20260923 Messier Hunting Pause, Capturing Best targets of the night

No more new target could be acquired tonight.

C27 will be my first target, the Crescent Nebula:

40 minutes of exposure.

I also setup my 85mm refractor looking at the moon and also scan around with my daughter Almy.

20260915 Messier Marathon goes on... trying marginally low targets

Despite AI found it couldn't be completed here in Scotland, I will continue anyway.

M5 is higher in the sky since I started earlier (before 9:00pm) today.

Blocked.

M8 also blocked.

M9 also blocked.

M72 partially blocked.

M73 seems alright, only slightly blocked, still failed.

--

Going back to M72 worked (9:26pm), for 11 minutes:

Going back to M73 (optical asterism of four main stars) for 5 minutes:

--

No more suitable target, so switching to C11 the Bubble Nebula with M52 at a corner, for 15 minutes:-

Re-visited M14 for a better image, for xx minutes:-

20260909 Messier Marathon continues... M52

No targets found in the "best for the night" list.

So, I try to check one by one, M52 is the first target, at higher than 60 degrees up.

Next is M10:

And then M12 which is rather close by:

M14 which is a bit higher in the sky (just 30s exposure due to cloud)

Last target, non Messier, IC 5070... just to find a target higher in the sky to get rid of the cloud, failed due to cloud... only got 2 minutes of exposure which show nothing.

Three more!  Not bad indeed.

--

Next time:

M72-73 around 20 degrees

M5  around 10 degrees 

M107, M8, M9 are less than 10 degrees

Messier Marathron Continue M29 and ...

It's pretty clear tonight after the brass band of my daughter.  She's enjoying the views with binoculars and I am doing this.

First up is M29:

And then M27:

And then M71:

Pretty surprise to be able to capture M11 which is rather low in the sky, a very fine open cluster, the wild duck:

M2 is another pleasant surprise too, time to sleep after this one, a compact globular cluster:

Equipment reorganisation: quit solar imaging and simplying deep sky imaging

I sold my Solarmax 60 / BF10, so my Tele Vue Ranger goes back to its original shape.  The JMI focuser is removed and it's going back to its original 1.25" helical.  The tube ring is removed too.  The ASI 462mm could be sold too, since it's now only for guiding, a bit overkill.

I am selling my Canon FD 300mm f2.8 with the JMI focuser, together with the ZWO EAF Pro.  I hope to find someone who could use it more than I do.  

Serious deep sky imaging is not my cup of tea.  I will go back to DSLR imaging or with ZWO Seestar.

Simplicity is the best.

The best telescope is the one that I can use most.  

I began solar imaging when my kids were too small so that I dare not to leave them at home.  Moving to Scotland makes solar imaging harder, I simply couldn't do it in winter since it's too low in the sky.  I can go back to the night sky eventually.

I love solar imaging, but I prefer night sky.   Setting up the equipments for a single target (the sun) is not really cost effective, I will need to go back and forth to bring all the stuff ready for a few shots.  The bottomline is that, I still got white light solar filters.

2026/8/13 Resuming Messier Marathon M57 (also M56)

Playing Mahjong with family until ten o'clock and the sky already got dark.

There is no reason not to take out the S30.  Just use the time for brushing teeth might be good enough for a target or two.

Doing M57 as it was one of those best targets in the database for the day, 15 minutes of total exposure, no AI denoise:

And then M56 for ten minutes:

Two more!

20260812 Partial Solar Eclipse

This is the second time (?) observing a partial solar eclipse in Scotland.

Friends will come so better setup something in spite of the poor sky, it even rained.

We still have some fun in between the gaps of the cloud.

Some of the shots:

Before, around, and after the maximum moment...

2026/5/25 M39

It has been long since my last observation, since the sky won't get dark until after 23:00 at least.  I am starting from 23:30 tonight.

I will confine myself to a single target namely M39, again with my S30.

15 minutes of exposure, a fine open cluster.  

Darkness will keep on shrinking until 21st of June, so maybe I might only be able to do once or twice again in the near future.

Bad weather and late darkness

Bad weather combined with late darkness as summer is coming, all these rendered no observation.

I have ordered a little cheese board to mount my camera lenses together with my little guidescope side-by-side.  

