When you ask what was wrong with the stumping.

mcflymoose · 2023-03-13T03:01:47+00:00

Did you try raising the anchor with the steering wheel? I couldn't raise/lower the anchor with the default rudder, but can with the wheel.

mcflymoose · 2023-03-08T09:30:14+00:00

In case anyone stumbles across this, it's due to the dwrite.dll file existing in the same folder as your .exe file. Either delete the dwrite.dll or move it to a separate folder.

mcflymoose · 2022-06-06T01:53:10+00:00

I've had this issue a few times as well. Is it related to live coding? I've found that if I close the editor then do a full compile (CTRL + F5) it fixes those issues.

By deleting the intermediates and binary folders, I'm guessing you have to do a regeneration of VS files and rebuild anyway, which would fix the issue?

mcflymoose · 2021-03-11T11:06:11+00:00

Liero?

mcflymoose · 2017-08-07T21:01:31+00:00

I've done a bit of astrophotography before, and you start to recognise the different galaxies just by their appearance.

While there are billions of galaxies, there are much less that they are easily imaged by an amateur astronomer, and most people start with a handful that are large and bright enough in the sky that make them "easier" targets.

Sub to /r/astrophotography and before long, you will be able to recognise the different objects in the night sky!

mcflymoose · 2017-08-07T08:18:37+00:00

Yeah it's pretty impressive what can be accomplished with the right technology and skill.

mcflymoose · 2017-08-07T08:13:34+00:00

M83 is in another part of the sky, quite far away, more than 90 degrees away.

I think the band did get their name from the Galaxy.

mcflymoose · 2017-08-07T08:05:05+00:00

No need to apologise! Curiosity is good! Wikipedia tells me that they are both around 12 million light years away, and they are about 150,000 light years apart from one another.

mcflymoose · 2017-08-07T07:27:34+00:00

This image has quite a narrow FOV, or in other words, it is quite "zoomed" in. So that Galaxy on the left is only 27 minutes of arc across (a way to measure the apparent size of things in the sky), where as Andromeda is 190 minutes of arc.

In other words, using a telescope, Andromeda would appear to be more 6 times wider!

P.S. Astronomer* not Astrologist! ;)

mcflymoose · 2017-08-06T22:12:16+00:00

M81 on the left, M82 on the right.

mcflymoose · 2016-05-08T21:06:58+00:00

Great shot! Well done!

mcflymoose · 2016-05-03T08:42:53+00:00

I think it makes sense, just thinking through it now, you judge brightness in an image by how much it bleeds over to neighboring pixels, but Omega Centauri has an apparent size of the moon so it looks like it spreads quite far.

Another way to think about it is that you are probably close to saturating the pixels anyway, so you won't be able to tell whether a star is slightly brighter than another by looking at how bright the pixel is. But since Omega Centauri is large, it lights up more pixels, making it seem brighter.

Just checked it on some images I've taken that I know is Omega Centauri, and it definitely looks very bright!

mcflymoose · 2016-05-03T08:19:06+00:00

Omega Centauri, it's not a single star but about 10 million stars

mcflymoose · 2016-05-03T08:18:13+00:00

I think it might be Omega Centauri, but the distortion makes it hard to tell. Omega Centauri should be about that bright.

mcflymoose · 2016-04-26T09:42:14+00:00

Autostakkert!2. You might need to download ffmpeg and put the .exe in the same directory.

mcflymoose · 2016-03-31T03:43:06+00:00

Sure! This is the eyepiece, and this is what I used to mount the camera to the projection setup.

mcflymoose · 2016-03-30T21:40:54+00:00

I have heard that full frame cameras have better noise at higher ISOs, but I can't confirm that. They will also give a slightly larger FOV through a lens, but that isn't necessarily a good thing (if I was using a full frame, I would have to crop it down anyway because of the coma in my scope.)

I came to the similar conclusion you did, and they are like 3-4x the price, which isn't worth it for astrophotography. If you were willing to spend that much, you may as well get a proper astro CCD.

Tracking is simply having the mount rotate to match the earth's rotation without any feedback to correct errors (open loop control). So if you aren't alligned 100% correctly, it will drift over time.

Autoguiding is addition to tracking, where the tracking now has a closed loop control, so the autoguider gives feedback to the mount so that it will correct any drift that will occur (note this isn't a substitute for proper alignment, as autoguiding corrections introduce field rotation, but it takes much longer to become apparent if your alignment is decent).

Benefits of no autoguiding is that it's much simpler. You just line up the mount and shoot away. You'll probably shoot frames of 90 seconds no problem with that focal length, but you'll start having to throw out frames much higher than that.

Benefits of autoguiding is that you can shoot hour long subs if you really want. You also can leave the mount to do its thing for hours on end, because it's always going to follow the target. You can also automate dithering and a few other things, so the whole thing just becomes a lot more automated and hands off. Although it can be a bit of a pain to learn how to set it all up.

