Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

AI Thread Summary
The discussion focuses on sharing the beauty of the Universe through photos, videos, and animations, emphasizing the aesthetic appeal of space alongside scientific information. Participants are encouraged to post clips and images that comply with mainstream scientific guidelines, avoiding fringe theories. Notable contributions include time-lapse videos from the ISS and clips related to NASA missions, such as the Dawn and New Horizons projects. The thread also highlights the emotional impact of experiencing the vastness of space through visual media. Overall, it celebrates the intersection of art and science in showcasing the wonders of the Universe.
  • #1,801
bruha said:
Hi, its beautiful ... can I ask what is this two small bright objects? (second image is left/righ turned isn it..)
Lot of succes :)
The 2nd image of Andromeda (with stars removed) is rotated 180 degrees compared to the 1st. The two bright objects are satellite galaxies orbiting Andromeda. The smaller one is Messier 32, the larger one is Messier 110, and Andromeda itself is Messier 31.
 
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Astronomy news on Phys.org
  • #1,802
9 minutes to impact…

 
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  • #1,803
Thanks !
:smile::smile:
 
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  • #1,804
The Elephant Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A) captured from my back patio in Sept. 2022. The Elephant Trunk is a smaller part of a larger ionized gas region called IC 1396, in the constellation Cepheus. It's called the Elephant Trunk Nebula presumably because if you squint your eyes and tilt your head to the side, it kind of looks like an elephant with a big, bulbous trunk. Sort of.

ElephantTrunck2022_Final_SmallForPF.jpg


The trunk itself is a dark cloud of gas illuminated and ionized by a bright, massive star, forming a bright rim at the boundary of the dense cloud. The star in question, HD 206267, is not shown in the image because it is outside the frame; it would be located about an additional 1/3 of the image height, above the upper edge of the image. (In the image, "up" is celestial East.)

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Starlight Instruments FTF2008BCR focuser modified for electronic focusing.
Off-axis guider (OAG) with ZWO ASI174MM-mini guide camera.
Baader 3.5-4 nm Ultra-Narrowband filter set.
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro main camera.

I was going to go off on a diatribe about pink elephants, but decided not to at the last minute.

Software:
Nighttime Imaging "N" Astronomy (N.I.N.A.)
PHD2 guiding (of course)
PixInsight
Topaz Labs Sharpen AI

It's time we discussed the big elephant in the room. It's the Elephant Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A). It's around 2,400 light-years away from Earth. And it's roughly 30 light-years long, depending on what you consider as part of the nebula.

Integration:
Bortle class 7 (maybe 8) skies
All subframes binned 3×3
SII: 60×10 min = 10 hrs
Hα: 69×10 min = 11.5 hrs
Oiii: 67×10 min = 11.67 hrs
Total integration time: 32.67 hours
 
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  • #1,805
collinsmark said:
The Elephant Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A) captured from my back patio in Sept. 2022. The Elephant Trunk is a smaller part of a larger ionized gas region called IC 1396, in the constellation Cepheus. It's called the Elephant Trunk Nebula presumably because if you squint your eyes and tilt your head to the side, it kind of looks like an elephant with a big, bulbous trunk. Sort of.

View attachment 314883

The trunk itself is a dark cloud of gas illuminated and ionized by a bright, massive star, forming a bright rim at the boundary of the dense cloud. The star in question, HD 206267, is not shown in the image because it is outside the frame; it would be located about an additional 1/3 of the image height, above the upper edge of the image. (In the image, "up" is celestial East.)

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Starlight Instruments FTF2008BCR focuser modified for electronic focusing.
Off-axis guider (OAG) with ZWO ASI174MM-mini guide camera.
Baader 3.5-4 nm Ultra-Narrowband filter set.
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro main camera.

I was going to go off on a diatribe about pink elephants, but decided not to at the last minute.

Software:
Nighttime Imaging "N" Astronomy (N.I.N.A.)
PHD2 guiding (of course)
PixInsight
Topaz Labs Sharpen AI

It's time we discussed the big elephant in the room. It's the Elephant Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A). It's around 2,400 light-years away from Earth. And it's roughly 30 light-years long, depending on what you consider as part of the nebula.

Integration:
Bortle class 7 (maybe 8) skies
All subframes binned 3×3
SII: 60×10 min = 10 hrs
Hα: 69×10 min = 11.5 hrs
Oiii: 67×10 min = 11.67 hrs
Total integration time: 32.67 hours
Blimey!
Reading your post after looking at your image I was expecting to see, "Hubble" where you listed "Equipment!"
Amazing colour and details.
It took me several squints to get the Elephant but I saw it eventually.
 
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  • #1,806
collinsmark said:
It's time we discussed the big elephant in the room.
I thought you were thinking of your beast of a telescope. :smile:
 
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  • #1,807
Recently and unexpectedly between rainy days we got clear sky at night and I succeeded to capture the eastern Veil nebula NGC 6992. Now the couple together with NGC 6960 is completed. I enjoy these bizarrely intertwined reflection- and emission nebulae very much.

