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Pat Rodgers: I do wonder if meteorology would have been a better choice of hobby! Welcome nice to see the group growing - now other than clouds need to find some topics  Paddy |
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Pat Rodgers:Hmm, interesting sure i responded to this post previously but see there is not a response here?! Only a lame joke about maybe meteorology may have been a better hobby to have chosen in UK, so no one missed anything I have been making most of bad whether and just retrofitted the RH with a anti-ghosting solution (sticky back flocking!) now need to get it back together ahead of tomorrow night which might provide me with enough clear time to check collimation is all sorted after removing primary cell! Cheers Paddy |
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Just to introduce myself. An old git who spends his time traveling Europe in his Motorhome. I am at present in Pavia Italy but will be heading to Sicily for the winter months and to get some dark skies so that I can break out the scope from the cargo hold. I started serious stargazing last year so am still learning the skies. Many thanks for having me on board and look forward to communicating with some of you and asking many questions. Clear Skies. Peter |
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Just to introduce myself. An old git who spends his time traveling Europe in his Motorhome. I am at present in Pavia Italy but will be heading to Sicily for the winter months and to get some dark skies so that I can break out the scope from the cargo hold. I started serious stargazing last year so am still learning the skies.Many thanks for having me on board and look forward to communicating with some of you and asking many questions. Hi Peter - sounds like a hard lie but suspect you will survive . Wealth of knowledge here to tap into.Paddy |
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Many thanks for having me on board and look forward to communicating with some of you and asking many questions.Clear Skies.Peter Welcome Peter. Enjoy them clear dark skies. Pat. |
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Matt Jenkins: Hi Matt, I did wander over, but was not able to find you. I'm not there for the weekend, so now back home having left on Friday morning. I had a walk around the site a couple of evenings, but as you'll know the weather hasn't been good with very little activity most nights, though I did grab a few views through the gaps in clouds on Thursday evening. Good luck tonight and Sunday. Geof |
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Dear Paddy, Hi - great idea to start a UK group. Hello to everyone! My workload has increased recently, so I don't get as much time to devote to astrophotograpy as I did, but great to see this site expanding its capabilities. I am a member of the Guildford Astronomical Society and often attend the lectures there - does anyone else belong to GAS? Colin |
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Hi Colin, Firstly I love your work :-), but didn't know that you were based at Guildford, seeing your images from Spain. I used to be an active member of Farnham Astro Soc (FAS), but some 6 months ago I moved to Norfolk (largely in pursuit of darker skies). Whilst I've retained my FAS membership I have now also joined Norwich Astro. Sorry I never made it to Guildford Astro, though I've met some GAS members who visited FAS and at the Kelling Heath Star Party up here in Norfolk. Cheers, Geof |
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Hello Colin Had no idea you was in UK. I am actually looking for a Worcestershire AS to join, in a moment of madness I decided to start an Astronomy Degree next year, need to find some locals that are more intelligent than me now (Should not be a hard requirement to fulfil!)Nice to have you here - not a lot happening as yes hopefully it will start to mature. UK imagers are fairly scarce so be good to get to know a few. Paddy |
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Hi Colin. Hopefully you'll get some time to image again soon. Bad enough clouds getting in the way of AP, let alone work! |
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Dear Geof, I'm glad you like my images - I like your images too, especially your planetary images. Very impressive. Geof Lewis: Geof Lewis: Almost as impressive as moving to get dark skies. I think Chris Bailey lives in that neck of the woods too, so there must be several astronomers in that area - I'm sure Norwich Astro is thriving! Colin |
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Dear Paddy, One of the advantages of remote imaging is that you can live anywhere! Paddy Gilliland: That sounds fun - where are you doing your degree? I know there are several remote degrees available now - or are you going for the full student experience? I suspect my astronomy is a little out of date  (and anyway, I was a cosmologist, so never learned that much about the core of astronomy), but let me know if I can help at all.Colin |
