Ritchey–Chrétien enjoyers thread

[harsh matrix]

It's probably the baffle tube

I'm just confused as to why the version of the baffle extension that I downloaded is not the right size for this scope

eh actually a very lazy calibration looks great lol

stacking would show more if anything does happen to pop up though

[frosty shard]

Alright, tonight's gonna be an RC8/533 night @harsh matrix

I got my imaging train all set up and I'm gonna start shooting like it's a practice range

Once I manage to take down everything and get it into the wagon first though

[harsh matrix]

stick to one target please 😭

[harsh matrix]

i wish i had a clear night any time soon

[frosty shard]

Oh I thought this was from tonight

oops

Hope the forecasts change...

[harsh matrix]

nope it was from the single hour i had a few days ago

[runic violet]

When you barely have data of course it looks ok

[harsh matrix]

I'll send the flat i took

It looks good actually

heres a flat

at first glance, and even just staring at it for a while, there's not a pronounced donut, if any donuts

here's a flat from the RC6 for comparison

a donut is clearly visible

that suggests to me the baffle tube is too short

this was also with the reducer which DOES make a difference, believe it or not

[harsh matrix]

also i think the uneven vignetting is due to the primary not being quite right atm

i know my collimation isnt 100% yet because the seeing & transparency on the night i had it out was bad

if you take it and zoom out a ridiculous amount, you can maybe see something here

gradient removed from flat

there's a very low profile emboss there but i think that will always correct

idk i wont really know until i can actually use it

[harsh matrix]

😭

[ripe crystal]

Never look at the extended cloud forecast

At least yours has blue spots

[frosty shard]

Boiga

[oblique sun]

burgr

[harsh matrix]

[harsh matrix]

both of my weather apps show that for the next 2 weeks

[frosty shard]

An extremely raw stack of M4

No calibration frames, just wanted to see what I got

I'm just kinda having fun seeing what I can take quick shots of until I get my Bahtinov mask and light panel to properly focus/take flats

[frosty shard]

And here's my feeble attempt at the hamboiga

[vapid patio]

guys i need some help with this data

i gotta go but if anyone wnats to procces it have at it

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Pbu6XNkcJ5h-iMHl9wZy7z3mnQzcBR5s?usp=sharing

its m51

only like 3hr sadly

[harsh matrix]

@runic violet the baffle tube on the carbonstar is a single long piece....

makes me wonder if the baffle tube length fix was encorporated into these or not

i dont recall the exact history of the GSO baffle tube situation but I do know that the "fixed" models being produced later on had a 2 part baffle tube and not a single piece

I do not know if they swapped that over to a single piece of the adequate length or not

this is certainly a worrying find

[harsh matrix]

UHHHHHH

YUP

THAT'S THE PROBLEM I WAS HAVING

FUQING ELL

my RC8 has the same 2 step up bit, and then it extends further with a tapered end

so my 8 is definitely fixed

my 6 has the problem

HOW DID THIS THING GET PASSED TO THE PUBLIC?

based RC enjoyer

[runic violet]

these comments are kinda silly

mileage varies due to different equipment specs (weight/sensor size), different tolerance, different experience with collimation

I don't really need to hear "collimating is not a nightmare" from someone running the world's tiniest sensor who's ok with stars that look like flying birds

[harsh matrix]

TRUE

[vapid patio]

GUYS

@harsh matrix

[harsh matrix]

I think it's over blurx'd but it looks good beyond that

[vapid patio]

hm its only 1 pass of blurX at 50%

but thanks

[harsh matrix]

yeah

that can be too high for an RC

[vapid patio]

why?

just already sharp enough?

[harsh matrix]

assuming you have good seeing, which it looked like you did in the raw data, yes

[vapid patio]

oh i got more data that google drive is old

im at 7hr now

[harsh matrix]

you have tracking error

or did

[vapid patio]

ah yes asi120mm is not good enough to see faint stars around m51 before meridian flip

[harsh matrix]

Xena-M is a really solid pairing with an RC btw

it's good

iirc an ASI178MM would work too

[vapid patio]

i was looking at uhhh what was it one sec

asi220

im in bortle 3/4

and im broke

wait let me show you what i was guiding on

[harsh matrix]

looks about right

[vapid patio]

like it kept tracking noise so i had to back it down to 85 gain and 7 SECONDS

[harsh matrix]

o that's probably way too long an exposure

you probably had trailing from that

[vapid patio]

WITH WITHOUT I COULDNT GET ANYTHING

yes you are right

[harsh matrix]

with a 120MM there's targets you just cant shoot

[vapid patio]

yeah i did fine though on m51

m81 is amazing for asi120mm

[harsh matrix]

ye

M82 is impossible to guide on

[vapid patio]

hm i did just fine

had a great big star

[harsh matrix]

man wtf

i got scammed

[frosty shard]

referring to the baffle issues? or something else

[harsh matrix]

Guide stars around m82

[vapid patio]

Lol i guess so

[harsh matrix]

Yo does the baffle tube on your primary mirror look like this?

Or does it terminate in a tapered end.

Similar to this.

[harsh matrix]

the 8 may still require an extension but i need to do some more testing with actual data and not the same junk

[thorny path]

If you even have the thought of retuning it in your mind. Get in their emails

[harsh matrix]

returning what?

[thorny path]

Idk i skimmed the thread something about baffles I don’t understand. Just saying I got lucky that I kept asking questions about my newt

Unless I mis read

[vapid patio]

looks normal to me

why whats the problem?

[harsh matrix]

im curious as to if this is normal for new GSO RC's too or if this is a carbonstar only thing

[harsh matrix]

i think you did

im not interested in returning it

[vapid patio]

hm let me look at mine as mine came out in 2009

[harsh matrix]

yours is that old?

holy

[vapid patio]

hehe

im looking still

i dont wanna walk outside haha

Smooth on the end no threads

[harsh matrix]

uhhhhhhhh

looks the same as mine

do you know if the previous owner ever installed a baffle extension?

because that absolutely doesnt appear to be the case

that does mean the carbonstar RC6's have the same flaw all these years later

[vapid patio]

flaw?