Sony A7III - UNC 200 mm f/5 Newton with Reducer - Skywatcher HEQ5 - guiding with StarAid
DeepSkyStacker - Siril - LightZone

NGC 6960 - 28.08.2022 - 25x180s Optolong L-Enhance - ISO 3200
NGC6960 UNC 28.8.22 DSS Hist RAW L-enh 25x180 Siril.TIF_lzn.jpg


NGC 6992 - 30.09.2022 - 23x180s Optolong L-eNhance - 24x45s ISO 3200
NGC6992 30.9.22 DSS RAW Hist 23x180 ISO3200 Lenh 24x45 ISO3200 Siril.TIF_lzn-1 - Kopie.jpg
 
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  • #1,808
collinsmark said:
elephanttrunck2022_final_smallforpf-jpg.jpg
I tried imaging this same target back on September 5 but I never posted it because mine came out so poorly... among other reasons I think I only got about 20 minutes of data so the image was extremely noisy. Also I was shooting without any narrowband filters and there was quite a bit of light pollution. We (girlfriend & I) had gone to our first "star party" at whiskeytown lake which turned out to be a park ranger with a laser pointing out different stars and planets and a couple people with visual telescopes set up. I was the only one with an imaging rig. Families with kids kept coming up and asking to see what my telescope was doing and I had to say "oh, the nebula is too dim to see in camera" so they would walk away disappointed. So after 20 minutes I pointed the telescope at saturn so they could see the rings and atmospheric distortion live on the back of the camera (because Saturn is bright enough to see without additional processing), but that meant my original target came out noisy...

2175mm f/14.5 Maksutov-Cassegrain OTA, 90 seconds exposures for 20 minutes, no filters on a Nikon D800, 6400iso:

elephants-trunk-final.jpg


7134786.jpeg


5231674.png


Saturn (live view):
97E89ED9-868C-40A1-B655-1CA8B0524C6A.jpeg
 
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  • #1,809
Jupiter, captured from my back patio on the morning of September 23rd, 2022.

2022_09_23_0807_8_Final_SmallCropForPF.jpg

Midpoint timestamp of acquisition: 2022-09-23 08:07.8 Universal Time (UT).

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Starlight Instruments FTF2008BCR focuser modified for electronic focusing.
Explore Scientific 1.25" 3X Focal Extender.
ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC).
ZWO ASI585MC camera.

Software:
FireCapture (for acquisition)
AutoStakkert! (for lucky imaging processing and stacking)
RegiStax (for wavelet sharpening)
PixInsight (for miscellaneous image processing)
WinJUPOS (for derotation and additional stacking of sharpened images)
Gnu Image Manipulation Program, GIMP (to remove some frame/boundary artifacts left over from RegiStax)
Topaz Labs Sharpen AI (for a final sharpening step)

Acquisition:
FireCapture was used for acquisition. This was first light for the new color ASI585MC camera. I ran into some problems with the frame rate, being only around 20 fps, when I was expecting around 90 fps. This is something I'll need to figure out before next time. (Early evidence suggests the USB connection was as if it was USB2.0 instead of the higher speed USB3.1. I need to debug this.)

Integration and processing:
Atmospheric seeing: Meh. Well, mostly meh. There was brief ~6 minute period of pretty good seeing out of several hours of capture, and those six minutes are what I used for the image shown here.
Six, 1-minute contiguous videos were chosen (stored in .SER file format) to be fully processed.
Each video was processed with AutoStakkert! keeping 70% of frames.
Each of these subsequent 6 images were separated into their Red, Green, and Blue components and sharpened separately using RegiStax wavelet sharpening, then recombined back into RGB images.
These 6 sharpened RGB images were then derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS creating a single, derotated RGB image.
That image was then brought into GIMP to fix a weird frame boundary artifact left over from RegiStax.
That image was imported into PixInsight and processed (CurvesTransformation and LocalHistogramEqualization).
Near the end of processing, Topaz Sharpen AI was used for a final sharpening step.
 
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  • #1,810
Awesome! I've been using mono/RGB for planetary forever, but I'm seeing it really isn't necessary and also it's a problem when capturing something that moves pretty fast in realtime like Jupiter and its moons.
 
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  • #1,811
The Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380, SH2-142), imaged from my back patio in mid-to-late September, 2022. The Wizard Nebula is in the constellation Cepheus.

Wizard2022_Final_SmalForPF.jpg


It's called "The Wizard Nebula" presumably because it remarkably resembles a wizard, either magically levitating some bright orbs (stars) or maybe reaching out to give somebody a big hug.

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX20000-ACF fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Starlight Instruments FTF2008BCR focuser modified for electronic focusing.
Off-axis guider (OAG) with ZWO ASI174MM-mini guide camera.
Baader 3.5-4 nm Ultra-Narrowband filter set.
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro main camera.

There's a chance this might be my last astrophoto posted before the big holiday (Halloween).

Software:
Nighttime Imaging "N" Astronomy (N.I.N.A.)
PHD2 guiding (of course)
PixInsight
GIMP (to fix a couple of saturated stars)
Topaz Labs Sharpen AI (as a small, final sharpening step)

If you wished for a scary photo, think of it as a big scary wizard reaching out for a big loving hug.

Integration:
Bortle class 7 (maybe 8) skies
All subframes binned 3×3
SII: 59×10 min = 9.83 hrs
Hα: 71×10 min = 11.83 hrs
Oiii: 67×10 min = 11.17 hrs
Total integration time: 32.83 hours

[Edit: Slightly reprocessed image.]
 
