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Quick and noisy 5 x 1200 secs with the reduced FS102 and QSI cam. It might need a click or 2 for full res depending on your screen size.

Almost forgot I’d done this one 😁 C8 & Hyperstar and just over 2 hrs integration. Hope you like it

I've done some more work on my widefield shot of Orion and the Horeshead nebulae. I think I'll call that finished (for now)😉 I've added a Hydrogen luminance layer to bring out the dust and the pink in the Horsehead nebula and done a bit of work on the Orion Nebula's core to tone it down, as per @philjay suggestion. 4.5 hrs in total with the Redcat and Canon 5D

Home safe and sound. An eventful weekend. The weather was a big disappointment it has to be said, but its October, we were high up, and very much at the mercy of whatever the Atlantic could throw at us. It is what it is. But we managed an hours observing on Saturday night, and 2 or 3 on Sunday night. Although the sky's were not as clear as they might have been (lots of thin, high altitude stuff, and a massive amount of moisture with all the rain) when it did clear we were presented with a lovely dark sky. My own observing was problematic, especially last night, but sometimes in this hobby, despite ones best intentions, it can all go belly up. I actually lost it at one point, and when i packed up, i'd decided i was going to sell the Newt and stick with using refractors instead. They just work (most of the time) But all in all, it was a fun weekend, despite the disappointing weather. Sunday morning was a highlight, with a lovely walk in the hills and a bit of bird watching thrown in. The Exmoor ale was another highlight.......😀 Thanks to everyone there, it was a pleasure to spend the weekend with you all. Also thanks to Dave and Kath for taking us out for a delicious Sunday tea at the Royal Oak Inn, to the EMS admin team for arranging this event, and finally to Mick (Doc) for putting up with me for 4 nights. See you all at the next session ! 😊

Hi everyone - I shot this with my Canon 5D MkII, Redcat scope and Altair astro Quadband OSC filter just before my holiday. Still catching up on my proceessing backlog. Just over 3 hrs integration of 2 min subs @ ISO 1600

Hi everyone - 2hrs of data with the Redcat, STC duo narrowband OSC filter and modded Canon 5DMkII did the trick on this one. Cheers🔭😉

M33 taken last night, 20 x 300s 150PDS Canon 1000dm NEQ5 guided APT

M31 from home after about 6 hours with the Tak collimator last weekend. Slighty better stars but still the odd shape on one or two of the brighter ones.

I was back again at Stoneleigh Park for another visit to this years 'International Astronomy Show'. I think this was my 5th or 6th visit. This years venue, while at the same place, was over on another part of the complex. I was impressed with it, and although i only spent 4 hours there, i enjoyed my visit very much. I will be back next year..... Plenty of kit to look over, and there were more exhibitors there this year which is nice to see. There was a good atmosphere, and it reminded me and had the same sort of feel to it, as the PAS show in Kettering, held in March. I only attended the one lecture (Peter Jenkins' astrophotography talk was excellent) and spent most of my time looking around the exhibits and chatting to the vendors. It was nice to bump into @Derbyshire Dave and have a chat and check what astro goodies he might have in mind. I myself purchased one or two things...... This year Rother Valley had their own room, with plenty of space to show off their vast array of scopes and accessories. And one of the highlights was the late Sir Patrick Moores old 1956 Ford Prefect, which they had restored to it's former glory. It looked great ! A few photo's...... Rowan Astronomy's new AZ100 Alt-az mount looked very impressive. I spent a bit of time at the 'Astrograph' stand, and chatted with Rupert Smith and bought a couple of bits. I'm a good customer of Ruperts, having purchased my TEC refractor from him earlier in the year. Also there, from Australia, was Serge Antonov, head of 'Astro Devices'. It was nice to meet him and have a chat. This last photo is something i treated myself to. Yes, its a meteorite, not some leftover cake ! 😀 I'm purchased my first 'spacerock' 3 years ago, and thought it was about time i added to my collection.

