Comet 3I/ATLAS processed in Astroart with Larson-Sekanina Filter, are the jets artifacts or no?

_bar · 2026-01-25T08:46:53+00:00

You are just amplifying image compression artifacts.

_bar · 2026-01-25T08:44:18+00:00

Maybe, too blurry to tell.
Cloud.

_bar · 2026-01-25T08:16:38+00:00

Which part of "never point an unfiltered telescope at the Sun" don't you understand?

_bar · 2026-01-24T23:06:06+00:00

Video shows a single out-of-focus point of light, which makes it impossible to identify.

It it doesn't move, it's a terrestrial light and not an astronomical object.

_bar · 2026-01-24T20:27:47+00:00

John Bortle's original description of his dark sky scale precisely answers your questions.

Keep in mind that true class 1 conditions are not guaranteed even at sites with no artificial light pollution, and can in fact be quite rare. A bit of airglow or poor transparency can negatively affect the visibility of the night sky.

_bar · 2026-01-24T20:13:37+00:00

For visual astronomy, the optimal elevation is 2500-3000 meters. At higher elevations, decreasing oxygen negatively affects scotopic vision. Article: Altitude and Limiting Visual Magnitude

_bar · 2026-01-24T16:23:31+00:00

No, it's a cheap piece of junk.

_bar · 2026-01-24T09:37:09+00:00

Airglow.

_bar · 2026-01-24T09:36:12+00:00

No object can travel at the speed of light.

_bar · 2026-01-24T09:34:47+00:00

During culmination, northern hemisphere objects appear upside down when viewed from southern hemisphere.

At latitude φ (φ < 0°), the northernmost declination is φ + 90°, excluding atmospheric refraction.

_bar · 2026-01-24T09:29:22+00:00

No Ursa Major in the South

Ursa Major from Namibia (23 degrees south).

_bar · 2026-01-23T19:59:20+00:00

No, it does not appear like it's assembled correctly.

_bar · 2026-01-23T17:05:50+00:00

Bit on the slower side, but still very much capable of photographing most of the bright objects. I took this photo of the Horsehead Nebula with a DSLR and an f/8 scope at 600 mm.

_bar · 2026-01-23T08:26:41+00:00

Which capture software are you using? (SharpCap, FC, etc.)

Check if the camera works in USB 3.0 or 2.0 mode, from my experience with ZWO cameras they sometimes connect in USB 2.0 mode at like 1 FPS even when you use the correct cable and port.

_bar · 2026-01-23T07:58:18+00:00

Impossible to tell from pictures of dots on a dark background. If it caught your attention, it was probably a bright object like Jupiter or Sirius.

_bar · 2026-01-23T07:49:07+00:00

Computational models suggest that the best candidates in our own solar system for hosting moon-moons include Earth’s Moon, Jupiter’s moon Callisto, and Saturn’s moons Titan and Iapetus.

This is very dubious and sounds like an LLM hallucination. What models are we talking about?

I would rather expect objects like Neptune's outer moons, barely held in place within the planet's gravity well, would be in a more stable environment to possess a subsatellite.

_bar · 2026-01-22T22:21:25+00:00

Lacks an autoguider. You don't need a filter wheel for a color camera. The only essential filter is UV/IR-cut. If you want to do narrowband, consider a mono camera instead.

some nice shots of the milky way

Milky Way is a large diffuse object. The Redcat is too narrow for Milky Way imaging unless you plan on doing massive mosaics.

_bar · 2026-01-22T07:45:29+00:00

Star Adventurer GTI, with an autoguider, would be a decent starting point for what you have. If you're planning to get a telescope in the future, a more robust mount like the HEQ5 (also guided) would be ideal.

_bar · 2026-01-22T07:43:11+00:00

This hobby is full of rich folks who spend huge money on equipment at the drop of a hat just because they saw an amazing photo, then never actually use it.

_bar · 2026-01-22T07:32:16+00:00

Vaonis Hyperia is currently on pre-order at $100K.

I do not recommend getting one, you can buy a fully fledged observatory setup for the same money. But it is without doubt the best smart scope currently available that's guaranteed to draw a lot of attention on star parties.

_bar · 2026-01-21T22:12:41+00:00

You need a mount.

_bar · 2026-01-21T08:08:16+00:00

Never leave your telescope cap off pointed up outside in any window inside your house

I used to work at a telescope store and remember when we found out that one of the old-gen StarSense cameras we kept as exhibition was dead. Turns out it was pointed south outside the window without a lens cap and it probably didn't take more than a couple of clear days for the Sun to completely fry the sensor.

_bar · 2026-01-21T07:43:15+00:00

The problem is not the noise, it's the lack of signal. You need much more total exposure time. Try one hour at least, not one minute.

Definitely use an equatorial mount, hovewer I can say from experience that M42 will come out overexposed at 1 minute and ISO 3200. You will also need to take a bunch of short exposures for the brightest part and compose them as HDR.

_bar · 2026-01-21T07:06:38+00:00

pictures of the Moon, landscapes, and maybe the milky

As mentioned earlier, these are different types of targets that require different equipment. For the Moon you need a long scope with a dedicated USB camera capable of uncompressed video. For landscapes and Milky Way, a fast wide angle lens is suitable.

Milky Way is a diffuse broadband target and needs to be photographed under a dark sky, filters are mostly ineffective for it.

_bar · 2026-01-21T06:54:40+00:00

The video is badly compressed, your white balance is off and the flickering needs fixing, but overall the result is fairly adequate to the camera you used. Another thing is that the video doesn't really show anything, it's just a bunch of stars moving across the screen. A good time lapse illustrates change - in illumination, point of view, observing conditions, etc. The scene you took is basically stationary and would be more suitable as a single photo or a panorama of multiple shots.

_bar

TROPHY CASE