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  • #1,812
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  • #1,813
Had a moon-free clear skies weekend- 3 consecutive (relatively) dark nights when I can stay up past midnight! Mostly I imaged M31 (Andromeda galaxy) and am still processing those. But each night when M31 moved behind a house, I was able to image Neptune and Triton for a few minutes- this was assembled from 3 different image stacks (8s subs), one from each night, 1:1 crop using a lens equivalent to a 100mm refractor:

Neptune 2022.jpg


You can see how Triton is orbiting Neptune and can estimate the orbital period, knowing that the images were taken almost exactly 24 hours apart. You can also probably tell that the image quality is lower than it should be, especially Friday night (top position). I'd like to ask the group some questions about this, I'm still trying to diagnose the problem.

It started when I switched from 400mm to 800mm, meaning I'm much more sensitive to 'user error'.

The main symptom presents as tracking error due to poor polar alignment, but I'm reasonably sure I am aligned within 2 arcmin. I have no real evidence for this, but I rough align using a reticle and then use the GoTo drive to fine align on 2 or 3 bright stars using the camera's live-view, zoomed all the way in and using the illuminated centerpoint as a fiducial. (I don't use an auto guider)

Even so, I am only able to keep < 10% of my subframes, and that metric has proven to be very stubborn: 6s exposures did not appreciably increase the acceptance rate, for example. Re-polar-aligning periodically (every 45 minutes or so) during the night also did not help.

It could be vibration- my 'telescope' oscillates like crazy when mounted, so if it's windy I expect low rates. But Sunday night was calm. I've also tried increasing the amount of time between exposures, to allow the structure time to fully dampen after the shutter moves, to no effect.

It's also not poor seeing conditions- that presents as uniform blurring, which is not what I see.

I don't have any of the bad images, sorry--- I get rid of those fairly early in the stacking process.

It's a little frustrating... any ideas?
 
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  • #1,814
Andy Resnick said:
... You can see how Triton is orbiting Neptune ...
That's incredible.
 
  • #1,815
Andy Resnick said:
It could be vibration- my 'telescope' oscillates like crazy when mounted, so if it's windy I expect low rates. But Sunday night was calm. I've also tried increasing the amount of time between exposures, to allow the structure time to fully dampen after the shutter moves, to no effect.

It's also not poor seeing conditions- that presents as uniform blurring, which is not what I see.

I don't have any of the bad images, sorry--- I get rid of those fairly early in the stacking process.

It's a little frustrating... any ideas?
Great composite, btw. :smile:

I wouldn't underestimate seeing. Atmospheric seeing can vary quite a bit from night to night and even within that larger fluctuation, can vary quite a bit from minute to minute. [Edit: And technically, from millisecond to millisecond. Seeing is fractal-like in terms of time.]

If you can, try to concentrate/center your acquisition around the time that your target crosses the meridian. This doesn't guarantee good seeing, but since this is the time where the target is highest in the sky for that night, it means less atmosphere to shoot through, thus increases the probability of better seeing.

I can't say for sure that seeing is the only problem though. Astrophotography is like an onion of hurdles, obstacles, and challenges. Peel off one layer, and there's another layer still there, waiting.
 
  • #1,816
collinsmark said:
Astrophotography is like an onion of hurdles, obstacles, and challenges.

To me, astrophotography has felt like when I peel off one layer, I don't find another layer.
I find a couple of other onions. :biggrin:
(or to quote Churchill: "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma")

Maybe I shouldn't be so frank. I don't want to scare any potential newcomers to the hobby. :smile:
 
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  • #1,817
dlgoff said:
That's incredible.
Yeah!
 
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  • #1,818
collinsmark said:
Great composite, btw. :smile:

I wouldn't underestimate seeing. Atmospheric seeing can vary quite a bit from night to night and even within that larger fluctuation, can vary quite a bit from minute to minute. [Edit: And technically, from millisecond to millisecond. Seeing is fractal-like in terms of time.]

If you can, try to concentrate/center your acquisition around the time that your target crosses the meridian. This doesn't guarantee good seeing, but since this is the time where the target is highest in the sky for that night, it means less atmosphere to shoot through, thus increases the probability of better seeing.

I can't say for sure that seeing is the only problem though. Astrophotography is like an onion of hurdles, obstacles, and challenges. Peel off one layer, and there's another layer still there, waiting.
I'm fairly certain it's not seeing. Fortunately, I didn't wipe the SD card yet, so I was able to get some raw images to show (these have been converted to jpegs for obvious reasons).

This is a *typical* bad image- not the worst, but very average- scaled 200%. Right ascension is up-down, declination is left-right.
DSC_4076-St-1.jpg


This is what expect to see if the rig is oscillating purely in right ascension- remember, this is an 8s shutter time. However, what can't be seen in a single image, is also a slow drift. This can be seen by 'stacking' successive images- I'm not aligning them, just creating an image stack and keeping the maximum values at each pixel- again, scaled to 200%:

MAX_untitled folder-1.jpg


What you see here is a single vertical sweep to the left and a longer back-and-forth sweep on the right; I stacked a series of 20 consecutive images and a series of 40 consecutive images, separated by about 1 hour. This image shows drift in both RA and declination. This is what I expect to see if my polar alignment is off.

The simple response is "do a better job polar aligning", but given my alignment procedure, I expect (assume!) polar alignment to be within a couple of arcmin.