[vapid patio]

hm idk 3 owners

last dude had it sitting neve3r used it once

and the dude before died

so idk haha

[harsh matrix]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHuLrYe-oik

[vapid patio]

Could you sum it up 🙏 I'm playing ranked 😭

[harsh matrix]

💀

GSO RC's made prior to 2019 all have baffle tubes which are too short to block light from entering the imaging train from around the secondary mirror

[vapid patio]

Ahh

[harsh matrix]

the result is

this

[vapid patio]

So add a extension

Looks normal

[harsh matrix]

and this

[vapid patio]

A little bright

Oh

Big difference

[harsh matrix]

it is normal but it's not supposed to be

[vapid patio]

Hm

Do I have it?

[harsh matrix]

ofc

that's the solution, but the problem here is that these were shipped WITH A PROBLEM

budget scope issues

[harsh matrix]

id have to see more raw data from you to know

[vapid patio]

Ok bet

[harsh matrix]

id say yes you do have it with my sample size of 1

being the green outline around M51 here

[vapid patio]

oh shoot

[harsh matrix]

the issue gets significantly worse with light pollution

so a brighter moon, shooting into a light dome, neighbor's lights hitting mechanic edges at just the right angle

stuff like that

[vapid patio]

Should I buy an extension?

[harsh matrix]

like i said, id need to see more data to make a definitive determination

a sample size of one isnt enough for me to say yes or no

[vapid patio]

Ok yeah let me covert some to pngs rq

[harsh matrix]

in my case, this issue has been repeatable

[vapid patio]

Yeah ofc

[harsh matrix]

both with and without a reducer

[vapid patio]

And also I have dew shield or reducer

*No

[harsh matrix]

it's far more subtle without a reducer, a reducer makes it much worse

[harsh matrix]

dew shield could help out but im not sure it solves the problem entirely

[vapid patio]

Hm I find that odd that even with a dew sheild

Must be a sky brightness thing

[harsh matrix]

it most likely is

it will be much more pronounced with a moon out

[vapid patio]

Hm well I will keep this in mind for sure

[harsh matrix]

I got my primary out and I'll be measuring the baffle length in a sec

[oblique sun]

grahh dust

[harsh matrix]

@vapid patio i confirmed it here.

The guy in that video that I linked describing the flaw wrote the proper specifications in the description and this measurement of 122 mm is too short

It's probably about 125 mm from mirror to tip, about 3 mm of surface for the baffle to thread on to.

According to the proper specifications listed in the video description, it should be 136 mm long.

So I've just uncovered the persistence of this flaw.

[harsh matrix]

@runic violet this confirms it...

The carbonstars are flawed, or the 6 inch ones are at the very least...

[runic violet]

Surprised are you

[harsh matrix]

I am

I expected a reprise of these scopes to be of better quality than this.

[vapid patio]

am i the only one who read it as if yoda was saying it

@harsh matrix

holy i need to do a sfs

[harsh matrix]

are those subs or stacks?

[vapid patio]

subs

[harsh matrix]

ah the issue isnt pronounced enough to show up in subs to the same extent without the moon

it reers its ugly head once you stack

[vapid patio]

ah ok yeah yeah

[harsh matrix]

honestly

you are going to want to order an extension

i can see all the way down that sucker and im not even standing there

that's not supposed to happen

https://buckeyestargazer.net/Store/GSOBaffleEXT.php

[frosty flicker]

how does this thread already have 5000+ messages

[harsh matrix]

you can get one here, or on Agena Astro

[harsh matrix]

because we talk business here

[vapid patio]

aw man

well thanks bro i will buy one

bc why not haha

same thread and everything?

[harsh matrix]

[harsh matrix]

well if it's these 3D printed ones, you dont need to screw the extension in

they clip in as far as i can tell

[vapid patio]

hm ok like friction fit

[harsh matrix]

[vapid patio]

ok call me a skitzo but after editing again i feel like when i do stuff the center is darker than outer

andddd less blurX

[oblique sun]

nerd distribution is so imbalanced vro

[vapid patio]

huh

[oblique sun]

people have gotten mininerd without a scope and then theres protostars doing this

[vapid patio]

wait im confused what?

[oblique sun]

absolutely nerd worthy image

[vapid patio]

oh like you like it?

[oblique sun]

yes im just saying that the roles are messed up, people who can take images like this should def have mininerd

[vapid patio]

ohhhhhhh yeah yeah i have no clue abt how the ranking works lol do i apply somewhere?

[oblique sun]

have you sent your images in #1127675764356173885

[vapid patio]

nope never once

[oblique sun]

do it youll prob get it pretty fast

youre well above the image quality standard for it

[vapid patio]

hm ok yeah let me post some stuff rq

hehe well thank you

[oblique sun]

that and helping people in #🤓-ask-a-nerd is how you get it

i got it when my images were pretty shit lmao but i helped people every chance i had

[vapid patio]

well thats sick of you yeah no im really into this i know a crap ton. its funny half the stuff i know now is bc i had so many problems before

i posted it

not my best editing was trying somthing new

[harsh matrix]

and that would be correct since you dont have a long enough baffle

[harsh matrix]

Idk guys do I trust it?

[analog portal]

Although for me, that usually means random cloud spawning between 2-3am

[frosty shard]

DO IT

[harsh matrix]

@thorny path what are you going to do with your starizona coma corrector?

[thorny path]

Oh I managed to return it. I used it twice in hopes my stars would be normal but nope. In the end I don’t think newts are for me. That is until some other manufacturer shows up

[harsh matrix]

Dang it

[harsh matrix]

20 minutes of bad focus data

[tight lodge]

Ok... I need an RC. No comments.

