Nice one Raymo,
Boy you must be getting heaps of clear nights down there! I've been waiting for ages to get under the stars here. Damn clouds! Doesn't help that the clear nights have to be on a weekend.
Keep up the output. I enjoy seeing your results.
Bruce.
Thanks everyone. It's nice that Bruce likes to see my offerings; I was beginning to think that some people might be getting sick of them.
Taken over the year, this is a horrible location for astro; we get a
brief fairly clear period during the height of summer; at any other time you don't know what you're going to get from one day to the next.
Most of the rest of the year my gear is soaking wet within 30 mins of setting it up. I have a separate car battery to power my dew heaters.
It is particularly frustrating for me as I was used to around 300
clear nights per year up in the north west for many years.
raymo
It is particularly frustrating for me as I was used to around 300
clear nights per year up in the north west for many years.
raymo
What, where? Lat/Long please. I need to pack up and head up there.
sick of the clouds here.
How are you coming along with increasing the length of your subs, guiding etc?
the 8inch F5 would give you some very impressive results once you start increasing the length of the subs, but slow and steady is better than jumping into it.
Hi Alistair, Most of the Northern half of W.A. from the west coast to as
far east as about half way between Port Hedland and Broome has
250-300 clear nights per year. Further east from there you have a distinct
wet season, and get "only" about 150-175.
Last night I took some subs at 60, 75, and 90secs. I don't have an autoguider or OAG, and am too old to get myself into awkward positions to manually guide. Did that for 50+ yrs. I also have great difficulty with
the intricacies of PS etc. I have no idea how to work with gradients, layers etc; and do not take flats, biases, and let the camera take the darks. I am aware that I am fairly close to as good as I will get, and am happy to live with that.
raymo
Raymo, you are nowhere near what you can achieve. If you have an equatorial mount with a guide port then autoguiding is relatively simple. If you then lower your ISO and increase your exposure your images will improve dramatically.
Thanks Dunk. Phil, there are several obstacles in the way of my
improvement. Firstly, the only scope I have that would be suitable
for use with an autoguider is an SW 80, which together with the
camera and autoguider take the HEQ5 to it's absolute weight limit,
which as you would know is not good for imaging.[ or the motors].
Secondly, SWMBO strongly dislikes my hobby, so I am generally
limited to sessions of 2 1/2 hrs or so, including setup and breakdown,
so I am ,understandably, I think, reluctant to spend much time
achieving decent PA. This ultimately will limit my subs to maybe 2 mins
or so.
Thirdly, advancing years are making the setup more of a chore.
I will probably limit my imaging to the SW 80 in the not too distant
future.
Fourthly, as I mentioned on another thread, my short term memory
is poor, so if I don't do a particular manipulation during
processing for a while, then I struggle to remember how to do it.
It would obviously be impractical to write down how to carry out every
one of the scores of manipulations in the various software I use.
Having said all this, I thank you and everyone else for your encouragement and suggestions, and will continue my efforts to
improve.
raymo
Hi Alistair, Most of the Northern half of W.A. from the west coast to as
far east as about half way between Port Hedland and Broome has
250-300 clear nights per year. Further east from there you have a distinct
wet season, and get "only" about 150-175.
Last night I took some subs at 60, 75, and 90secs. I don't have an autoguider or OAG, and am too old to get myself into awkward positions to manually guide. Did that for 50+ yrs. I also have great difficulty with
the intricacies of PS etc. I have no idea how to work with gradients, layers etc; and do not take flats, biases, and let the camera take the darks. I am aware that I am fairly close to as good as I will get, and am happy to live with that.
raymo
Thanks Raymo,
I presume the temperatures would be on the high side most of the year? If I ever get the opportunity, I will keep it in mind. its frustrating when it looks crystal clear at 10pm only for clouds to roll in at 3.
As for guiding, yep, with this hobby, you get the most satisfaction by doing things they way you're most comfortable with and what works for you.
But if you're interested and if there are members nearby, I think some might be happy to give you a few pointers in person, I'm only going by the nice gestures I've seen from members here.
if you prefer and if you leave your scope and mount outdoors untouched, you could spend a few nights perfecting your polar alignment and you can go unguided for much longer lengths. of course its mount and seeing limited but can be done.
sorry, don't mean to pressure, just keep doing what you're doing but there's ample scope to grow within your limits.
I'm still surprised you got that amount of detail in the curtain in just 14 minutes. why not try iso 3200 since its only 60 secs?
What, where? Lat/Long please. I need to pack up and head up there.
sick of the clouds here.
In the winter up here on the Darling Downs we get around 85/95% clear nights, generally big puffy clouds during the day but they disappear at sunset and reappear at sunrise
Summer is different though, generally only around 60% clear nights
Thanks again everyone. Alistair; I got close to the same amount of
detail with one 20 sec sub @ 6400, but it was, of course noisy, so I
am attempting to get the ISO down to 800, but I can certainly try 3200
and see how it comes out. Even this 1600 image is quite noisy. Maybe
it'll improve in coming months as the ambient drops.
raymo