Any ideas?
 
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  • #1,819
Are you aiming right at Polaris? If so that may be the issue. Polaris is actually offset by about 3/4 of a degree from the axis of rotation of the Earth.

This is what my polar alignment scope looks like when properly aligned, and the exact aim point varies by time of day/night. I use an app to figure out where the aim point should be exactly.

1192E74E-E7AF-4872-82E3-38ABDD084AE4.jpeg
 
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  • #1,820
How are you triggering the camera? If you’re just pushing the button it might be inducing a shake that could take 30 secs to a minute to die down. Using an intervalometer with a delay on the shutter release could help. Or if you shoot a sequence the shaking is usually much less by the 2nd or 3rd image. There’s also an option on your Nikon to release the shutter up to 3 seconds after the mirror flips up to reduce the mirror flip induced vibration.
 
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  • #1,821
Andy Resnick said:
The simple response is "do a better job polar aligning", but given my alignment procedure, I expect (assume!) polar alignment to be within a couple of arcmin.

Any ideas?

Okay, I see now that there may be bigger issues, possibly in addition to seeing. What mount are you using?

But I don't think we can completely rule out seeing just yet, since seeing alone can cause the apparent position of an object to jump from one place to another as a larger blob of cold atmosphere passes into or leaves the direct line of site of the object. Think of atmospheric layers like ocean waves. Sometimes there are lots of small, turbulent regions, and sometimes, on top of that, there are larger, steady waves that have the effect of shifting things back and forth every few seconds or so.

But let's save this one for later. There may be bigger onions to peel.

------------------

But the present, top-layer of the onion doesn't look to me like polar alignment either. I would instead look to tracking issues with your mount, or vibrational modes of your mount (see below).

The thing about polar alignment is, if you do the mathematics behind it, you'll find that polar alignment errors manifest exclusively as declination drift. In order for polar alignment to significantly affect right ascension, the polar alignment would have to be so far off as to have the mount's pole pointed to the wrong side of the sky.

And both altitude errors and azimuth errors both manifest as declination drift. It's even possible for one to cancel the other out at certain patches of sky, only to have them constructively attack you as huge declination drift at other patches. But never do they have much effect on right ascension.

So if your drift is primarily on the right ascension axis, I'd put polar alignment on the backburner for now. The big problems are probably from somewhere else.

--------------------

Tracking issues. This is a whole bag of onions here, but let's start with the lowest hanging onion. Balance.

Ensure your scope is balanced, complete with everything on your scope as it would be when imaging. Imbalance causes the tracking motor to work harder, and can cause inconsistencies in the tracking accuracy. Think of the starter motor of an old jalopy trying to "turn over" the engine: rather than rotating the engine at a uniform rate, the engine turns in surges and spurts.

[Edit: also, flexure can cause drift in both the declination and right ascension axes. This can happen even if the polar alignment is good. Having a scope that is properly balanced in both right ascension and declination axes can alleviate this somewhat. While precise balance might not eliminate it completely, it helps a lot. By that I mean drift due to mechanical flexure can be pretty bad if the scope is not balanced well.]

As an anecdote, I used to balance my scope meticulously on the night of imaging, before sunset was over. Then I would take off the objective cap and put on the dew shield. And blam: tracking issues that caused multiple images along the right ascension axis (the same as what you show in your first image of your last post). That's because I didn't balance my scope with the dew shield on. Make sure you balance your setup in exactly the same configuration that it will be in when imaging. (E.g., don't adjust your balance with your lens cap on, since you won't have the lens cap on when imaging.)

Periodic error correction (PEC): if your mount supports PEC, consider using it.

Cable management: Don't have a bunch of cables dangling off the very end of the camera, down to the ground. This is where they are most susceptible to negative influence of angular moment on the system, if a breeze or wind is present. Try to tie any cables back such that they come back to the center of the system before running to the ground or elsewhere.

The same can be said for dew heater cables and whatnot. Don't leave them dangling. Try to run all cables to a central location on the system, such that if any cable does get perturbed, it doesn't exert much angular leverage.

----------------------

All systems have some wobble, and that wobble is more pronounced on some axes than others. Do you best to reduce the moment of inertia along all axes. [Edit: while maintaining balance, of course.]

Beyond that, there is the advice given in this forum in the advice to newcomers buying a first telescope (in a sticky post): Don't neglect the importance of the mount. If you have a set amount of money, don't spend most of it on the telescope (optical tube assembly), rather buy a quality mount.
 
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  • #1,822
Since you’re using a camera lens you can use a macro focusing rail (like the one I use shown below) to move the camera forward or backward to get it balanced on the declination axis.
26F68101-DE3A-49BE-957D-EB5B44CE1B0F.jpeg


https://www.adorama.com/mcfrss.html
 
  • #1,823
Devin-M said:
How are you triggering the camera?
Devin-M said:
Are you aiming right at Polaris?

Thanks for the ideas!

Camera is triggered automatically, using the built-in intervalometer and 3-second shutter delay.

I polar align using this reticle:

https://www.primalucelab.com/media/...andy_cannocchiale_polare_GM8_G11_reticolo.jpg

Which does account for the slightly off-axis location of Polaris. There is some uncertainty where the 'second star' goes because the markings are per decade (2020 is the main scribed line, 2030 is the one counter-clockwise), but in general I know I have fairly good alignment b/c I can easily check as the night goes on.
 