[analog portal]

15min (3 subs of SHO @ 5min a pop) 😂

[harsh matrix]

collimation appears to have been perfect

the stars are still huge

what baffles me is that i was getting subs that were under an HFR of 3 right before slewing to this

the second the first sub of this rolls in = hfr of 4.5 p much

it went from 2.91 HFR to 4.39

with some BlurX

well now i have to pick

should i swap to the reducer and potentially risk ruining every single sub do to the baffling being inadequate for a reducer, or do i keep trying at prime?

😭

[frosty shard]

Give the reducer a shot just to test it and see what's up

[harsh matrix]

Well hey guess what!

I cannot see around the secondary mirror at all with the reducer in and the focuser racked all the way in

This might not be so bad after all

@analog portal how many spacers do you need to reach focus

With a reducer

And I mean the big rings you have included with the OTA

[harsh matrix]

i definitely should paint the inside of all of my tubes a matte black to prevent internal reflections and after that, i think this thing is set

god dang

really not too bad at all for being obscenely over sampled last night

oh wow would you look at that

that explains my stars last night

being in the 4+ HFR range

[analog portal]

just one. but as i've mentioned here before, i have to take it off to use it for visual because the focuser doesn't rack in far enough to get focus that way.

the 1" spacer iirc

[harsh matrix]

Oh really?

It's going to suck if that's the case

I put 2 of the 25 mm spacers on with my tilt adapter 💀

[analog portal]

that'll be interesting 😅

[harsh matrix]

😭

How long is your focuser?

[analog portal]

i think you should be ok. my focuser has that extra tilt adapter crap that makes up the other 25mm

[harsh matrix]

I might reach focus then

I don't want to have to take the focuser off again 😭

It's so hard to do once everything is set up

[analog portal]

i have one eaf for three scopes, tell me about it

currently it's on my 80mm frac

[harsh matrix]

I have 2 but i ain't ever going to use the other one again unless I get another OSC

That thing sucks

[analog portal]

it's not like i have much time to use any of them 😭

[harsh matrix]

Mine isn't looking too much different

There's a single night in the next 2 weeks that could be clear and that's it.

Not including tonight

[analog portal]

https://tenor.com/view/toby-cry-phone-spider-man-cry-phone-spider-man-phone-toby-phone-gif-12875606672124040541

me checking my weather apps every hour

[harsh matrix]

FRRRR

[analog portal]

how i feel doing it

[harsh matrix]

It focused btw

No problem

M5

[harsh matrix]

I think the reducer is causing problems

Well, the fact that I'm using one with the way the scope is made

[frosty shard]

With the RC8? What kind of problems?

[harsh matrix]

The halo returned

[frosty shard]

Oh no

I might attempt to measure my inner baffle tube with some yarn, I wonder if it's really the full 175 mm

[harsh matrix]

you can see the circle/halo

this is mostly why i was reluctant to shoot reduced

the speed is absolutely bonkers but idk if this tradeoff is worth it

if i only and always get crummy data

ive heard that a baffle extension may not even fix this

[runic violet]

huh

what are you reducing to

There were no problems shooting with this scope at f/4.6 with a 294mm

[vapid patio]

Circle of death

[harsh matrix]

1088 mm of focal length

0.67x reducer

the apex will be even more reduction (not by much)

[harsh matrix]

yeah fr

[runic violet]

this is a flat from the scope

it wasnt' running the apex or 0.67x though

[harsh matrix]

granted i havent taken flats yet but i am definitely worried

[runic violet]

it was running an AP0.67x stacked with a TS 1x flattener

[harsh matrix]

doesnt that move back focus quite a ways back?

[runic violet]

the AP0.67 doesn't have backfocus

the flattener does

[harsh matrix]

technically to achieve the right reduction they do

but that is correct yes

[runic violet]

there isn't a right reduction

[harsh matrix]

okay

[runic violet]

you can do whatever you want really

until you start losing image circle

[harsh matrix]

my point is, the farther back you push the camera, the less likely you are to encounter this

[runic violet]

you can go bananas and do 0.3x reduction on a 224mc

[harsh matrix]

the baffle was designed with the camera being 250 mm behind the primary or so

not 100 mm

or 200 mm

these closed tubes anyway

[runic violet]

i don't remember where the camera was but as you can see there was no issue

[runic violet]

the AP0.67 slides way out past the focuser

its largely irrelevant

there was 55mm backfocus from the flattener

[harsh matrix]

this is an uncalibrated, unreduced sub from last night

i didnt get a calibrated stack of this target because i went out to redo collimation after i started

there's no donut of death here

but after adding the reducer, suddenly i have it

[runic violet]

there is a donut of sorts

its hard to tell because there are other gradients mixed in

[harsh matrix]

sure, maybe? but it's not a strong, prominent structure like it is on these other subs

[runic violet]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[harsh matrix]

if there's still a donut, i need to measure the baffle tube and potentially make a different extension

the one i made that said it was for the RC8 didnt fit in the end of my baffle tube at all

not even close

i need to paint and tape over some of the extension tubes and stuff on the inside of the scope to stop reflections too

this could be caused by that if it isnt the baffle tube

[runic violet]

i'm not sure why you're having so much trouble, i guess its just light pollution bringing out these issues

[harsh matrix]

100% is

[runic violet]

but you'd think it would show up in the flats

[harsh matrix]

im in bortle 8

[harsh matrix]

it does

it just doesnt correct properly

[runic violet]

idk

[harsh matrix]

it's supposed to anyway

[harsh matrix]

is that from my scope?

[runic violet]

yes

[harsh matrix]

dafuq

what bortle?