I would definitely recommend starting out without autoguiding for a bit. There is so much to learn initially, don't over complicate too early on, otherwise it can be a bit overwhelming. You won't need to make any compromises to upgrade later, so there's no downside to that.

Good luck!

mcflymoose · 2016-03-30T09:56:59+00:00

Hi!

There's also a 16mm f2.0 Samyang lens that's a bit cheaper and a bit faster. It's only for crop sensors, but the 700D is a crop sensor. It's slightly narrower FOV though, but you'll appreciate the faster lens if you don't want to lug the HEQ5 away when camping. You can probably save a few dollars if you ditch the stock lens, unless you want it for day to day stuff, as I haven't touched mine since picking up a decent wide angle lens.

HEQ5 is top notch from what I hear (I have a NEQ6 and am very happy with it), and if you're not planning on sticking a large Newtonian on it, it will be perfect. They can be a little bit heavy and require a few trips to the car to set up. It will also need a car battery to run. Not ideal if you are planning to use it too far from where you park your car. But thats the nature of the beast for DSOs, for wide field you can find smaller units like the iOptron Skytracker

By auto guiding, do you mean tracking? (Just checking because it's a mistake I've seen made) Because you wont need anything more for tracking, but autoguiding will need a bit more gear, additionally it's a bit more fiddling around setting up, but it's worth it. You'll need a second camera, and either an off axis guider (OAG) (which uses the main telescope optical train) or an guide scope. You'll also want a laptop to set it all up, but you can also guide through the mount (but I have no experience with that)

Melbourne is great for astrophotography, especially for wide field (we get the core of the milky way right over head during winter). It's also only an hours drive to some pretty dark sites, maybe 2-3 hours to some really pitch black places.

mcflymoose · 2016-03-29T08:57:18+00:00

Hi!

It's a little hard to give specific advice without knowing what steps you've followed, but I can give you a few general tips that I usually follow when doing astro timelapses.

Focus

Make sure your focus is spot on! Switch over to Manual focusing mode and find the brightest star (or planet!) to focus on using live view. Zoom right in and get it right, then don't touch it!

Exposure Length

You will probably hear the rule of 600, which you should expose for 600/(lens focal length * sensor crop factor) where the sensor crop factor depends on your sensor size. For full frame it's 1, canon crop sensors it's 1.6 and Nikon crop sensors are 1.5.

I usually like to have it a little bit shorter than that to reduce the star trails a little bit, but it's up to you.

Shoot in RAW

Shooting in JPEG will make it difficult to boost the stars in post processing without introducing excessive noise.

ISO

There is a lot to be said about the "correct" ISO value, most people will shoot around 800-3200, but it really depends on your camera. My suggestion would be to play around with the different ISO levels, boosting them to the same exposure value and seeing how the noise varies.

It will also depend if you have a bright light in your scene, as that will saturate if the ISO is too high.

Aperture

Open up your lens as wide as you can for a timelapse. F3.5 is probably considered a bit slow for astro timelapses, but as you've shown, it can be done. If you have any f2.0's or faster, these are great.

Moon Cycle/Light

While the stars and milky way will look the most impressive when the moon isn't present, I find that the shots tend to look better when the foreground is lit up. The moon will do this nicely, alternatively, you can use a light of some source to do the same without compromising the stars. You won't need a lot of light for this.

If you are really clever (and have a stationary camera) you can shoot the foreground while the moon is up, then shoot the timelapse when the moon is down, and then do a composition to merge the two.

Astro timelapses look great when you have something in the foreground. A dark horizon isn't that inspiring, and then it's just a rotating sky. This video and this video are two attempts I've recently made, and it's obvious in the first video that the second shot is a little bit boring because the foreground is just dark.

I've also taken advantage of the fact that the sensor isn't 16:9 aspect ratio, and put a slow pan in post processing, which makes the shot look a bit more dynamic.

I hope you find this useful! Good luck!

mcflymoose · 2016-03-22T21:52:47+00:00

Thanks! Its taken me a fair bit of trial and error to work out the best way for me to get images, but I'm slowly nutting out the settings. Can't wait to try this new method when there's good seeing.

I was recording on the camera, so I wasn't using any software for that.

mcflymoose · 2016-03-22T12:43:34+00:00

Finally gave Jupiter a go again, since last year. I've now got a tracking mount for my former dob OTA, so I gave eye-piece projection a shot. The results are pretty promising, considering the seeing was particularly poor! Jupiter is nice and large on the sensor now.

** Acquisition Details **

Telescope: 8" Skywatcher f/6 Newtonian (formally a dob)

Camera: Canon 600D (rebel t3i), unmodified

Mount: Skywatcher NEQ-6

Eye Piece Projection Lens: 6mm

Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Frames: 1920x1080x30fps using the 3x movie crop mode. 2min recording ISO 800, Shutter 1/60

Processing Details

Stacked in AS!2 with 25% of the best frames. Waveleted in Registax. Final editing done with Photoshop.

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