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Pat Rodgers: Thanks, Pat - I'm fortunate enough to image remotely, so its about finding time to select targets and process the data, that's how lazy I have become . My last image wasn't an attempt to set a world record for exposure (98 hours) , it was just I didn't have time to select a different target and collected images of the same object for a whole month!Colin |
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Colin McGill: Hi Colin First thanks for the offer, you may live to regret it - leading candidate it OU just now but I will review the options nearer to the time (1st quarter next year). On the face of it OU seems most flexible but then I am less interested in the planetary section course.For the next few months I am refreshing the maths! Other than some rudimentary algebra involved in capacity planning, profitability calculations and similar not really used any traditional algebra or trigonometry for over 20 years. It comes back quick enough but the revision is definitely needed. I will drop you an in mail wouldn't mind a few pointers from someone who has walked that path. Thank you. Paddy |
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Colin McGill: Thanks Colin, I've had an excellent mentor for planetary and solar imaging the past couple of years named David Tyler who lives near High Wycombe. Most of my planetary work was done with my Meade 10" LX200 which had really sweet optics, but the LX200 mount itself was almost useless for DSO work, so I've just traded the Meade for a C14. That is now installed in my new observatory on an AP1200 mount (which used to be Paddy's) and HitecAstro lifting pier. I'm still trying to learn the new rig and am hoping that I didn't make a wrong call trading the 10" for the 14" - it was a tough call letting it go, but I'd have to had de-forked it just for the OTA, which I decided wasn't a good value decision. Star tests show the C14 optics as good, but I won't know for sure how well it will perform for planetary work until I point it at Jupiter in the coming months. Of course I'm hoping that the C14 will also hold its own for some DSO work, small galaxies, PNs, etc., but time will tell if I made the right decision..... The observatory and darker skies in Norfolk should also see me taking better wider field DSOs with my 4" TSAPO which is piggy backed on the C14, plus I'm currently in the market for a 2nd hand QSI so that I can start mono RGB and NB imaging - all new to me, so lots to learn over the coming months..... I've met a few folks at NAS, but not come across a Chris Bailey yet. Best regards, Geof |
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Dear Geof, Hi - you sound as though you now have a fabulous set up - a C14 on a high end mount - I'm sure your images will be even better! I'm sure you'll really enjoy the LRGB and NB imaging with your TSAPO - imaging under dark skies is fantastic after trying to image in Weybridge (around mag 17 per arcsec^2 on a dark night...). I'll look forward to seeing your images as you master your new kit! Colin |
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Colin McGill: Thanks for the encouragement Colin. I lived in Frimley for the past 21 years and Staines for 11 years prior to that, so well understand those 17 SQM skies. My new home is in a very rural setting with few neighbours and no local street lighting. With the Moon (and clouds) out of the way I often get SQM 21.5 (Mag 6.5) skies - the best so far was a reading of SQM 21.98 (Mag 7). This is using my iPhone DSM app, so may not be very accurate, but the skies here are unquestionably much, much darker than suburban Surrey :-). I'm definitely looking forward to putting the observatory through its paces over the coming months, though right now I'm still sorting out cabling and troubleshooting intermittent comms issues. Cheers Geof |
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Dear Geoff, Wow! I'm impressed - anything better than 21 is pretty dark! Thanks for the tip about the DSM app - I hadn't spotted that before. Next time there is a clear night here, I'll measure the background and see how bad it really is. Good luck with the cabling - its a good thing to get right - will make your life much easier. I'm still struggling with just the direct laptop to mount usb cable - even with that, i still get problems every few days Colin |
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Colin McGill: Hi Colin, I'll be interested to see what readings you get with the DSM app. If you upload them they will get registered on the DSM map which you can then also view on the DSM website "Darkskymeter.com" together with everyone elses readings. Most of my readings at Frimley were mid 16s to mid 17s, with a best of exactly 18 I think. FAS uses Alice Holt Forest south of Farnham as an observing location which was a bit better as the surrounding trees blocked a lot of the light domes from Farnham and Guildford, but even there the best I recorded was mid 18s. Now almost all of my readings are better than 20 with many in the 21s. Interesting to hear that you are experiencing cable problems, is that at home or at your remote obs in Spain? If Spain, how do you get that fixed, is there someone local who manages the site? Cheers Geof |