It looks very elegant.

I will be selling my camera lens adapter for my ASI camera, it will be simpler to go for a guiding setup like this.  This is more stable and cheaper to run.  The only downside is no light pollution filter could be used, but I don't think it's needed for relatively short focal length.

20260430 Canon 6D with Canon 200mm f2.8L, S30 Messier make up M94

Really trying out the Canon setup, unguided.

Markarian's Chain of galaxies M86, M87, M89, M90, M58, M60, M100 and many NGCs.

Could do no more than 30s at ISO 1600, the sky was not dark enough until 22:15.

Stacking of 30s exposures did not bring anything good enough.

S30 Pointing at M94, for around half an hour, this target was done before but the result was less than satisfactory.  

20260429 Sun

 ASIAir plus with Solarmax60.

The higher frame rate is good enough for solar imaging I would say.

Two frames mosaic sttitched.

Focus by JMI-CM modified with ZWO EAF Pro via ASIAIR Plus.

20260428 Testing of FD 300mm f2.8, S30 at Leo Triplet

The setup got a lunar video early before sunset:

Started rather late at around 22:40.

The Canon FD 300mm f2.8 is pointing at M109 unguided at 60s exposure.  

This is a test on the latest adapter, hopefully solving most of the previous issues.  

Stars look quite nice.  Effective focal length was calculated to be 293mm (it was around 270mm formerly).  Another good indicator.  The adapter could be further enhance to ensure better squaring, and slightly shorter to provide full focus travel to the NGF-CM.

For some reason I switched to M51 later, again with 60s exposure.

Unprocessed stacked raw.

The S30 is pointing at the Leo triplet (M65, M66 and NGC 3628).

Will keep these for the rest of this session.

Final version of Canon FD 300mm f2.8L with NGF-CM

I reprinted the adapter with a longer nosepiece to avoid misalignment due to the setting screw hitting the grove.  This new one is printed using PETG with carbon fibre.  To do this, I have to use stainless steel nozzle but it's still difficult.  

The first one failed in the middle, since the supporting structure collapsed during the print:

It's so bad that I have to cancel the print, wasting quite a lot of filaments.

I did a atomic pull to clear up everything, slow down the print as advised by Gemini.  It did help but some of the supporting collapsed too:

Since I kept a close eye on the printing process (3.5 hr!), I am aware of the issue before it's too late.  Pausing the print and ask Gemini again, I trimmed the hairy part so that it won't hinder the nozzle movement.  But the lost of some supporting part will be a trap for closing the ceiling.  Gemini suggested to use masking tape to replace the lost support:

Gemini said it's valley of death!  I slowed down the printing of the ceiling to 40%, and it closes sucessfully.  The new adapter was printed nicely.

No more misalignemt issue with the longer nosepiece before the grove, another issue was found about squaring the focuser.  It could be adjusted by the fixing screws on the NGF-CM.

This is another hobby altogether.  I mean DIY of equipments.

Frustrating sometimes but lovely at the end.  I will test it out shortly.  Dark night is getting shorter and shorter.  

20260425 S30 + 300mm guided

Setup everthing before 10:00pm, I got around 30 minutes before sleeping.

I am still using the old PLA adapter, with minor adjustment.  The new PETG-CF was a failure during printing, some of the supports collapsed...

Aimming the Canon 300mm to M101, taking 180s exposures.  

Seems some major issue with that adapter.

Aimming the S30 to NGC 4631, taking 30s exposures, for 40 minutes.

Nice target.

20260424 Adapting the NGF-CM to 2", visual observation on the moon, messier marathon M92

This is the second adapter made for the NGF-CM, this is a 2" nosepiece to connect with my Meade 8" SCT as well as my 85mm refractor.  It can be used with any telescope with a 2" focuser if it could provide enough focus travel.  Since the NGF-CM is pretty low profile, so at least the above two will work without problem.

Pulling out my Meade SCT to test:

It's not yet dark, but observing the moon is no problem.

The collimation is dead-on this time, pushing to 250x with the SVBony 8-16mm at 8mm is great.  I missed the view of the moon at such high power for long.  Good thing is that, the SVBony is nearly parfocal with my Explore Scientific 30mm.

