Some photos

Thanks for the exemplification. When I (and my brothers) had Focal 10-30x zoom 30mm telescopes back in the mid seventies, we would sometimes remove our scope's eyepiece and extend it back with a tube made from a slit and then rolled up paper towel roll
wrapped with a rubber band. I think we obtained up to about a hundred power, as we termed it (100x magnification). I used to extend the eyepieces on the microscope my mom got from my grandpa's estate, too. I think I increased that up to a max 10x more magnification than stock.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You work out the magnification by dividing the focal length of the scope by the focal length of the eye piece.
My eight inch is fl 1000 mm so if I use a 10mm eye piece it will magnify 100 times.
You can also use a "Barlow lens". They come from 2 x to 5 x which in effect multiples your magnification by either 2 or 5 times in addition...I have a 2x and a 3x..which you can add together and claim 500 times mag if you used both of them with the 10mm eye piece... but probably you would not go past 200 times as the image degrades.
Once I had a scope 1200 mm fl and I put on a 2x, and two 3x ..so times 8 with a small sensor planetary camera..I could photograph ants about 80 feet away such that only two ants were in the photo. The effective magnification was probably around 1700 times...
Alex

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

cool, 1700x

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I am still gathering data for NGC 6188...The Fighting Dragons...last night I obtained more HA so rather than wait to get more data in the other channels I thought I would stack all my HA data to see how much I had that could be used...after a long qualification of individual subs so as to remove any sub that I considered not up to the standard I was looking for...its hard throwing away stuff that has taken you a long time to capture but it is best to use only the best data that you can gather... I was able to stack enough to give me a total exposure time for HA of three hours and twenty minutes...now of course it is just a black and white image but this morning I thought ..why not colour it in...you know to help develop my Photoshop skills..so I did ..with no regard to what might be the correct colour..if there is such a thing..but to make it as appealing to my eye as possible...it may not appeal to everyone but its what I have been doing for about four hours...so here it is.

alex

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

What I forgot to mention..I only used yellow, blue and red so it is interesting that green is generated... just like using real paints.
Alex

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I am going overboard with this last object..NGC 6188 or the Fighting Dragons.

But I hope to get near 20 hours of data for my final image which hopefully will look half decent.

I have gathered more Ha data and out of what I have selected now the best three and one half hours to improve the detail and quality. This is how the image looks before you add colour which is really not supposed to be done by colouring it in..but I do enjoy doing that in photo shop..it's fun on an overcast day or a cloudy night.
I have also managed some Luminance data which came out better than I expected in the Moonlight as well as some O11 data which is very faint..hopefully it will improve with stacking and processing..I will map it blue which should really pop the final image.

Anyways before downsize this

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

image was showing more detail than all earlier attempts so I hope the downsize does not cause a really noticeable degrading.
Alex

 

It lost heaps but still enough to see the improvement...it is amazing that an 80mm appeture can deliver such detail.
Although there are black blobs that hopefully I can resolve into filements by the final process.. they do seem to be coming out less blobby.
Alex

 

With colour.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I am posting my photos in an effort to contribute to site traffic even if minimal. I have another forum where I post stuff so posting here is not to satisfy some need to publish.
I hope someone gets a kick out of following my progress to master the game..years off yet.
This image is the same as the last one..it is known as The Fighting Dragons but catalogued as NGC 6188...it is an emission nebula about 4000 light years away and is a star forming region with some young stars probably only a couple of million years old.
the image above was the Hydrogen Alpha data collected to that point which was only a black and white image that I coloured in via Photoshop..a terrible thing to do and no doubt frowned upon by folk at the pointy end of the game.
the image below not only has additional Ha data but data in red, blue, green, luminance and oxygen..I thought I had data for sulphur but it seems to have vanished.
there is probably thirteen and a half hours of data in the one below and has taken me over a week to process because my stacked files were rather big (one point six gig) and the lap top crashed many times before I could crop and bin the various stacks..usually nearly at the end meaning back to square one..but happily one run it did not crash giving me manageable files that were manageable by my lap top. I actually have my desk top here now but it also had problems..but faster..it still played up.
Anyways I tried various times to process and nothing seemed to be anywhere decent and although this one should be better its not..so I will post it and forget about this object for a while..the captures were thru only an 80 mm refractor so I am very happy with the detail. the mount was an heq5 pro without guiding so exposures were one and two minutes ..the Ha had 250 subs maybe six hours via short exposure..I use the Hubble colour palette to map HA to green, and oxygen to blue and just let the colours run wild really but its is probably not conventional.
and for those who may look here but not at rivers latest gravity wave length thread I include a photo of my new observatory which although cost me a small amount of cash I regard almost as a gift.

