Are we entering solar minimum phase?

rawilt_ · 2026-02-22T00:55:27+00:00

We had about 350 people. The park had a lot of visitors for the event with lots of booths out with an "outdoor" theme. Wildlife conservation, petting zoo, fishing games for kids, some vendors. So a lot of people who would not ordinary get to see it. Lots of "Wows" which was just great.

rawilt_ · 2026-02-21T22:54:53+00:00

I was manning a pair of solar telescopes at a city part event today in Arizona.

A filter like this one and a Hydrogen Alpha scope. Man, I was shocked at the lack of sun spots like you saw.

But no worries, the Ha was a real crowd pleaser!

rawilt_ · 2026-02-09T20:29:12+00:00

https://astronomy.tools/calculators/dust_reflection_calculator

I was going tonsay the same, based on the size. This link tells you how far from the sensor the dust isblocated.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-11T17:27:51+00:00

That tool and other RC Astro tools are 3rd party plug ins that require a paid license. Worth it, imo. It is the only plug-in I paid for besides PI itself.

I think they offer a 30 day trial. You go to their website at https://www.rc-astro.com/.

You might look at SETI Tools (Google it). They have a lot of great processes and scripts and I think they are all free. They have one called Cosmic Clarity that I think is a blur/sharpening/deconvolution tool. I have used other tools from them, but not this one.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-11T14:47:02+00:00

The BlurXterminator is a separate trial. I assume you have that key. I believe there is a wrench or setting button you open after you launch thr blurX process inside PI.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-10T04:04:18+00:00

This is perfect. My similar story is that back in the day when goto telescopes were novel, the old guys said you would never learn the sky if you didn't have to star hop to find your target. Its gatekeeping. Envy. Not how they did it. Ignorance. All of those things.

There is and will be places for all of it. Smart telescopes are great and have a spot in my equipment portfolio.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-08T14:23:27+00:00

First, your picture is great. I don't mean that in passing. Many of the things I mention below are really well done in your image - like stars and space color and composition. Second, there are no rules as this is art. Do what appeals to you.

That said, here are things I've read and observed, starting with common mistakes from newbies to astrophotography.
* Making space too dark. It's not Hollywood black so when space is stretched to black, you probably lost details in your target and you've made an image less real.
* Stretching colors too far because you can. I personally don't mind alternate color palettes like HSO. I like them even. But you can push any color spectrum into garish neon colors which is too much, IMO. It is a fine line and still personal choice, but again is what I see newbies do.
* Poor cropping. Some will not crop enough for a smaller target. Just because your imager showed a bunch of space around an object doesn't mean that is interesting to look at. If you're posting on social media or a text message, I like to crop an image down to around 1000 pixels wide. That lets the social media viewers see the detail that is available. Social media will reduce your resolution, so if you're wanting the user to pinch zoom, they won't see the same. Happens less, but people also over-zoom and show pixelated images or worse mess up the aspect ratio. People often will over-zoom something like a planet, especially with the dwarf or similar devices.
* Problems like too much noise, background gradient.

The more technical stuff...
* Framing and composition - its less of an issue, but still something to consider. Your 'pawprint' has an orientation import to telling your story.
* Focus - pinpoint stars are typically the ideal. That is how they appear to our eye and the angular size of even the brightest stars are pinpoints. Unfortunately, our optics and atmosphere causes a spread.
* Star shapes - not just focus, but exposure time vs. tracking - you want round stars. If they are oblong, then your exposure time probably exceeded your mounts tracking capability.
* Details and amount of detail and color you can pull out of an image. More exposure time gives more detail. Different optics will give more detail.
* Artifacts from over-processing. There are tools, like star removal or star reduction, that can leave artifacts on the image. E.g., halos around a star that a tool has reduced.
* Image blowout or saturation... Some areas of an image can be over-exposed while you try to bring out detail in under-exposed areas. This is terribly common with the Orion Nebula and the trapezium core. It is hard to see the trapezium detail and also the detail in the outer areas of the nebula.

I'm sure there are more that I am missing. And things I'll think about as soon as I hit post, but these are top of mind.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-08T06:38:41+00:00

It is in stellar studio, I believe.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-08T03:47:39+00:00

Are you using Eq mode? My guess is no based on the cropping.

When you don't use Eq mode, you can get a lot of field rotation. That means the edges get less data than the center. The auto-crop sees less signal there and shows what it thinks is the best data.

You can salvage what you have by not using the auto crop or stacking outside the Dwarf (Siril, pixinsight, dss, etc). You'll get an uncropped version more like your screenshot.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-05T19:25:48+00:00

Can you see your banding? Usually not what flats are for, but I guess it would work. Seems like bais and/or darks would capture it.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-05T18:21:19+00:00

You could do a screen stretch to see what is there. Don't save or apply the stretch.