[runic violet]

why else would i post it

[runic violet]

why is it relevant its a flat

[harsh matrix]

im just reluctant to believe it

Ha flat from today

no donut

i have a lum flat too

[runic violet]

only problem encountered with this scope has been the flippity floppity

oh this is a lum flat

i would try to give you a NB flat but he didn't take them

not until i forced him to when he got the RC10

[runic violet]

cause dust motes don't really show up that much in b4 nb

[harsh matrix]

lum flat

[runic violet]

not until you do deep integrations

[harsh matrix]

not reduced

i wont have a reduced flat until the morning

that's where it will show up

it's taking some sexy subs atm tho

i have funky shaped stars constantly with the reducer too but ASTAP is saying no tilt, and metaguide says my collimation is dead on, and so did a defocused star test

since i had great stars last night, im going to blame it on the quality of this reducer

especially since i had the same issue with it on the 6 regularly

so yeah, the Apex-L just got knocked up a tier higher on the priority list

removing the gradient from the flat shows no donut

[runic violet]

funky how

[runic violet]

the slight elongation?

[harsh matrix]

granted this is an off axis star but the field is mostly uniform

[harsh matrix]

no not really

you see how it's round at the top and then comes to a point at the bottom?

relative anyway

it's not quite

i got these shapes all of the time on my RC6

arguably way more severe than this though

[runic violet]

oh the astig

[harsh matrix]

yeah

[runic violet]

it is funky but the elongation is a bigger problem

[harsh matrix]

eh that was guiding

my RA didnt want to guide

[runic violet]

exactly, guide better

anyways shouldn't have such problems with the apex

[harsh matrix]

I am now

like WAYYYYY better

it was around 1" RMS for the sub that star was in

it's like 0.6 now

but yeah they were tear drop shaped on my RC6 too

the shape is inverted but there

im pretty sure it got this severe because of the flop but still bad nonetheless

both of the above were with the same reducer on the 6

[runic violet]

oh yeah now that i think about it the astig is probably flop related

the reducer is highly unlikely to cause astig

[harsh matrix]

is it?

not even something like pinched optics in the reducer could be at fault?

[runic violet]

it hasn't in my experience and it doesn't do any correction of its own

its probably not pinched

you can check the retaining ring but unlikely

[harsh matrix]

ight

so flippity floppity is the problem

[runic violet]

the flop definitely does introduce astig

[harsh matrix]

maybe seeing has been so bad whenever i shot unreduced that i couldnt tell 😭

[harsh matrix]

good to know because i kept thinking i was crazy

[runic violet]

the main advantage of the apex theoretically over the 0.67x is eliminating field curvature, and that's it

[harsh matrix]

i wish that wasnt normal but it sounds like it is

[runic violet]

if your primary problem is not field curvature but floppity flop that's what you should focus on

[harsh matrix]

im not even sure i have field curvature on this scope tbh

[runic violet]

no RCs have field curvature

[harsh matrix]

even my OAG with massive 5.86 micron pixels has round stars

[runic violet]

.... it has massive pixels

that makes it less sensitive

[harsh matrix]

i was waiting for it

but yeah the RC6 did have some coma in the corners with the reducer

[runic violet]

coma??

[harsh matrix]

it doesnt really appear to be the case on the 8 though since the mirrors are bigger and can support a larger image circle

[harsh matrix]

yeah, just a very small amount

[runic violet]

i find that hard to believe

astig should be the primary issue

[harsh matrix]

where the stars would elongate out very slightly

[harsh matrix]

it was a thing on my 6 since the mirrors are much smaller

reducing made it more pronouned but not by much

[runic violet]

doesn't really matter

[harsh matrix]

ik

[runic violet]

the RC design itself is naturally coma free

and when miscollimated the only way to get coma is a miscollimated primary which also introduces on axis coma

its far easier to get astig

so no matter the mirror size you really shouldn't be seeing coma

[harsh matrix]

maybe it was off axis astig?

[runic violet]

i would say so

[harsh matrix]

cause they did elongate outwards away from the center just in the very corners of the frame

[runic violet]

that doesn't rule out field curvature or astig

[harsh matrix]

fair

[runic violet]

coma has a very specific shape

hard to tell the difference when its minor

[harsh matrix]

yeah it's astig

these corners all look completely different

[runic violet]

astig

[harsh matrix]

guys

the Xena-M

was such a clutch purchase

it was such a fantastic investment

[runic violet]

are you unable to use puck guide cameras?

[harsh matrix]

say what now?

[runic violet]

regardless the imx585 is really the best option for this

[harsh matrix]

[runic violet]

puck vs lipstick

[harsh matrix]

o

maybe?

Xena is killing it though

i dont have a 585

[runic violet]

i have a vendetta against the imx174 and technically imx249 is adjacent

it works great yes

[harsh matrix]

[runic violet]

but in terms of what people should buy, its the imx585

same price, far superior

[harsh matrix]

toooooo late for me

[runic violet]

only QHY makes a 585 lipstick though

[runic violet]

spread the word, people need to stop buying the imx174 for guiding

[harsh matrix]

[runic violet]

most people just see the 2.9 micron pixels and turn away, but muh binning

[harsh matrix]

the fov made me turn away

[runic violet]

they're identical

[harsh matrix]

ofc not because i would be imaging it but because i wanted to boost my chances of getting bright stars to do multi star guiding

[harsh matrix]

are they really?

[runic violet]

well not quite

but for all intents and purposes i don't think this is huge

compared to a sensor with much lower read noise + larger visible light sensitivity + way way higher IR sensitivity + virtually no dark current

the 174 has non negligible dark current at room temperature even at like 2 second exposures

[harsh matrix]

alright that's a fair point

[runic violet]

which surprised me but also not really

[harsh matrix]

the RC is pumping out super sharp subs tonight gawt dang

sharper than anything ive seen before from my own gear

[harsh matrix]

My flats looked suspect

[harsh matrix]

yeah i see a donut in my flats

lum

only 5 frames

not as bad as i expected tbh

[vapid patio]

DANGH

[harsh matrix]

yes there is a donut

stupid light pollution

ill have to measure the baffle tube and/or try to force the extension that i printed to work

it's low intensity in the color but it's there

it could very much be caused by internal reflections too which is also fixable

it's not quite as bad as the RC6 but it's there and that's bothersome

okay this scope is INSANE

[brisk swift]

[harsh matrix]

50 minutes in Oiii and Ha, and the Ha is showing stuff which wasnt in my photo of 20 hours from last year

bok globule center frame has a tail in the RC image which doesnt appear in my frac image

the 5 star asterism off to the left of the leftmost pillar is already entirely visible

i normally use this asterism to judge how deep a photo of the pillars is

the angel is just gorgeous

and despite the astigmatism in the RC, the stars are still tighter unprocessed than the stars in the processed frac image

[harsh matrix]

1 hour and 40 minutes of data lol...

