Ritchey–Chrétien enjoyers thread

[frosty shard]

I should see if there's a quality implementation of Zernike polynomials in Julia

[slate falcon]

!!

[frosty shard]

Answer: yes

[slate falcon]

you gotta teach me how to julia your stuff again

[slate falcon]

[frosty shard]

I will need to schedule a session when I have time

[slate falcon]

[frosty shard]

Unfortunately I am very short on time these days, but at the absolute latest I'll host something in June

[harsh matrix]

this HST exposure alignment process looks complex

[harsh matrix]

how do you even remember all this stuff for this long and not get rusty enough that you have to totally halt development for a refresh

is it just practice?

[frosty shard]

Because I constantly distract myself from actually finishing my PhD work by working on this code

Also I really want this codebase to be usable

[slate falcon]

fool

[harsh matrix]

o

[frosty shard]

that's what my advisor said

[harsh matrix]

[frosty shard]

I want a good drizzle implementation in Julia because none exists

[slate falcon]

im secretly him

[harsh matrix]

bro my advisor might call me a fool on Friday too

we're all cooked

[frosty shard]

In part because I want to write code that's easy for the average joe to study

[slate falcon]

imagine having an advisor!! (im not in uni yet )

[harsh matrix]

😭

i dont know who mine is yet

i will find out Friday

[frosty shard]

I switched PhD advisors

My old one wasn't doing something important

(advising)

[slate falcon]

what was he doing instead 😭

[harsh matrix]

that's crazy

but doesnt sound too far fetched knowing these insitutions lmaoooo

[frosty shard]

We presented a case for some sort of remedial action as an entire group and got hit with "Nice argument! Unfortunately, tenure."

Which is funny because apparently the rest of the department thinks he's kinda useless

[harsh matrix]

soooooooooo

why isnt he fired?

[frosty shard]

Tenure. Once you get it, there's almost nothing that can be done to get rid of you

[slate falcon]

is he there so when he gets fired he can immediately retire and have "extra" time due to not doing anything?

[harsh matrix]

so he's just spending his time gatekeeping

[slate falcon]

[harsh matrix]

ohhhhhhh that makes my blood boil

[frosty shard]

Professors have amazing job security but it comes at the cost of potentially having dead weight on your faculty.

[slate falcon]

evil bastard

[frosty shard]

Also, one of the things I've learned about academia is that nobody teaches faculty to be good at advising or managing a group

[harsh matrix]

reminds me of this

[frosty shard]

Some people there are excellent at it and genuinely do care a lot about ensuring their students leave with a solid foundation, but others really don't want to be advising students/teaching/etc.

They just want their name on research papers

[harsh matrix]

another issue is that the faculty that needs to do the advising might not care about the success of the students they are in charge of

[frosty shard]

They're not exactly incentivized to care

[harsh matrix]

which was my case with my physics and calc 2 profs at uni

[crude timber]

What are you researching?

[harsh matrix]

cause at the end of the day they get a free pass

[frosty shard]

I'm a computational chemist

[crude timber]

Wassat

[frosty shard]

I use geometric tools to process chemical data (like topology, Riemannian geometry, and my favorite: Clifford/geometric algebras)

[crude timber]

Huh

[frosty shard]

It's funny because I think chemists are even more scared of math than biologists

[crude timber]

What the fart does that mean

Pv =nRT or smth

[harsh matrix]

this goes beyond your periodic table lol

[crude timber]

Q=mcat

[frosty shard]

Biologists are pretty good at statistics, and physicists are just good at math in general, but there's definitely an aversion to mathematical modeling in chemistry that I think is partially due to the way chemists are presented more advanced math

[frosty shard]

I'd need to spend an hour or two to explain this well.

[slate falcon]

i wanna do marine biology :3

[frosty shard]

Because the ironic part is that some of these topics are pretty intuitive, but they aren't presented in intuitive ways (don't look up the Wikipedia article for Clifford algebras)

[slate falcon]

i like statistics!!

[frosty shard]

@crude timber if you want a background in Clifford/geometric algebras, just watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60z_hpEAtD8

Changed my goddamn life

[slate falcon]

woaw

[plush raptor]

any 1 wanna join https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1490486111984947370

[slate falcon]

stop begging

[plush raptor]

why cant you join

[slate falcon]

i have enough on my plate

im already in multiple groups

[plush raptor]

so am I

AURIC, WAC, SWAN

[slate falcon]

you are not in swan

[plush raptor]

yuh

[slate falcon]

im sorry but you arent

if you werent there before the n word spam you werent there

it died after that

[plush raptor]

how do I have the files then

[slate falcon]

you screenshotted the screenshare....