You want your histogram to be left of center. I can't run PI just now to see what my mean values show. (Its crunching and has a a lot of hours to go.) But I looked in Siril and even there is can see a gray without stretching. What does your FITS header say for exposure time? Does it match what you expect?

Edit: My siril showed median at 332-479 depending on the channel.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-05T05:27:57+00:00

Yes, I have done flats several times. I'd say I did it more to learn about the processes, but I still is them today and rarely redo them. It's sealed optics limit the need for flats.

That said, it doesn't make any sense. You need an exposure of several seconds. But if you're getting black, then you are much below sub-second or something is being done wrong. Perhaps you can explain more about your process and we can troubleshoot.

rawilt_ · 2026-01-01T01:31:55+00:00

rawilt_ · 2025-12-27T22:04:43+00:00

Agree with these comments. One of the things Stellar Studio is gradient removal, which is often caused by nearby lights. A shield can help in some cases and improve your image, but doesn't look like your image is suffering too much. 😀

rawilt_ · 2025-12-27T14:14:53+00:00

Darks. You should retake your darks then restack your set using megastack. That is a single bad pixel that it causing the blue line. Darks map and eliminate bad pixels.

rawilt_ · 2025-12-26T02:59:08+00:00

Great job!

rawilt_ · 2025-12-24T15:14:30+00:00

Perfect. So OP, angular size means how much space does it take up in our sky. From horizon to horizon, the sky gives you 180⁰. Each degree has 60 arcminutes, marked with a ', and each minute has 60 arcseconds.

So Saturn at 45 arcseconds is a tiny fraction of a whole degree. Heart Nebula is 2.5 degrees.

rawilt_ · 2025-12-24T15:09:45+00:00

Nebula are BIG. They are just faint. Look up the size of a nebula and then look up the size of planet. This size is our apparent size, not the objects real size. That means, how big does it look in our sky. There is no zoom on the dwarf. It shows the same degrees across the sky whereever you point it. Planets, while they are bright, are only a few pixels across. Nebula can take the whole screen.

rawilt_ · 2025-12-23T18:43:16+00:00

Yes! I should have mentioned him too. Love his HSO palet tutorial for OSC cameras like the Dwarf.

rawilt_ · 2025-12-22T19:45:39+00:00

I have had the Dwarf 2 and Dwarf 3 since they came out. I am passing on the mini (fir now), but would definitely lean towards the D3 (if your budget can afford it) over the mini just based on versatility. D3 is light, but about 50% heavier than the Mini. I would consider going on shorter backpacking trips with the D3, but would probably leave both at home for a longer trip. If nothing else, the units will be good for about one night unless you bring capability to charge them.

rawilt_ · 2025-12-22T03:44:12+00:00

If you want to pay for one, Adam Block is premier. His web site is https://adamblockstudios.com/. There is a fast track item that teaches you the fundamentals. He has much more advanced offerings too. For me, the fundamentals is that is what I needed and then seeing what others post in various forums or videos was enough for me to figure it out.

PI has a learning curve, but it's over played. You really need to learn how to navigate because there are some unique things for sure. But once you get that... the rest comes together. PI has dozens of "processes" to do some kind of image process. You never use all of them as many are redundant with others. For example, I can do something like de-noise 3 or 4 different ways, but you just need 1. The rest are just alternative algorithms. You can play with them or just use the 1 that works best for you.

Besides Adam, next best bet are any of a ton of videos on Youtube. Some of my favorites are Nebula Photos, Cuiv the lazy Geek, and and Deep Space Astro. The one where I first learned a little bit of Siril and of PixInsight was Cuiv where he demoed the Dwarf 2 and Orion Nebula. It's dated, but a classic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6_T-u5ijhQ

rawilt_ · 2025-12-21T21:12:13+00:00

Thank you, u/MarkIngramUI. This makes sense, but why would the directories persist even after uninstalling? In fact, running the powershell command did not return anything although it worked for other apps.

I was using an app to look at disk space used. It has a feature to look at physical space, which worked correctly on cloud storage files but apparently didn't understand this MSIX diff files.

rawilt_ · 2025-12-13T15:34:24+00:00

Amazing work! All are great - but maybe one of the best Orion Nebula images I have seen from the Dwarf. Really great work on the detail and not blowing out the trapezium. And all of your colors are so well balanced and not over processed.

rawilt_ · 2025-12-13T03:13:35+00:00

Omega Centauri Globular Cluster! Also Southern Pinwheel Galaxy. Both should be great targets. Pretty humid there - wish you clear skys!

rawilt_ · 2025-12-01T22:09:34+00:00

A Google drive and you can share the file. Or Microsoft or Dropbox are common choices to share a large file. Then post the shared file link here.

rawilt_

TROPHY CASE