[vapid patio]

Hot damn

[ripe crystal]

there are many donuts of death

[ripe crystal]

many donuts

[ripe crystal]

woowowowowwowwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

love the palette

[harsh matrix]

Alright my RC8 happens to be an anomaly

The baffle tube is over 200mm long

For 2017, this shouldn't be the case but maybe TPO was fixing it before everyone else.

Hopefully something else is the fault of my stray light issue

[harsh matrix]

I made this internal baffle to stop light from hitting the secondary mirror from around the draw tube, it works flawlessly to stop that particular light leak, but I wonder if the reflectivity of it is contributing to my problem

It goes into the end of the focuser draw tube to "plug" any gaps and the potential light cutoff isn't a big deal since I have a tiny sensor

The reflectivity of that plug is definitely a part of it.

[harsh matrix]

I'm pretty confident it's that now.

If i sit back about where the camera would be, the inside of that tube appears to glow due to the little bit of stray light thats able to get by the baffle tube.

[vapid patio]

@harsh matrix Are you going insane 😭

[harsh matrix]

Yes

[vapid patio]

haha

here is 10hr of m51

quick edit

[analog portal]

App: Rain all Day!
Reality: not a drop yet, just sketchy skies ..

[vapid patio]

Sad

Would you like to process some good data in the meantime?

[analog portal]

where is this good data?

[frosty shard]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the clouds...

[harsh matrix]

here's some painfully sharp M16 data if anyone wants a play

there's the Oiii (which isnt as good since it's fainter)

[vapid patio]

my good data heheheha

@harsh matrix good lord

i hate my asi120mm

and oag

cant guide to save my life like

[harsh matrix]

yeah it's horrible on an OAG

see if you can try to pick up a 585 planetary cam second hand or something

that'll save you some pain, but youll have to cry some since you have to spend more

[vapid patio]

i have great guide stars but it just is like "nah that star is not there"

[harsh matrix]

yeah just randomly

[vapid patio]

im looking at asi220

[vapid patio]

and i have good numbers 1.27 but nooooooooooooo still star trails

"good for my setup"

doing m104 till m16 comes around

and maybe even triphid

[harsh matrix]

1.27 is pretty bad on an RC tbh

[vapid patio]

well yuh

1.75 now

[harsh matrix]

but it would help significantly if you could pick up more stars to do multi star guiding

[vapid patio]

it has 2 stars

[harsh matrix]

i didnt know just how much guiding performance was being left on the table since i was stuck with 1 to 3 stars at any given time

multi star guiding with the OAG with like 7+ stars is insane

it's so stable

[vapid patio]

well pray for money my way

oh wait

should i get a reducer?

/flattner

give me more stars?

f/9 to f/5/6

and wider fov

[harsh matrix]

100%

it wont give you more stars

or at least not very likely to

but it will reduce the likelihood that your guide stars go poof gone

[vapid patio]

but go from 1370 to 1000ish

[vapid patio]

thad be nice

[harsh matrix]

it's very nice

[vapid patio]

and make the stars actually round

"for my guide camera"

[harsh matrix]

i surprisingly had no problem getting 8 or so guide stars with my RC8 not reduced since the Xena-M's sensor is so darn large

[vapid patio]

i plan to stick with asiair so zwo is all i got

[harsh matrix]

a more sensitive camera with a bigger sensor will go a long ways for you

[vapid patio]

asi220mm looks great

and for like 250 usd

[vapid patio]

bro i hate cloudy nights

[harsh matrix]

it's not unfortunately

[vapid patio]

like why do all the sold stuff show up

[vapid patio]

?

[harsh matrix]

not for us

[vapid patio]

how

[harsh matrix]

it's not much more sensitive than the 120MM in our use case

i dont remember exactly why this is the case, i think it's the noise or something

it's just not a big enough improvement to get over something like a 585

178

or 249

[vapid patio]

0.6–1.5 e for 220. 6.00e for 120

haha clear winner

[harsh matrix]

the 220 has lower full well capacity and about the same dynamic range which means you can blow out stars easier, and a blown out star cannot be used for guiding

depending on how high you have to crank the gain, this could put you in a bad spot.

the difference isnt as important if you compare the 220 with the 178, the 249, and the 585

those other sensors crush the 220

[vapid patio]

seen that concern

but sadly the asi178 is 500 dollars

and i do have small prism so less of a concern

and im in bortle 3/4 so not much pushy on the gain and exp time

[harsh matrix]

try it ig

if you can get your hands on one

theyre backordered on HPS, idk about agena

[tight lodge]

Get the PlayerOne Ceres 462M.

[tight lodge]

Poor fella, he fell for ASIair trap

[primal echo]

I was in it from 2022 till three days ago

should have made the switch sooner

[tight lodge]

We should help him make the change so he can experience freedom

[tight lodge]

About the same year, I almost fell into it as well

I'm glad that I was broke at the right time

[primal echo]

I switched cause 14 year old me was struggling to get nina to work and just caved in the moment he got money.