--

Setup my S30 at around 10:05, pointing at M92, a globular cluster:

Around 30 minutes of exposure, dedicated this short session to this target.

20260423 Night Session: M51 and Lyrid meteor shower

Did once in the afternoon, now this is the night session, started at around 22:10pm.

S30 aimming at M51 tonight.

Setup my Insta360 One R with starlapse, 5s each frame for Lyrid meteor shower.

It begans to fog up very quickly, hope it will clear up soon.

It didn't clear up at all until even the next morning.  The above was stacked with 30 minutes.

JMI NGF-CM Renovation

It's always nice to give a new life to a long time trusted partner.  

My Tele Vue Ranger is a great example, and this is still my solar imaging workhorse.

Another project is my JMI NGF-CM.  I have owned a few JMI focusers, JMI NGF-S and JMI-CM with or without the digital readout.

I have replaced the focusing controller with a DIY USB rechargable controller box a few years ago.

This time, I even use a ZWO EAF with it.  It can be used with my Ranger, my Meade 8" SCT, my 85mm refractor and also even a Canon FD 300mm f2.8!  The switch could be done within seconds!

20260423 Solar Imaging

Didn't do solar imaging for quite long.

Just upgraded to a ASIAir Plus in order to do planet/solar imaging, so given the great sky today, why not?

I always love my nearly 30 years old Tele Vue Ranger, it has been given a new life with a JMI NGF-CM focuser, and better yet now with a ZWO EAF!  It keeps on evolving.  

I also got a solar finder for it, very effective indeed.

Centering the solar disc cannot be easier.

Despite seeing is no good, fine focusing with the EAF is lovely and accurate.

I took two videos with 1080 ROI, both hit the limit of 4G maximum file size in less than one minute.  Frame rate is good with this little box, I couldn't get too much more with my aging Windows laptop.

I am now stacking the videos by using the ASIAir Plus, seeing is less than optimal so why not do a simple processing from out of the box?  Stacking one video of 4G took more than nine minutes, not exactly fast but it might be faster than pulling out my Windows laptop.

Below is processed with a laptop, the ASIAIR version will be uploaded later.  I don't really have patience in this kind of seeing, so the exposure and mosaic was actually unusable.

Somehow I lost that image processed from out of the box with the ASIAIR Plus, anyway, my impression is that it's pretty nice.

20260422 M95, M96, M105, NGC 3384 and NGC 3389 mosaic

There is no unrecord objects during this time window, so I go back to normal imaging.  

I will fix my S30 in this area tonight, slightly more than 50 minutes of exposure.

Setup my Canon 6D with a 50mm f1.8 lens stopped down to f2.2 pointing at the Makarian chain, 180s exposures at ISO 3200.

Not a good one, just skip it.  Maybe the ASIAir is not controlling the Canon 6D good enough?  I don't know.

The dovetail slips, problem found.

20260421 Visual observation with friends on a cloudy night

We had a BBQ together, and the dark was not getting dark until later than 10:00pm?  But why not take a look at the moon?

So I pulled my 85mm refradtor out and set it up on the SVBony mount.

Some of them had their look through the eyepiece for the first time.

Afocal imaging was a must have action.

20260418 Another Clear Night, marathon and also Gemini assisted collimation!

Come back from a gathering and it's not yet dark.  Good thing and bad thing, good is that I miss nothing, bad is that dark skies are getting shorter and shorter.

Let me do M103 first, this is an open cluster, should be easier with not-yet-dark-sky.  

It's kind of blocked by nearby stuff, so I relocated my tripod a bit to see if that could be done.  A bit marginal right now, see if I can capture it tonight or else it would mean next season!

Part of the field of view is blocked, got it badly.

And then M59 and M60 within the same frame:

Relocated the tripod to capture M49, not bad:

and then M61, the last target of the night:

I should be collimating my Meade 8" SCT but it's Sunday tomorrow so I better sleep earlier.  Let me set a deadline of 10:30pm.

Finally I did it with my manual SVBony mount, very nice.  I did AI assisted collimation by using Gemini to analyse the out of focus image and diffraction pattern.  The view is confirmed to be great on Jupiter.

There was some pinched optics formerly and it should now be fixed.