video to our little TV. It will play a tape now but not digital channels & I thought I had set all the scarts & aerial set up right, obviously haven't.

[mickw]

Doh !

Have you connected the aerial to the freeview box ?

[Fay]

Yep

[MarkS]

I'll get in there before JohnP does, have a go at registering the RGB, it looks like the blue is offset low...

Now fixed!

[Mike]

Looks great Mark. Excellent image. I'll add it to my presentation for tonight.

[Fay]

Mark that is such a good image. I had a go last night & it is so hard to get the planets, getting it on the chip, movment etc. makes you really appreciate images as good as yours. 

[Mike]

I must admit I find doing images of Nebula, etc. far easier than doing the planets. Getting the exposure length right and getting focus spot on is far more criitical. Also, images of Nebula often don't need any or much further processing and you can often get away with single unprocessed frames, whereas it is vital to process planetery images to get a decent result out of them. So I always have admiration for a good planetary image.

[Carole]

getting it on the chip

I must admit I find doing images of Nebula, etc. far easier than doing the planets

I must say hearing these quotes from such experienced Astrophotographers has made me feel much better about planetary imaging (as a beginner) as I found getting the planet on the chip in the first place sometimes quite difficult in fact have not succeeded at all yet with a barlow.

Getting the exposure length right and getting focus spot on is far more criitical

. Yes I found that if I didn't get these things right the planet would not be visible on the screen even when it might have actually been there.

Having said all that I have to confess at not having attempted any imaging for some weeks due to being busy with other things as well as the weather, but I hope to get back to it soon.

Carole