[tight lodge]

I almost switched to it because of A.P.T, but then I discovered nina, and my life got back on track

APT was pure nightmare

[vapid patio]

well i mean i just dont want the comitment yet like i have barely used my new rig still figuring it out

[vapid patio]

AND IM 14 SO NO NINA

[vapid patio]

well once i get some money then yes i know some people with it they said its great

[primal echo]

BUT I WAS A REALLY REALLY STUPID 14 YEAR OLD SO YOU CANT MAKE THAT COMPARISON

ASIAIR isn’t bad though. I just which I switched earlier so I could have explored other camera options

[vapid patio]

yeah i do but not really at the same time like zwo is fine

i snagged 3hr of m16 last night

[tight lodge]

I like you RC guys. Everyone is trying to fit the whole thing in their FOV while y'all are like... Hmmm yesss that would be an exoplanet transiting a protostar ... interesting, interesting

[vapid patio]

haha i can see everything!!!!!! hyped

[tight lodge]

I also like to get up close and personal with what I'm shooting. Although... not an RC owner, but soon hopefully I'll be one

But what if. I mention that this was shot with an RC8? . Am I allowed in the RC gang?

[vapid patio]

oooo well sick!

i cant wait to do pacman real up close

[vapid patio]

well did you shoot it

[tight lodge]

How did you know this is near pacman nebula?

[tight lodge]

Not with an RC... but definitely I have a tight FOV

[tight lodge]

I see... most people wouldn't know where this region is, and yet... you got extremely close to it

[vapid patio]

well that is right here right?

[tight lodge]

Yes

[vapid patio]

haha too easy

[vapid patio]

not bad not bad

[tight lodge]

For 15 minutes I have to say... I'm proud of it

[vapid patio]

yeah for 15 minutes thart quite good

[tight lodge]

Also... if I had to shoot a galaxy again I would have gone insane

[vapid patio]

i love galaxys but man i love nebulas

cant wait to do this

real up close

[tight lodge]

I did it in the same night when I shot the cygnus wall

Again... 15 minutes. I had to fit the cygnus wall and C-27 in a 40 minutes window

Crescent nebula is my favorite nebula ngl

Like... I want to pit some good hours on it.

[tight lodge]

Speaking of RC's. I want one of these😍

[runic violet]

This doesn't matter because you probably aren't saturating most stars

The 220 is fine for oag and is probably the best pick for a 8mm prism size

And to say it's not much better than the 120mm is extremely silly

In fact I'm personally not sure whether the imx174 or 220 wins on a large prism

But the 585 wins handily in that case anyways

[tight lodge]

585 together with the 462M. Perfect combo.

[runic violet]

wat

[harsh matrix]

[harsh matrix]

nah you have a caterpiller of hotpixels

DQ'd

[tight lodge]

Yes, because it was a single frame.

[harsh matrix]

[harsh matrix]

well i am an extremely silly person

[tight lodge]

And I'm 100% sure that's the SII frame

[harsh matrix]

so that's just stating the obvious

[harsh matrix]

well yeah, if that's an SHO image, the hotpixels are red, its in the Sii

ez

[harsh matrix]

you better shoot Orion next time it comes around, and make me proud

[tight lodge]

Go deep into the trapezium

[harsh matrix]

ive done that

the resolution of the image was at the limit of what the scope could achieve so this is as good as it could get

this little proplyd has detail which is insane

[tight lodge]

Ok... I really need an RC!

[harsh matrix]

get an 8 and not a 6

if possible

[tight lodge]

I ain't gonna get a 6 inch

[tight lodge]

I mean... I have this chungus on my bucket list

[harsh matrix]

yeah good

i would like one once i move out of my parents house

[vapid patio]

Thank you, good, sir

[vapid patio]

Sir, yes sir

[runic violet]

Fwiw one 10" RC in the obs runs on the qhy200m (same sensor) and my virtually identical setup runs on a 290

The 200 is clearly the superior guide camera

It doesn't affect me as much because my mount doesn't need much guiding but I'm switching to the 200 soon

[tight lodge]

I need to decide when to sacrifice my other kidney for that telescope😂

[vapid patio]

what do you think?

pull up your m16

[harsh matrix]

Looks dang near the limit for the RC6 tbh

Thats crazy sharp.

[vapid patio]

you sharper

[harsh matrix]

100%

[vapid patio]

mono is prob why

[harsh matrix]

Part of it but not totally

Look at my brightest stars

[vapid patio]

and oh i had star trails in all my photos

[harsh matrix]

There are diffraction rings around them

[vapid patio]

cant guide for shitttttttt

[vapid patio]

what dat mean'

[harsh matrix]

Those diffraction rings mean I was imaging near the diffraction limit of my scope

Meaning that my seeing wasn't the limiting factor that night

It was aperture

[vapid patio]

no way

[harsh matrix]

Yes way

[vapid patio]

what is your pixel scale

[harsh matrix]

Trust me I'm just as surprised as you

[harsh matrix]

0.611"/px

[vapid patio]

mine is 0.533

dang bro crazy work

[harsh matrix]

Fr

The thing is, the photographic resolution is theoretical and it ignores other factors like seeing and diffraction.

So while my pixel scale is larger than yours, the aperture on my scope is way larger with a smaller central obstruction. I have more raw resolving power with an RC8 and you do with an RC6 due to physics, how light interacts with obstructions,. It doesn't have much to do with photographic resolution.

[vapid patio]

let me show you my unedited m16 haha

[harsh matrix]

Obviously tracking accuracy contributes to resolution and sharpness as well

[vapid patio]

oh wait that was rc8?

makes wayyyyyy more sense

[harsh matrix]

But a very large aperture with very little diffraction will always be sharper

[harsh matrix]

Yes

[vapid patio]

yes yes you are correct

oh i forgot to strech my image

here we gooo

[harsh matrix]

Eh thats not much worse than the trails in my 20 hour stacks from last year lol

Thats manageable

[vapid patio]

yes no not superrrr bad but still

[harsh matrix]

If they were a few pixels longer I'd be more worried

[vapid patio]

120s exps

[harsh matrix]

BlurX can handle small drift like that

Should definitely get a reducer

[vapid patio]

yep easy

instead of a new guide camera?