It took us nearly 8 hours to get back home yesterday from EMS 5 to much traffic but it was nice seeing every one, did not think much of the rain and wind but we did have a nice walk Sunday with every one

Having recently purchased a SW EQM-35, on first use I was disappointed to find that the polarscope was next to useless since the graticule was completely invisible. For the first 3 uses (only 3 clear nights since it arrived in mid-September) I used PHD2 drift alignment to home in on the pole but I seemed to be spending more time on alignment that actually imaging. The polarscope hole in the EQM-35 is just the right size for 32mm plastic waste pipe, so in the intervening cloudy period, I put together this polarscope illuminator. Since I use a USB hub at the mount, it seemed sensible to use one of the spare ports for the power. Apart from the pipe, insulating tape, super glue (used to bond the cables to the pipe and box) and the USB cable, all of which I already had at home, the parts were purchased from Farnell for just over £5. Last night was the first clear night for weeks so I had the opportunity to try it out. Setting Polaris to the correct position on the graticule was a breeze and done in a minute or two. It's surprising how little light is required to see the graticule. The circuit shown allows the LED to be completely turned off, whilst at maximum intensity, Polaris is completely hidden. I found that about 1/3 of a turn from minimum gave the ideal illumination level.

Saw this strange object in the sky this morning. Just had to grab an image 😅 False colour added in PS 6.

These are ideal rich field for the ED72. 15x and 30x are nice magnifications. The 28mm is heavy though. I also use a 36mm Baader Aspheric. The 28mm LET has a 31mm field stop, that's difficult to beat!

I missed the trunk I just caught the tip of it but there is plenty to see. 32 x 300sec @ ISO1600 processed in Startools and CS6. It's been a while but I hope ya'll enjoy

How Many astronomers does it take to mend a tent? https://www.dropbox.com/s/snsgllyiltwwpv5/IMG_0328.JPG?dl=1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/iwuh0b51liowrna/IMG_0329.JPG?dl=1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/8z39vdrm6d2yq7e/img_0330.jpg?dl=1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/o7hjo39wm5nqwe1/img_0331.jpg?dl=1 It is amazing what can be done with some plastic hose & Gaffer tape.

Don’t think I can make it. i thought it was flooded around ambergate area unless it has gone. Even though would the campsite be waterlogged or at the very least really wet? would wymeswold be better? anyway hope you have clear skies and enjoy your new mount Barry.

Made a foul up of that,. Try again.

Surprisingly small 😀 deepskydad dc powerhub 2

Hi Amy, Somebody might confirm if I'm right or wrong, but I believe the AZ manual may cover your mount: http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/documents/126.pdf

That is very nice Steve

'De-shrouded' LET lol. It came off by accident, honest ...

Thats very pleasing to the eye. 👍

Yup, thats done it nicely, well done Chris

Good one!

Amazing image!

The boy showing his giraffe the moon.

I wondered how you came across that Telementor lol. Apparently they're rarer than rocking horse manure.

Great shot and it is nice to see an old favourite back again.

Well done Chris, great image and great processing. 👍

There were some stunning images and it would from a dirty visual monkey's point of view be difficult to separate them. Congrats Chris, you certainly put the work in. Many thanks to Phil for his time and effort too.

Count me in for Ems6. I'd be happy to go back to Halse Farm and thanks for organising.

You have smashed that, very impressive.

The 6th brightest star in the night sky i believe. Its one i often use for star alignment.

That is excellent, I like the colours.

Looks good Chris. When I first did a long stack of m45 with my old modded canon 300d back in the day, I remember spending ages trying to get what I thought was lp from tge surrounds of the cluster not realising it was faint Ha and dust. Your capturing that nicely

Although I am not going I see your point Martyn, but if we'ed followed the weather forecast for Kelling this year most us would have missed out on 3 good clear nights! But having said that , the weather does look bad!! Ron

thats a proper one

I see Pavle has released a 12v hub handy as also has usb power 5v 3A I may put on Xmas list save having trailing multiple wires https://deepskydad.com/dchub2

Still awaiting confirmation of booking from Bino Viewer Dennis Teslar Ron that they have booked for 2020, please let me know asap or the pitches will return to Kelling Heath for other folks to book

I am liking that Steve.