alex

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

and this is the new but second hand roll off roof observatory...I have not worked out what scope to put in it..maybe a big one but I hold back because what I have in mind is probably beyond my ability to drive.
I plan putting in a bed and a kitchenette with a work station to set up the desk top...hang on the photo is on my phone ..its on its way..I am on my lappy now.
alex

 

Here we go.
Alex

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

It is a pleasure to follow your progress in establishing a serious observatory compound.

Obviously a lifetime dream coming to fruition....

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I have been such a dingbat..I thought the letters SHO was a shorthand way of saying that an image was made up of RBG luminance and the three narrow band filtures Oxygen, Hydrongen and Sulpher...I have been using seven filters when you only need the three apparently so I tried it today...Oxygen mapped to blue, Hydrogen mapped to green and Sulpher mapped to red...less exposure time but seems ok...a better result I feel but at least I have learnt so much new stuff today it puts me way ahead on where I was...anyways this is more like this object is supposed to look...still now that I am up a level I can improve on this...so much to learn.
Alex

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I have been trying to decide on a big scope and mount to go in the new observatory and chop and change daily but a ten inch seems the best option as I can capture heaps of galaxies..there are lots of them out there you know.

 

This one, the price difference to go to a 12 inch is only five hundred dollars but instead of a three grand mount you need a six and half grand mount and really I don't think I could drive the 12 inch cause it has a longer focal length..the longer the harder it is to guide and keep good round stars...in my hands the twelve would do worse pictures I feel.
This is the scope I am thinking of...
Alex

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

The latest project is the Eagle Nebula made famous by The Hubble Space Telescope and it's "Pillars of Creation" ( can you see them in the center?
Battled more difficulties than usual as mybatteries went flat and the genny went down but got a go last night with Sun yesterday and a new spark plug for the genny giving me much needed power. There is more data needed for this image but I am rather excited as I used a new method of combining the separate images, which I am sure will see a better image after I do a few runs and gather more data..hopefully over the next five nights.
This was with the 115 mm triplet refractors, two mono cooled camera and the heq5 mount unguided ... I did try to incorporate the auto guide system but something is wrong ..maybe the sub cable as they need to be decent and short and the one I am using is way too long..always things to improve fix etc.
This was done in the small observatory as the new one has lots of work to set it up although I am tempted to set up the eq5 mount and scope in there cause it's very roomy unlike the older one. I hope the quality of this image holds up under the downsize.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Alex

 

Well that didn't work...I will try something else..but later...sorry about that.
Alex

 

this time?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Here is another version which has much less data but I coloured it in using Photshop so the colour was made up really. ... badly cheating. It will be interesting to compare the future final image with the cheated one..it was only 30 minutes exposure whereas the first image contains 4 hours (including the 30 minutes from the cheat one).

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Alex

 

Alex

Thought I would make you drool

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

https://www.urbnlivn.com/2019/11/09/an-observatory-is-for-sale-a-home/

Cheers

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

When finished I think my set up will be better...I am installing the concrete pier at the moment, about two ton of rock and concrete, which will be free standing to the main building..He has a 12 inch I will go 16 inch maybe 14 inch, ... I prefer a roll off roof to a dome but most of all too many stairs...although I only have stairs at the moment on the roll off I will be putting in a ramp so I can use my wheelchair ...which I can manage without but really makes things tolerable. I will be adding some wood trim and a repaint to the new unit to brighten it up ..I may buy a better caravan but and leaning towards putting a yacht in the dam cause I do like living on a boat...I need to fix the jetty which was badly damaged when the tree that took out my fire pump fell on it but I wont be sailing the boat in such a small dam so will have it moored to the jetty...I can buy a suitable old yacht and transport it for half the price of a suitable caravan ... but when finished it will just be your average observatory, caravan and yacht in the dam set up.
Living in a caravan suits me cause I always have something to hold onto as I get about and minimises my risk of falling over.
Alex