[harsh matrix]

It will make guiding error on that scale much less impactful to negligible

[harsh matrix]

Ah probably not

I forgor

[vapid patio]

aw man

reducer cheap

camera money money money

[tight lodge]

Please ignore the triangular stars. That issue has been fixed

[harsh matrix]

holy

[harsh matrix]

my issue is not fixable without a whole 3rd party after market solution

[tight lodge]

My aftermarket solution was to unscrew a bit the mirror clips

[harsh matrix]

that's normal for a newt lets be honest

[tight lodge]

Normal for poorly adjusted ones

I showed this 2 images of the same star to a friend of mine and I asked him if he can tell which one is a carbon star

[harsh matrix]

😭

is it the right one?

[tight lodge]

Carbon star is on the right

[harsh matrix]

😭

https://tenor.com/view/pc-man-crush-rage-gif-20192828

[tight lodge]

You shouldn't be triggered that the Carbon star had funky stars. You should be triggered if I tell you that it was outperformed by a SkyWatcher 130PDS 🤣

[harsh matrix]

yikes man

what is going on with the carbonstars?

they seem like great scopes on paper but they seem to have major design flaws

@thorny path had one and then returned it and got a stellarvue instead

because he had unfixable issues

[tight lodge]

Weird star flares?

[harsh matrix]

yes

and somebody else was having triangular stars no matter what they did

[tight lodge]

I've noticed that's a common flaw with carbon stars. Yet nobody knows what causes them

[harsh matrix]

so still no idea

Apertura kept blaming it on him and it being a skill issue

[tight lodge]

10/10 customer support

[tight lodge]

But for real now. Some design choices are so dumb that makes you wonder how it passed QC.
A friend of mine got the EFW from Touptek. Guess how Touptek decided to use to check the position of the filter wheel. They used one of those IR emitters to check the position. Everyone else use hall effect and those dudes decided that is good to put an LED in a spot where needs to be pitch dark

[harsh matrix]

yeah I saw someone had gotten one of those here

my touptek AFW doesnt have one of those luckily

[tight lodge]

When I got my camera, I decided to get the EFW and OAG from P1 as well. I do not regret that decision

Buuut. Not to say that P1 didn't had a questionable design decision... but definitely something that was fixed with some fabric electrical tape

[tight lodge]

Did any of you got up close an personal with the Elephant trunk nebula?

[tight lodge]

Things that you miss when you photograph wide

[vapid patio]

meanies

@harsh matrix you know what im about to do

[vapid patio]

gonna redo it but aye not bad for 60% moon sii gets washed out

this like 4hr

[tight lodge]

Oooooo that is gorgeous

[vapid patio]

heheheha

heres a better one

[tight lodge]

The identifier confuse me. Hα RGB, SII RGB? Did you shot broadband and then single bandpass with Hα and SII?

[vapid patio]

so you shoot sii oii and ha, then you combine them into one image. sii goes into red channel ha into green and oii into blue

[tight lodge]

I shoot mono . That's why your identifiers confused me

[vapid patio]

oh ah well i mean yeah idk its weird

[tight lodge]

When I process after channel combination I change the name of the image to whatever palette I'm working in, SHO, HOO, Foraxx and so on. Keeps the confusion away and it's easier to keep the names visible when the windows are minimized

[tight lodge]

Also, I see you are a pure SHO fan.

[vapid patio]

noooooooo

[tight lodge]

Yeeeeees!

[tight lodge]

Gorgeous

[tight lodge]

I can't fit the whole thing in my FOV

[tight lodge]

Dude... SHO is always beautiful. Plus it triggers the Green haters

[vapid patio]

HAHA YES

[vapid patio]

this is with my redcat

[tight lodge]

I never had a good time with fracs

[vapid patio]

how

[tight lodge]

Probably because I also had a bad frac, plus if a refractor telescope is bad... that's it, can't do much about it. But reflector telescopes (Newtonian in my case) offered me more options to improve its performance and price per aperture is much lower than refractors

[tight lodge]

Pluuuuus... difraction spikes are hot

Pluuuuuuuuuuusss! It's a lot easier and more efficient to image in NIR with a reflector than a refractor

[vapid patio]

oh well true true

[vapid patio]

got thaat right

[vapid patio]

never tried it but i wanna

[tight lodge]

At the moment I'm only guiding in IR. But I want to try IR,SII,Hα

[vapid patio]

someone won a contest with a nir photo hold up

cant find it oh well but nir is superrrrr cool

[tight lodge]

I think it was the Euclid Horsehead nebula

I know it. Looks amazing

[vapid patio]

like blue and purple and green all that?

oh wait its in my camera roll

@tight lodge I FOUND IT

[tight lodge]

This is the one that i was talking about

[brisk swift]

vel cooked

[frosty shard]

I love green dominant SHO tbh

[tight lodge]

Same. plus the green just makes sense

we assign the strongest signal to the green channel XD

[frosty shard]

If you don't want green just shoot HOO lol

[tight lodge]

SHO is more fun

[frosty shard]

I do like bicolor palettes though

[tight lodge]

More detail and more separation between different structures

[frosty shard]

I'm actually thinking of shooting in an IR/Hα/R palette in the future

[tight lodge]

That could be interesting

[frosty shard]

If I do it correctly, I hope to get a watermelon palette out of it: pink stars, green nebulae

[tight lodge]

I've seen someone... (kinda make him do it) shoot IRGB. the image looked so weird an yet so interesting

[frosty shard]

also this should be resistant to moonlight so I can get the data on any clear night

[tight lodge]

IR and Red maybe are gonna be slightly affected

I wonder how IR, Hα, Hβ would look like

Like literally as far away from eachother as possible

[harsh matrix]

not yet

[harsh matrix]

[tight lodge]

this is as close as i can get so far

[harsh matrix]

this one is Benny's

[tight lodge]

but yours literally looks like Euclid's one

[vapid patio]

@harsh matrix Am I nerd material

Need to boost or lower my ego

[harsh matrix]

that was the point lol

[harsh matrix]

nerd is decided based more on the knowledge side of the hobby and is less reliant on how good your pictures are