Super job Graham

I like that Graham, well done mate 👍👍

Flippng heck Ron, what a fantastic job you have made of it! Brilliant

The Pentax 31.7mm (1.25”) XF 6.5-19.5 Zoom eyepiece at 240 grams is about half the size and weight of its larger sibling the XL 8-24 Zoom. The apparent field of view ranges from 42° to 60° with a claimed eye relief of 15mm to 11mm. It has multi coated high-refraction, low dispersion lanthanum glass consisting of six lenses in four groups. The XF stands 90mm tall with a diameter at its largest point of 50mm. Like the XL it is also waterproof and has a twist-up rubber eyeguard. The larger Pentax XL zoom had performed superbly with my 102mm Altair Starwave ED doublet. So I was looking forward to testing the smaller Pentax with my Sky-Watcher Evostar ED80. Especially as it has a similar focal ratio to the Starwave but is on a lighter mount/tripod combination. The magnifications with the XF and the ED80 are comparably similar to the XL and the Starwave. Using the ED80 the lowest magnification is 30.7x for 1 arc degree, 22 minutes and 5 arc seconds of true field of view with a decent sized exit pupil of 2.6mm. The highest magnification is 92.3x for 39 arc minutes of TFOV with an exit pupil of 0.86mm. This range of about a two and a half to a one millimetre exit pupil is a nice sweep of what could be described as a medium magnification series. The XF effectively replaces several eyepieces. Ideally and potentially you could venture out with this zoom, a Barlow and a large rich field widefield eyepiece and have a complete magnification range for an entire night’s viewing. My original plan was to use the 31.7mm XF in combination with a 51mm Baader dielectric diagonal but ended up with placing it in the 31.7mm Baader (Zeiss prism) Amici as I’d been looking at the Moon earlier with another eyepiece and was just too lazy to change diagonals. Predictably the first light target with the XF was the lunar surface. At 30.7x the Moon was clear and bright although I inevitably zoomed up to 92.3x which is the highest I could go without using a Barlow. The detail in the Atlas and Hercules craters was stunningly sharp, as was Posidonius and in the general Lacus Bonitatus area. When my eyes had adjusted to the dark a bit after the lunar observing I split some doubles, including Gamma 1 and 2 Andromedae (Almach). The bright Moon wasn’t helping much and I was also losing the transparency. As I waited for M42 to rise high enough for a decent view I looked around a Cassiopeia that was close to the zenith. The Double Cluster and the Owl Cluster were pretty impressive considering the overbearing moonlight. I could detect no light scatter. Stars were sharp virtually to the edge and overall colour separation and contrast were superb. Although this is not too surprising with an f/7.5 scope. The XF field stop seems slightly smaller and more restrictive than the XL stop, however I got the feeling that this was a bigger eyepiece than it actually is. The 42° of field on the lowest magnification tends to feel a little restricted. The only real remedy for this is increasing the magnification slightly to open the field up more. Although this is more or less de rigueur with most zooms. Eventually the Orion Nebula had ascended just enough for me to get a relatively decent view. The Trapezium stars were very defined and the nebula could be seen faintly. Even with the obscuring and slightly hazy conditions I was impressed with the Pentax XF.

I very much doubt it . I think it could be the lens spacers diffracting the brighter stars.

Would our 'Howie Glatters' work on that Steve......? ?

Another image from Kelling which didn't come without gremlins aplenty, but i surprisingly did manage to get 4 hours of data despite it all. 1st night, Duo-Narrowband combined with the second of RGB. C&C welcome.

Treated myself a QSI 683 WSG camera. For a first light I just pointed the scope somewhere at the top of the Elephant Neb and let it go. To say I am blown away with this as a first light is an under statement. I knew the 414 was good but this is just a whole new level. I can see this camera and I are going to get along brilliantly ☺️ Massive thanks go out to Sheila and Steve for all their help with getting this up and running. This is just 4 X 600 second subs in HA. No Darks or Flats. Captured and stacked in Maxim. Slightest polish in PS 6. Click on the image a couple of times to get to full size.