  • #1,824
Does the reticle account for the time of day?
 
  • #1,825
collinsmark said:
Okay, I see now that there may be bigger issues, possibly in addition to seeing. What mount are you using?

But I don't think we can completely rule out seeing just yet, since seeing alone can cause the apparent position of an object to jump from one place to another as a larger blob of cold atmosphere passes into or leaves the direct line of site of the object. Think of atmospheric layers like ocean waves. Sometimes there are lots of small, turbulent regions, and sometimes, on top of that, there are larger, steady waves that have the effect of shifting things back and forth every few seconds or so.

But let's save this one for later. There may be bigger onions to peel.

------------------

But the present, top-layer of the onion doesn't look to me like polar alignment either. I would instead look to tracking issues with your mount, or vibrational modes of your mount (see below).

The thing about polar alignment is, if you do the mathematics behind it, you'll find that polar alignment errors manifest exclusively as declination drift. In order for polar alignment to significantly affect right ascension, the polar alignment would have to be so far off as to have the mount's pole pointed to the wrong side of the sky.

And both altitude errors and azimuth errors both manifest as declination drift. It's even possible for one to cancel the other out at certain patches of sky, only to have them constructively attack you as huge declination drift at other patches. But never do they have much effect on right ascension.

So if your drift is primarily on the right ascension axis, I'd put polar alignment on the backburner for now. The big problems are probably from somewhere else.

--------------------

Tracking issues. This is a whole bag of onions here, but let's start with the lowest hanging onion. Balance.

Ensure your scope is balanced, complete with everything on your scope as it would be when imaging. Imbalance causes the tracking motor to work harder, and can cause inconsistencies in the tracking accuracy. Think of the starter motor of an old jalopy trying to "turn over" the engine: rather than rotating the engine at a uniform rate, the engine turns in surges and spurts.

[Edit: also, flexure can cause drift in both the declination and right ascension axes. This can happen even if the polar alignment is good. Having a scope that is properly balanced in both right ascension and declination axes can alleviate this somewhat. While precise balance might not eliminate it completely, it helps a lot. By that I mean drift due to mechanical flexure can be pretty bad if the scope is not balanced well.]

As an anecdote, I used to balance my scope meticulously on the night of imaging, before sunset was over. Then I would take off the objective cap and put on the dew shield. And blam: tracking issues that caused multiple images along the right ascension axis (the same as what you show in your first image of your last post). That's because I didn't balance my scope with the dew shield on. Make sure you balance your setup in exactly the same configuration that it will be in when imaging.

Periodic error correction (PEC): if your mount supports PEC, consider using it.

Cable management: Don't have a bunch of cables dangling off the very end of the camera, down to the ground. This is where they are most susceptible to negative influence of angular moment on the system, if a breeze or wind is present. Try to tie any cables back such that they come back to the center of the system before running to the ground or elsewhere.

The same can be said for dew heater cables and whatnot. Don't leave them dangling. Try to run all cables to a central location on the system, such that if any cable does get perturbed, it doesn't exert much angular leverage.

----------------------

All systems have some wobble, and that wobble is more pronounced on some axes than others. Do you best to reduce the moment of inertia along all axes. [Edit: while maintaining balance, of course.]

Beyond that, there is the advice given in this forum in the advice to newcomers buying a first telescope (in a sticky post): Don't neglect the importance of the mount. If you have a set amount of money, don't spend most of it on the telescope (optical tube assembly), rather buy a quality mount.

Wow- thanks! There's a lot here for me to think about. To answer your questions:

1) I am using a Losmandy GM-8 mount, a German equatorial mount.

2) Balancing is pretty easy... Ohh... wait a minute- when I switched to 800mm (adding the 2x teleconverter) I didn't adjust the counterweight, so the mount is currently balanced in DEC but not RA...! Doh!

3) I have no dangling cables or dew shields or anything like that- just the lens and camera, the camera triggered by the internal intervalometer. Easy peasy.

4) PEC. I've tried it, don't really have the skill yet- too jittery with the controls.

Awesome! I have something new to try- many thanks! I'll have some questions about 'meridian flip' soon :)
 
  • #1,826
Devin-M said:
Does the reticle account for the time of day?
Yes, the entire reticle rotates to permit proper alignment.
 
  • #1,827
This is the procedure I use starting at about 5:26…

 
  • #1,828
Another tip: do the precise polar alignment after putting the camera on the mount because if you align before adding the camera, the added weight of the camera can make the mount flex and take it out of alignment. So if you did it the way the guy in the video did without the camera on it won’t work very well.
 
  • #1,829
Andy Resnick said:
Ohh... wait a minute- when I switched to 800mm (adding the 2x teleconverter) I didn't adjust the counterweight, so the mount is currently balanced in DEC but not RA...! Doh!
The teleconverter can take it out of balance in both DEC and RA because it adjusts the weight of the whole camera (affecting the RA) but it also moves the center of gravity away from the lens’s mounting hole (affecting the DEC). Take the camera + lens + teleconverter off the mount and put a pencil on its side on the floor and under the lens’s mounting hole (pencil on its side perpendicular to the lens) and see if its actually in balance at the mounting hole like a see saw. If not you may need the macro focusing rail to move the center of gravity relative to the mounting hole on the bottom of the macro focusing rail.

