A Tale of TWO Arrays

[Leo.G (Leo)]

OK, a late entry based on my silly post of that Sharpstar system (I honestly don't remember seeing this thread) have you had time and the opportunity to make any advances on this system JA?
Are you using some system of linked focus system to get all of the lenses precisely focused or is it a case of focus each lens precisely prior to imaging?
I know the Nikons while having good autofocus on terrestrial subjects even in low light, probably not great in the dark for the night sky but I'm basing that on a very old 80-200 f2.8 which was famous for it's seek and find even in daylight, I haven't tried my later 70-300 ED (so marked but apparently not ED, I'm confused as per usual) in the dark but I will soon now I have an old Astrotrac to play with.
I got the astrotrac because of my inability to set up permanent and haven't gotten to concreting the 600^3 (mm) hole for my pier yet.
Rome wasn't built in a day and very little I seem to do is ever achieved in under 2-5 years, not lazy, sick in the head. Glad I wasn't involved with building Rome (not in my dreams anyway), the place would be a series of useless columns standing in the middle of nowhere.
Wait, maybe I was there. LOL

The lack of a permanent set up I find my biggest hindrance, especially when I see the results people get with their permanent obs set ups. Even trying to image the Milky Way over multiple nights I always have trouble dealing with the varying rotation when trying to stack and possibly the slope in my yard giving an unrepeatable twist (I try and level my tripod before starting but often nudge it accidentally when moving around in the dark and tripping over things or re-adjusting the frame) and often give up. I have images I like (as do others) but nothing I'd call amazing like I constantly see on here. Throw in a bout of colour blindness and my images always end up with too much blue. My son has great eyes (deaf but great sight to compensate) and he helps me as best as he can.
I'd like to more be able to set up with 2 identical rigs so I don't need to pan for the entire MW even using full frame and 14mm f2.8 Samyong (Rokinon, I always forget, same thing).
I have one set of 3 or 4 12x8 prints I did which is the entire width of the visible MW and they make a very nice panorama, haven't found a frame to mount them in but I'll probably make my own frame and cut some glass I'd have laying around, carpentry and glazing are two old hobbies from many years back.

As I often say, one day I'll just drop dead and won't have to worry about all of the stuff I don't get to doing.

[JA]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

OK, a late entry based on my silly post of that Sharpstar system (I honestly don't remember seeing this thread) have you had time and the opportunity to make any advances on this system JA?

It's still a very slow work in progress. I was thinking of posting an update. Maybe soon.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Are you using some system of linked focus system to get all of the lenses precisely focused or is it a case of focus each lens precisely prior to imaging?

I would focus them all manually then image. In the past it hasn't been a problem holding focus for an hour or more. That should be good enough for starters.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

I know the Nikons while having good autofocus on terrestrial subjects even in low light, probably not great in the dark for the night sky but I'm basing that on a very old 80-200 f2.8 which was famous for it's seek and find even in daylight, I haven't tried my later 70-300 ED (so marked but apparently not ED, I'm confused as per usual) in the dark but I will soon now I have an old Astrotrac to play with.
I got the astrotrac because of my inability to set up permanent and haven't gotten to concreting the 600^3 (mm) hole for my pier yet.
Rome wasn't built in a day and very little I seem to do is ever achieved in under 2-5 years, not lazy, sick in the head. Glad I wasn't involved with building Rome (not in my dreams anyway), the place would be a series of useless columns standing in the middle of nowhere.
Wait, maybe I was there. LOL

Columns are Kool.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

The lack of a permanent set up I find my biggest hindrance, especially when I see the results people get with their permanent obs set ups. Even trying to image the Milky Way over multiple nights I always have trouble dealing with the varying rotation when trying to stack and possibly the slope in my yard giving an unrepeatable twist (I try and level my tripod before starting but often nudge it accidentally when moving around in the dark and tripping over things or re-adjusting the frame) and often give up. I have images I like (as do others) but nothing I'd call amazing like I constantly see on here.

I agree 100% - the lack of a permanent setup is the single biggest impediment to moving forward easily. Aside from the obvious benefit of fine tuning a polar alignment and then not having to worry too much about it after that, the issue for me is working / developing a setup and not being able to come back to it for further modification / development without setup from scratch. It is one of the reasons I have tried to make my system very modular and easy to assemble/disassemble. We shall see.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Throw in a bout of colour blindness and my images always end up with too much blue. My son has great eyes (deaf but great sight to compensate) and he helps me as best as he can.

I'm sorry to hear of those difficulties, but on the positive side it's great to be able to rely on and involve family.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

I'd like to more be able to set up with 2 identical rigs so I don't need to pan for the entire MW even using full frame and 14mm f2.8 Samyong (Rokinon, I always forget, same thing).

Well that's one of the benefits of a multi-telescope array: all the telescopes can be pointed at the same patch of sky to increase exposure time OR splayed across the sky for a wider field of view to provide a higher resolution (smaller image scale) than is possible with a wider angle lens on the same wide field of view.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

I have one set of 3 or 4 12x8 prints I did which is the entire width of the visible MW and they make a very nice panorama, haven't found a frame to mount them in but I'll probably make my own frame and cut some glass I'd have laying around, carpentry and glazing are two old hobbies from many years back.

As I often say, one day I'll just drop dead and won't have to worry about all of the stuff I don't get to doing.

You could also digitally stitch them together and they'd make a great screen background on an ultrawide or double monitor computer screen setup.


Best
JA

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Some people think I'm in the fortunate position of having all of the time in the world, I haven't worked for over 30 years, no good without the health (or finances but primarily health, money is no good if you can't enjoy it) to go out and do what I need and if I had the health I'd be earning decent money like I did when younger and not have the time to enjoy it. The balance is hard to find and I've come to learn you are an incredibly smart man and I'm sure the work that goes with it consumes more time than play time (and your son is incredibly musically gifted).


Do you use masks to get the focus right or done by eye?
Did you use any sort of adjustable screw to get the lenses allligned?


I'm just thinking the nylon bolts cheap from China would be beneficial for that purpose without risking damage from a steel unit on the lenses.



Live view is supposed to be better on the D850 in the absolute dark but the D810 it's nothing more than white noise and beyond useless to me in the dark, maybe if I turned the ISO down but I'm sure I've tried that, right down to 64.
I did get to play with a 5D Mk-IV belonging to a friend and it's live view was amazing in the dark skies on a friends farm locally. The chap even wanted me to take his $20K telephoto lens and play with it but I declined the kind offer (he doesn't let anyone else touch his maybe 600mm, big whatever). I did eventually end up with his original 5D here (and bought an adapter for my Nikon lenses to fit) to play with before I got the D810 though it didn't have live view.
I also noticed the same 14mm lens on the Canon gave a slightly wider field of view of the MW or I may have been using an original Canon lens on the MK-IV, I don't remember, I think they have a very similar sized sensor, nice camera but no good to someone with a decent collection of old Nikon lenses as a primary unit.