[vapid patio]

I heard “4th person” haba

Well what is a good way to show that I am knowledgable

[harsh matrix]

this was a reprocess I did, I wanted to pull more Ha out of the background

[vapid patio]

I've gone through so much gear and trouble that I feel like I can fix any problem people have

[tight lodge]

is NIR processing similar to SHO or HOO... more or less simmilar to palletes that we are fammiliar with

[tight lodge]

No pay to win... only suffer to learn

[vapid patio]

I know, my point haha

[harsh matrix]

you answer people's questions about issues they encounter frequently and with enough accuracy that you are able to walk them through whatever they are having trouble with

eventually people may nominate you for nerd

which is what happened to me

[vapid patio]

Hmmmm ok ok, I will do so thank you

[harsh matrix]

lots of people want me to be meganerd now

[vapid patio]

Takes time I see

[vapid patio]

And I agree with them

one of the guys told me to speed run ranks 😭

[harsh matrix]

as nice as it would be to give you a simple answer and say yes, it's not really

NIR in most cases is a lot like shooting luminance

the signal in NIR over powers everything else

you have to be clever about how you integrate other filters into NIR

it's more work than HOO or SHO but the results can be just as good or better

[tight lodge]

so it would be a lot of playing with channel weights and constantly reprocessing until desired results

[tight lodge]

that i can tell. Plus it's unique

[harsh matrix]

yes, unless you process it in a layer based editor or with some of the image blending scripts available to Pixinsight which is what I did for those 2 examples

[tight lodge]

what they are called? i might add them in my list just to experiment new stuff

[harsh matrix]

[tight lodge]

oooo that's gonna be a sweet one

[harsh matrix]

there's ImageBlend which was made by Mike Cranfield and Adam Block

and then there's CombineImages which is how I mapped my channels

this one is made by Dean Carr

it was made to integrate and color map more than 3 filters for JWST

ImageBlend would arguably work better if you used a script to map the colors to each filter before meshing them together into one image since you can change the mix and see exactly what happens as it happens

[tight lodge]

I use something similar, I think it's called Jürgen's Toolbox

[frosty shard]

I wish we had a nerd role specifically for visual observation (I know we're an astrophotography server primarily but still)

[vapid patio]

[frosty shard]

Hα and Hβ would give you mostly the same information, but the ratio can change when nebulae suffer extinction from interstellar dust

I will definitely try experimenting with IR, Hα, and O-III

At some point I'd be interested in obtaining photometric information with Hα and Hβ for a variety of nebulae

I also think for some cameras (mostly OSC) it might be advantageous to use an Hβ filter since more photosites can respond to it

[tight lodge]

I mentioned Hα and Hβ because they are mostly oposite sides of the spectrum. i never seen a sub with Hβ data in it so i have no way to compare them.

So i imagined them more like a color theory thing rather than a photometric thing.

[harsh matrix]

diffraction limited all the way back in November of last year

with the RC6

this is the star Caph

[vapid patio]

Why rings?

[harsh matrix]

Because that means it was diffraction limited

[vapid patio]

Ok yeah yeah

I remember now

[harsh matrix]

[vapid patio]

[harsh matrix]

It's weird looking

This was a live view of a star lmao

You see this stuff all of the time in Hubble data but it's rare or unlikely in atmosphere

[vapid patio]

I see you flexing

[harsh matrix]

But since almost every single dataset of mine with the RC6 had these rings, you know my seeing was bonkers

[vapid patio]

Again 💔

[harsh matrix]

Ex of diffraction rings in Hubble data

[vapid patio]

Impressive

Pixel scale is like 0.00000001

[harsh matrix]

I refused to believe it for the longest time lol

But since I have been told repeatedly that the seeing is the reason these rings show up so often, I have begun to accept it lmao

[vapid patio]

Hubble is 0.04

[vapid patio]

Its a flex

[harsh matrix]

Especially after seeing them one night after not seeing them the prior night

[harsh matrix]

Unironically

It's not even me trying to flex

My seeing is making the statement 😭

I can't hide it

[vapid patio]

Where do you live?

[harsh matrix]

North Texas

[vapid patio]

Not your adress but like in general

[harsh matrix]

Northeast Texas*

[vapid patio]

DUDE NO DUH ITS DARK OIT THERE

[harsh matrix]

DFW area

[harsh matrix]

Not here lmfao

[vapid patio]

lucky

[harsh matrix]

The entire metroplex is bortle 8 at a minimum

[vapid patio]

Oh

OH

oh well

I'm in north Carolina so meh

[harsh matrix]

Yeah the east coast has awful seeing

Cause of the mountains

[vapid patio]

No

Not really

[runic violet]

Sir this is not the airy disk

[harsh matrix]

I didn't say it was

[runic violet]

You're saying diffraction limited

It has nothing to do with the diffraction limit

It's a well known effect of doing narrowband

Almost nothing to do with seeing

It's a fairly common misconception that this is the airy disk and indicates "good seeing"

[harsh matrix]

Yes so clearly one party is wrong

I don't know which

[runic violet]

What party

[harsh matrix]

I do not know

[runic violet]

I'm confused what are you saying

[harsh matrix]

What i do know is that i have seen these diffraction rings show up in my broadband images too

[runic violet]

Show

[harsh matrix]

On nights of exceptional seeing.

They're significantly fainter than the narrowband though

[harsh matrix]

Oh boy

I'll have to remember what data set or sets it was

[runic violet]

The strength of the diffraction rings in Hubble is due to polishing errors btw

[harsh matrix]

how dafuq would you know that

[runic violet]

Because the Hubble psf is well documented

Maybe the most well documented psf out there

It is technically part of its PSF but it's an artifact of zones

[harsh matrix]

so the color star here is in broadband with my OSC camera, if there is a pattern, it's extremely subtle and buried under most of the glow, but there is an outer consolidated concentric ring, the mono image is my red broadband filter

green