0A34EF97-869C-4876-A1BC-08B09AE323D2.jpeg
 
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  • #1,830
The Earth & Moon in a single photo...
tt1_0718931263_ega1_earth_moon.jpg
"On October 13, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 890,000 miles (1.4 million km). The image was taken as part of an instrument calibration sequence as the spacecraft approached Earth for its first of three Earth gravity assists."

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/... -captures-earth-moon-ahead-of-gravity-assist
 
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  • #1,831
Another excellent weekend, I had three chances to try out the various suggestions. Unfortunately, I have mixed results. To be fair, I've also noticed that over time, I have been setting more and more stringent requirements on the images I retain for stacking.

The two main things I tried this weekend were: better alignment and better mount balancing. Again, here's my starting point- a stack of consecutive images (@400%) showing oscillatory behavior in right ascension (RA, vertical) and drift in both declination (DEC, horizontal) and RA:

MAX_bad photos_10_24_22-1.jpg


At 400%, these RA oscillations are around 250 pixels, corresponding to 1.6 arcmin actual angular motion. Not sure if that's within spec.

One of the challenges is the lack of a meaningful user guide for the GoTo drive. The drive does output some useful metrics- I get live updates for 'mount balancing' and 'alignment model parameters'. If you check out those sites, you will note the relative lack of useful information- those URLs are the Gemini manual.

Mount balancing:
The GM8 user guide is pretty clear about the mount balancing procedure- mount the scope and adjust the position of either the telescope on the sliding dovetail (for DEC) or the counterweight (RA) until the mount holds a static position.

One clue I have about the possible underlying problem is while I have to position the telescope dovetail accurately to within 1 mm for DEC balancing, I can slide the counterweights within a 2-inch range of travel and the mount still stays (apparently) balanced. That is, the DEC axis rotates very freely but the RA axis seems 'resistive'. It's worth mentioning that the GM8 manual suggests leaving the mount slightly unbalanced... "This is done so that the worm gear is pushing against the slight load", resulting in improved tracking.

Looking at the GoTo drive output, the numbers have been very resistant to change- the 'Y' balance (DEC) stays at a constant 6% and a -2 offset, while the RA ('X' balance) rapidly oscillates between 6%-10% (poor hard-working jalopy motor!) and with the same -2 or -3 offset. Those numbers don't change, regardless of how well (or intentionally poorly) I balance the mount. I do understand what the PWM % numbers mean but have no clue what the 'offset' means- and I believe the important readout quantity is 'offset' which should be close to 0.

So on different nights, I moved the counterweights to different positions to see if there was any observable effect, first is with the counterweight too close to the mount (telescope heavy) and the other with the counterweight too far from the mount (counterweights heavy):

MAX_bad photos_10_29_22_1_in_from_bottom_4X.jpg

MAX_10_29_22_late_4X.jpg


No substantive difference, the oscillations in RA are the same magnitude- 250 pixels (plus or minus). The reduction in DEC drift is discussed below...

One possible cause of the RA oscillations would be friction (somewhere) in the RA drivetrain, I think it's called 'stiction'. Although I store it with a dust cover, some of the gearing mechanisms may need to be cleaned after 10 years of use, but I'm not sure which. I've taken the thing apart before, so maybe I have a project...

Mount alignment:
One thing I tried did (minimally) impact the RA oscillation amplitude: better alignment. After I aligned to the same few stars 3 or 4 times, the model fully populated its parameters and the mount balancing changed- the DEC PWM was reduced to around 2% and the offset was 1, the RA PWM was still bouncing between 6-10% but the offset was also around 1. Here's what resulted:

MAX_bad photos_10_27_22_1_in_from_bottom_4X.jpg

These RA oscillations are around 200 pixels, which is better. Also, the RA drift is gone. Now, I'm not sure why (electronic) improved alignment impacts (mechanical) balancing, but that's what the drive output indicated.

Anyhoo... here's an updated image with Neptune and Triton:

Neptune_2022-crop-St copy.jpg
 
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  • #1,832
Devin-M said:
The teleconverter can take it out of balance in both DEC and RA because it adjusts the weight of the whole camera (affecting the RA) but it also moves the center of gravity away from the lens’s mounting hole (affecting the DEC). Take the camera + lens + teleconverter off the mount and put a pencil on its side on the floor and under the lens’s mounting hole (pencil on its side perpendicular to the lens) and see if its actually in balance at the mounting hole like a see saw. If not you may need the macro focusing rail to move the center of gravity relative to the mounting hole on the bottom of the macro focusing rail.
Thanks for the suggestion- the lens is mounted to a dovetail that mates to the GM8 and by sliding the dovetail back and forth, I achieve DEC balance. Since I have to do this every night I image, adding or removing the tele is always accounted for.
 
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  • #1,833
Problem solved!

Before opening up the mount- a potentially risky step- I looked around on other discussion boards (e.g. cloudynights.com) for discussions about similar tracking issues and based on what I found, I realized I still hadn't done all of the basic check-out steps. Specifically, I didn't measure the periodicity of the RA oscillations to identify the 'defective part'.

