20241119 Testing old stuff

Using my Ranger with a reducer as the guidescope, piggybacking the Canon FD 300 f2.8 as the main scope.

M81, 180s x 20, -20 degree Celcius:

I've also taken some M45 and the double cluster.  

20241111 M31 (testing of new toy)

Canon FD 300mm f2.8 self modified to EF mount, with my new ASI 533mc.

My first target was M33 but it was a bit too dim as a test target., so I turned to M31.  Took around 120 shots of 60s exposure, medium gain, 0 degree Celcius cooled.

Stacked by ASI Air out of the box:

Adjusted using PS:

Polar aligned using the ASI air internal routine to acceptable level, one minute exposure was about maximum without guiding.  I will be doing guiding shortly.

A new toy

Weather so bad for a very long period of time, so it's the right time to buy a new toy.

It arrived this morning.

It requires 12V power supply to work, even without using the cooler.  

It could do planet imaging, but then it would need to connect to a 12V power supply.  The bigger chip should make centering the target much easier, I believe.  ROI should increase the fps.

My solar charged battery won't work at 12V, insufficient power apparently, using the 220V output will work, however.

It comes with a 2" adapter, also with M42.

It comes with a 1.25" adapter which should be more than enough.

A narrow band filter is included as a bonus.

Can't wait to test it but the weather will not cooperate.

P.S.: I did test it again at night and it works with my solar charged battery.

20241105 Sun

 Resumed imaging since suffering from sciatica.

The poor Scottish weather also a huge factor.  I found the sun was so low already and it's blocked by some trees.  So I just did an overexposure to cover up the shadows of the branches:

Need to wait until the Sun goes farther up.

I got a new sunshade for my notebook. it's actually a foldable leaves collector.  It works perfectly.

Way cheaper than a foldable sunshade for notebook but it works.

2024/10/19 Comet C/2023 A3

I got nothing, but the sky was clearer than last time.

Last time was 14th of October, the lower part of the sky was partially covered.

20240812 Meteor

I was hoping to get one or two meteors together with some aurora, but unluckily:

Cropped meteor:

The uncropped version:

And finally the aurora:

Push process a bit:

20240812 Sun

The sun is still very active.  We have a thunderstorm thuis morning but the sky cleared later in the afternoon, it's very windy, however.

1410 and 1411 (UT+1), at prime focus:

And then I insert a 2x barlows for close up:

1416 (UT+1)

1414 (UT+1)

1413 (UT+1)

Sorry about the reversed order.

I also pulled out my 8" SCT for a couple of white light shots, I guess I will want to add a color filter, say red, to reduce the disturbance from seeing but I forgot.

1433 and 1434 (UT+1)

20240810 Sun

Very active sun, glad that I did some imaging.

1136 (UT+1), taken with a reducer:

1139 (UT+1), taken at -prime focus:

Cloud moving around, I have to catch the cloud gaps, I actually waited for more than an hour to get two clips.