1yr Astroversary

[oska (John)]

My how time flies. I got into astro as art therapy rather than a hobby, long story, not shared. It suited my inverted body clock and my love of electromechanical contrivances. It's been a hoot and very effective. My brain is a very much a "first principles" learner but in this endeavour I've deliberately skipped all of that as it just induces overload. So internet apologies to all the purists who shoot hand guided on bespoke glass plates with their hand made emulsions for my uncouthyness and irreverenceses

From memory my first astro shot was 'technically' of the running chicken, but it was just a starfield because in all the excitement (and man was I excited) I forgot star alignment. It appears it was deleted in a clean up, booo. So the first image that I can find, was of the cat's paw. I'll admit I thought it was so cool to find a really blue object at first

I put aside 'just having fun' and made an effort of sorts. I've had a couple of goes at this, firstly neglecting framing and then I didn't like the colour so another redo. Got the framing I was after and used the ZWO duo-band to bring up the colour. Even splashed out on some RGB (osc) stars, extra fancy. So all in all I've done 32 edits of this and while I think it's still over cooked I can't seem to tone it down without losing the fine detail. I've run out of patience, so LOUD it is. This is #27

A special thank you to Alex for his generosity and constantly reminding me, directly and indirectly, that if you're not having fun you're doing it wrong! Cheers mate!

The DB was shot on easily the best, driest, coolest nights of the year so far, the galactic core was casting shadows, just lovely.
The RGB was shot on a cloudy night where I had so shoot in the gaps, just to keep with tradition.

Non murdered one: https://telescopius.com/pictures/view/154318

11 hrs of DB ASI1600MC 180s 139g
1.5 hrs rgb stars ASI1600MC 60s 139g
NINA + PI
CEM40ec

As always comments, criticism and adoring adulation most welcome.
I'll name a grand child after you if you make me laugh.

Peace, Love & Mungbeans!

[xelasnave]

You are far too kind John I was just being me...and really with all that you have done for me I feel it is a one way street...


Your first image was great on detail and well I am never too concerned about the colour.

The second is rather decent and to think you have been at it for such a relatively short time speaks a great deal about your dedication. Both suffer from no use of the dodge and burn tool

Still you do need to track a star for one and a half hours thru an illiminated reticule to experience just what it was like once...and perhaps a few sessions obtain polar via drift alignment to appreciate how wonderful the equipment is now.

Well done and happy anniversary...another scope or camera is in order to celebrate perhaps.

Alex

[oska (John)]

Cheers Alex. My first computer language was assembler (stuff kids are scared of these days) so I sure know the value of first principles. In this case I'm just grateful I didn't have to.

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

How time flies, yesireeee John ‘Snaebgnum’ aka Dude. Happy Astroversary ... I think we're roughly contemporaries in that regard. And jeeeeez hasn't there been some $ splashed out along the way for toys errr serious astro stuff ... is it n+1 ... or is it n+2 I dunno but let's not go down that rabbit hole lolz

Those are great images for a 1yo astroimager (surely you've been doing this for many years?) and light years ahead (see what I did there ) of my granddaughter's wonderfully random attempts to produce images with crayons ... just image what amateur astroimaging will be like when she's our age some 50+ years from now. The mind boggles. I do like the deep contrast in your mauve image but reckon the HOO(?) is seriously beautiful and I wouldn't call it loud, I'd call it proud Hardly the sort of image you'd expect from a 1yo astroimager ... how long have you really been doing this? (My '1 yo astroimager' comments are very TIC - I love your images.)

Btw, a long time ago in a place not too far away, I wrote numerous device drivers (and a bunch of other stuff) in C while an undergrad engineering student. Also did a lot of assembler code for the Zilog 80 (...remember that, the good ol Z80 :-). Those were the good ol days (questionable!) when you actually had to know *all* the hardware on the board(s) to be able to write efficient code for it.

Keep up the awesome work mate, looking forward to Astroversary 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 25 ... 50

[oska (John)]

Thanks Alex, I've tried to stick to 2nd hand bargains to keep the splash zone low. Hell my whole budget might only cover the CCD only 10 years ago. I've found the key to scope acquisition syndrome is to be unapologetically irresponsible, it's certainly not a cure and there are some pitfalls, but it is liberating

If you took a look at some of my rejects you might be reminded of crayons

I image every night that's not raining and even some of those if the window is worth it. The first time I grabbed orion was because it was the only thing bright enough to see through the fog that night. Full moons are good, you can see everything, clouds, stuff you normally trip over, the dog and you get gradient removal experience for free. Any image is a good image if you had fun and maybe learned something.

I do remember those days although I was more of a motorolla guy. Pouring over reams of datasheets. I have the utmost respect for learning things properly. These days you get it all for free with arduino, raspberry pi, teensy and the like. Same with software, my IDE of choice was a text editor for so long. When I got over myself I found IDE's a great thing, kids these days have got it so easy. Today I wouldn't be able to do astro if not for the leaps and bounds made in the last few years. Just to start I couldn't crouch down to look through the polar scope without the high risk of my knee going POP and then needing crutches for weeks. I probably wouldn't see much through the scope anyway, glasses or not. I'm immensely grateful for all those who've made it so relatively easy such that I, and others, can enjoy it.