When I did, I found the periodicity is exactly equal to the period of the worm drive: 8 minutes. This means that the RA oscillations are purely due to 'periodic error', although there could be additional low-amplitude higher order frequency components present in the error signal. So last night I carefully contorted myself and performed 2 rounds of manual guided PEC (periodic error correction), with pretty good results- I am now retaining close to 30% of my images, up from 10%. And, since the 'best' images are significantly improved as well, the overall stacked image quality is now doubly-improved. A few more PEC rounds should really clean up the tracking.

I also tightened the clutches as much as possible, but given how well I have been balancing everything, that didn't make mush of a difference.

Woot! Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!
 
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  • #1,834
Andy Resnick said:
with pretty good results- I am now retaining close to 30% of my images, up from 10%. And, since the 'best' images are significantly improved as well, the overall stacked image quality is now doubly-improved. A few more PEC rounds should really clean up the tracking.
Congratulations! :smile:
 
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  • #1,835
Have you considered tracking with a small guide scope/camera & maybe something like an ASIAir Pro?
 
  • #1,836
Devin-M said:
Have you considered tracking with a small guide scope/camera & maybe something like an ASIAir Pro?
I have considered a few models a while ago (Orion makes some nice ones, for example) and rejected the idea for a few reasons, for example:

1) Increased complexity. For example, I don't want to set up a computer every time I go image.
2) No obvious way to mount a tracking scope on my setup without re-engineering the saddle plate and dovetail
 
  • #1,837
Andy Resnick said:
I have considered a few models a while ago (Orion makes some nice ones, for example) and rejected the idea for a few reasons, for example:

1) Increased complexity. For example, I don't want to set up a computer every time I go image.
2) No obvious way to mount a tracking scope on my setup without re-engineering the saddle plate and dovetail

1) The ASIAir Pro lets you control the autoguiding and targeting from your phone without a laptop

2) Here’s an idea… I did this with a macro focusing rail (imagine a small guiding scope instead of the laser pointer)

185E0ED8-AC34-416B-BF88-49905396E1E1.jpeg

785D96CB-C5F9-4193-9C0D-7A088C5D8C83.jpeg

(I used one macro focusing rail to move the camera’s center of mass to balance the declination axis with the 2x teleconverter on, and a second macro focusing rail under the 1st to side mount the laser pointer or alternately a guide scope.)

https://www.adorama.com/mcfrss.html
 
  • #1,838
2.11. I made some pictures with my small telescope (Newton 600 x 100 mm) with eyepiece camera bresser from window (bad light condition of course furthemore already cca half moon was present)... last four images are Gimp corrected... :frown::smile:
 

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  • #1,839
IC 5146, The Cocoon Nebula (also called Caldwell 19, SH 2-125, and Barnard 168), captured from my back patio in late September-October, 2022.

Cocoon2022_Final_SmallForPF.jpg


Have you been lying low lately, gathering your strength, perhaps undergoing a process of metamorphosis (so to speak), knowing soon you'll spring forth as a beautiful butterfly? If so, then the IC 5146 may be just the nebula for you.

The Cocoon Nebula lies in the constellation Cygnus (the swan) and is about 3300 light-years away (sources differ slightly on the distance).

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Starlight Instruments FTF2008BCR focuser modified for electronic focusing.
Off-axis guider (OAG) with ZWO ASI174MM-mini guide camera.
Baader 3.5-4 nm Ultra-Narrowband filter set.
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro main camera.

Software:
Nighttime Imaging "N" Astronomy (N.I.N.A.)
PHD2 guiding (of course)
PixInsight
Topaz Labs Denoise AI
Topaz Labs Sharpen AI

Integration:
Bortle class 7 (maybe 8) skies
All subframes binned 3×3
SII: 71×10 min = 11.83 hrs
Hα: 76×10 min = 12.66 hrs
Oiii: 74×10 min = 12.33 hrs
Total integration time: 36.83 hours
 
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  • #1,840
The moon, Jupiter, and 22° halo:

DSC_9881 copy_small.jpeg


Shot @ 15/4, 30s ISO 64. Image cropped but otherwise straight-from-camera jpg.
 
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  • #1,841
Hi, here is two images of three sunspots as I catch them 8.11.-image 1 is by SV Ebony camera 1.25"
and image 2 is by Bresser full HD deep sky camera 1.25" -with green filter both
lot of succes :smile: :confused:
 

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  • #1,842
In a strange, inverted, turn of events, I had to wait until there was a break in the clear nights to catch up :)

This time of year I can image 4 planets each night- First, Neptune (and Triton) (50% downscaled):

Neptune_2022-St.jpg


Jupiter and 4 Galilean moons (composite, 100%):

DSC_4628_2.jpg


Mars (100%)- nothing amazing, but whatevs:

DSC_4723.jpeg


and Uranus (with 2 moons, not sure which... maybe Umbriel and Titania), 100%:

Uranus_2022-St.jpg
 
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  • #1,843
NGC 7822 captured from my back patio in October, 2022.

NGC7822_2022_Final_SmallForPF.jpg


The portion of NGC 7822, as shown here, is part of a larger nebula commonly called "The Question Mark Nebula," that resembles a giant question mark ("?"). You can't see the question mark here because the image is "zoomed in" too much, so to speak. The image here is only the central region of the nebula.

It was difficult for me to process this image simply because there's so much going on in this region of space. I kept getting lost.