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Geof Lewis: Dear Geof, Hi - its in Spain. Fortunately, I don't need any physical intervention to fix this - I find that disabling then re-enabling the port fixes most of the issues. I actually set up a script which does this automatically, so I can now just double click on this to fix. Very occasionally I need to turn off the mount, but that is rare (once every six months). I have access to an IP controlled power switch so I can do this remotely too. I have suggested to the Bisque team that this must mean that since disabling then re-enabling sorts out the connection problem, this suggests that this is something they could fix in software, but they offered to change my electronics board instead. I was having problems every two or three days - now this is less than once a month, so not really an issue. I suspect its a little bit of moisture in the connection causing a temporary problem. Colin |
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Hi Colin, Glad that you have a work around for the intermittent disconnects, but I agree that you'd think that SB could incorporate a software solution similar to what you've created to take the connection down and up again. In due course I hope to be able to run my obs remotely albeit it is in my back garden...!! In theory I should be able to run it from anywhere in the world that I have internet connection, though I'm not anticipating ever using it that remotely. Geof |
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Dear Geof, It really is wonderful to run your imaging remotely (even if just in the garden!). My first attempt was just before I started in Spain - I had The Sky X by then, and used CCDCommander and TSX to automate the imaging in the back garden - wonderful to be able to image all night. Of course it did rain unexpectedly on the second night  , so I haven't continued!But being able to do that and go to sleep really is wonderful, not to mention that I had a Tpoint model, and used CCDCOmmander to plate solve and centre objects - so much easier than trying to it by hand, or even with the Elbrus plate solving tool I was using before. I do miss the hands on bit, but the fact that if it clouds over all that happens is the roof shuts and I don't have to worry about dismantling the mount at 2 am before getting up to work at 6 more than makes up for it. The fact that you can't tinker does have one big advantage - it gives you a very stable set up. Now that everything is working well, I hardly ever need local support - just regreasing the mount every year and occasionally rebooting my laptop when it gets stuck in a Windows update loop. I regularly kick of an imaging run from my phone and it works very well when travelling! The rewards of getting a remote observatory are well worth the pain of setting it up - I will be interested in seeing how you progress! Coln |
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Thanks Colin, It is both very interesting and encouraging to hear of your own journey into remote imaging. My obs has a weather station (cloud sensor) which (in theory) will shut everything down whilst I sleep, but already a couple of times the loss of comms has meant that it didn't work with me there watching it fail. The roof will only close if the 3 sensors attached to the mount (RA & Dec axes, plus lifting pier lowered) all report that it safe to close. I'm using Astro-Physics ASCOM driver to control the mount and sometimes that appears to drop out. Whilst the mount continues to track ok, when the command to shut down the obs has been issued either maually or by weather station, the 'park scope' command then fails resulting in the sensors reporting 'unsafe' orientation so the roof stays open. I need to get that all working reliably before I dare risk going to bed letting it all run - hopefully I'll get there soon. I've been using CdC to issue slew commands to target, AstroTortilla to plate solve and refine target acquisition, ImagesPlus Camera Control to program capture runs and focus the cameras, all of which currently requires manual intervention albeit via ASCOM and I'm not sure to what extent I can automate them to run sequentially. I do have old copies of MaximDL5 and TS6 (which I have never used), so I will probably move to them in due course, plus at some point I'll want to invest in CCD Commander, CCD Autopilot or similar to automate the imaging sessions, however, I need to walk before I run, so to say the least the coming months are going to be very interesting..... Geof |
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Hello uk i am here from uk. how are you all ? nice to see you all here. best regards angellily |