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Starlight Instruments FTF2008BCR focuser modified for electronic focusing.
Off-axis guider (OAG) with ZWO ASI174MM-mini guide camera.
Baader 3.5-4 nm Ultra-Narrowband filter set.
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro main camera.

Software:
Nighttime Imaging "N" Astronomy (N.I.N.A.)
PHD2 guiding (of course)
PixInsight
Topaz Labs Denoise AI
Topaz Labs Sharpen AI

Integration:
Bortle class 7 (maybe 8 ) skies
All subframes binned 3×3
SHO mapping
SII: 75×10 min = 12.5 hrs
Hα: 81×10 min = 13.5 hrs
Oiii: 63×10 min = 10.5 hrs
Total integration time: 36.5 hours
 
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  • #1,844
collinsmark said:
NGC 7822 captured from my back patio in October, 2022.
Simply gorgeous! The colors and details are stunning! :smile:
And there's a lot going on in the image, many different things to look at! :smile:
 
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  • #1,845
Astrophotography accessories

Here's a report on some accessories for astrophotography with system cameras. Some of you may already have sufficient/equivalent gear but I wanted to share these things since it may give some ideas to someone :smile:.

Star Focusing Mask (homebuilt)

An upgraded and even lighter version (previous version here) of a homebuilt star focusing mask which is made of a perforated plastic screen on a cardboard frame:

01 - Star Focusing Mask.jpg


I've fastened a small piece of sleeping mat to it, so I can just quickly hang it on any of my lenses:

02 - Star Focusing Mask.jpg


I wanted to report that I've tested it "in the field", and this solution works well with real stars, and actually better than I personally expected :smile:.SmallRig (various gear)

SmallRig (https://www.smallrig.com/, also available on Amazon) is a clever solution for mounting a large variety of accessories to a camera. The SmallRig accessories I show below are all made from aluminium alloy and they are quite lightweight and not too pricey, in my opinion.

I'm quite impressed and satisfied with the system.

For me it solved the following tasks for astrophotography:
  • Lens support for longer/heavier lenses
  • A way to attach a motorized focusing mechanism (which I've planned building)
  • Live guiding possible with smartphone attached (an idea I got)
The system can of course be used for other non-astro things, e.g. attaching external lights and microphones to the gear.

1. You start with a cage which fits your particular camera:
(the cage has a large number of 1/4 inch and 3/8 inch threaded holes which let you attach other gear to the cage)

SmallRig cage with Sony A6000 mounted:
11 - SmallRig - Cage.jpg


2. Then you can mount various things to the cage...

SmallRig Baseplate attached to the cage:
12 - SmallRig - Baseplate.jpg


Two aluminium rods attached to the baseplate:
(on these rods I can attach other gear for the lenses themselves)

13 - SmallRig - Rods.jpg


A movable clamp attached to the rods:
(on this one I will mount my planned motorized focusing mechanism)

14 - SmallRig - Clamp.jpg


A movable lens support for long/heavy lenses attached to the rods:
15 - SmallRig - Lens Support.jpg


A smartphone holder which can be rotated left/right and forwards/backwards...

17 - SmallRig - Smartphone Holder.jpg


...which allows the smartphone to be rotated* to be directed at the eyes even though the camera is pointing upwards at a small angle...

18 - SmallRig - Phone mounted.jpg


...or a large angle (almost straight upwards here, and with the Android astronomy app SkEye running on the phone):

19 - SmallRig - SkEye running.jpg


* The app SkEye can be calibrated ("Indirect mode" -> "Alignment") so it shows what the camera in the cage is pointing at (when the smartphone has been rotated with respect to the camera in the cage).

It works exactly like I thought and with this solution you get live guiding to targets in the night sky :smile::

Sony A6000 in a SmallRig cage with a smartphone mounted and running SkEye:


You can also zoom in on the app to show a more magnified portion of the night sky.

It's not full GoTo of course, but I think it's very useful for me, at least. I have not tested it "in the field" yet, but I expect it to work as I thought. I think it will make it much easier to find targets in the night sky :smile:.
 
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  • #1,846
Hi, Saturn and Jupiter with 3 moons made by Newton 1000x200 mm and eyepiece camera SV EBONY
on Saturday , South Bohemia (countryside but with light pollution cca Bortle 6. im. with ---g are Gimp corrected. (I was not able more decreased Saturn exposition in order to see belts... :confused: :confused:)
Lot of succes:wink::smile:
 

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  • #1,847
It's been cloudy for a week and there's another week to go, so this is as far as I go for the year with M31 (Andromeda galaxy):
Result of M31_Andromeda-St-50678s copy.jpeg


M31 just barely fits in the frame @800mm (35mm image format). The image is still a little too noisy, I need another pass or two to get sufficient integration time.

deets: 800/8 (100mm refractor) Nikkor and Nikon D810 on Losmandy GM-8, 14 very-hard-won hours :) @10s subs. APP for stacking.
 
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  • #1,848
Andy Resnick said:
so this is as far as I go for the year with M31 (Andromeda galaxy):
Gorgeous! 🙂
 
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  • #1,849
Andy Resnick said:
It's been cloudy for a week and there's another week to go, so this is as far as I go for the year with M31 (Andromeda galaxy):
Beautiful. May I download that to use as my background on my phone and laptop?
 
  • #1,850
Beautiful !
Can I ask what is mygnifying of this image?
 

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