[plush raptor]

ohh, shii, I remember that

[slate falcon]

if you are in it now that would look incredibly bad on you

[plush raptor]

you were in it vro

[slate falcon]

i would advise you leave

[slate falcon]

at the time to collect evidence yes

[plush raptor]

okok fair

[frosty shard]

nice spectroscopy

[slate falcon]

i just punched the shit out of every part of my rig

my ra motor stopped tracking (reason i beat the shit out of everything)

it slewed fine

but god forbid i actually want to do any imaging

anyways if its broken tomorrow im throwing all my astro shit away and giving up

[plush raptor]

damn

[slate falcon]

ive done better

[crisp flower]

I think i have fixed it again

[plush raptor]

gyattt

[crisp flower]

Still noise™

[harsh matrix]

holy ifn wtf

that looks significantly better than the last time you posted here

[crisp flower]

Cheers

I think its rather dark neb instead of ifn tho

[harsh matrix]

i dont care

it's dust that's not easy to capture

that's all i care about

[crisp flower]

Fair
Im surprised at how good it came Out
This is about 5hrs of lum

[harsh matrix]

yeah fr

im tempted to just throw out the reducer after seeing that

screw this uphill bs lmao

[crisp flower]

I might give this a more deep Look later, this is Just abe and mast

[crisp flower]

Do it

[tight lodge]

You dont need that extra FOV. You just need that sharp close-up view 🤤

[harsh matrix]

tonight should be when we find out if mine is fixed too

i havent taken flats, ill do that a little later tonight once it clouds out

[crisp flower]

I Hope it is

[harsh matrix]

same

and I think it will be

the biggest hurdle now will be figuring out the slop and the backlash in the focuser

rn i think the focuser is slipping because the thing is aimed at the ground

[frosty shard]

R E J E C T
E
F
R
A
C
T
I
O
N

[frosty flicker]

https://klipy.com/gifs/akkubaba007-jerry

[slate falcon]

panstarrs levels

[crisp flower]

Levels of noise lol

[slate falcon]

yup

[harsh matrix]

It

is

starting

so

i think i had clouds for most of this night

i had to include clouded frames or else i wouldnt have an image to test

with that said

do you see any evidence of a rim?

i see a little bit of funky but because of the clouds and/or IFN, I cant rule either possibility out, even tidal tail could be to blame

to take this another step farther, i think im going to change my camera settings around just to make sure it's gone gone

oh also there's some walking noise developing i believe

that basically guarantees some level of calibration failure

i cannot be dithering every 2 subs for 180s subs i guess

might need to try to switch to 5 minute subs and pray i dont blow everything out, or drop the reducer and do this anyway because that's the most logical option

okay yeah

no crater

there's some weirdness

i will blame this on the clouds

clouds do weird stuff

gonna tweak camera settings a little too

[waxen mountain]

@harsh matrix Is that a good improvement ?
I painted my quattro a week ago and was able to try it out

[harsh matrix]

it's a start

it's barely noticeable tbh, hard to see the difference

[slate falcon]

left?

left has better snr

[waxen mountain]

Yee the left is the "improvement"

I think both have a similar amount of int

[harsh matrix]

okay there's still a ghost left

wtf

i mean at the end of the day, that's not a legit dent in the image and ive heard camera settings can cause this issue, and the clouds might have played a role so, there's still plenty of chances for this to resolve itself

[slate falcon]

i can see my secondaries shadow

in flats taken in infrared

[harsh matrix]

@crisp flower Just reread the comment im referencing for camera settings and saw this.

This is why you're having issues.

Same reason anyone and everyone else seeing the crater or a central ring will have issues.

[crisp flower]

@harsh matrix On that Matter, i wanted to ask u anyway, what focusser U are using
Because i Looked for replacements but the ones i have Seen are basically all the Same of what i already have..

[bleak solar]

When I screw in the tilt adapter I should not have to change it when switching my imaging train to another telescope, right?

If the adapter is right in front of the camera

[frosty shard]

How are you going to change your camera settings?

[frosty shard]

@harsh matrix you should image NGC 4073 on July 18

[tight lodge]

Booooo mainstream

[sinful sapphire]

is anyone in here theoretically interested in GSO RC8 optics?

i may need to get a used RC8 to butcher it

[tight lodge]

3.6 out of 5... not great not terrible. 😂

[sinful sapphire]

https://tenor.com/view/eagle-reference-i-got-that-reference-baseball-caught-gif-4656907955966418579

how i caught that reference 🗣️

[tight lodge]

But why are you interested in RCTs?

[slate falcon]

he feels murderous

[sinful sapphire]

The mechanical components fit a design I want to build

Id just need to take out the optics and sell them

taking out the secondary may be a bit difficult tho

[slate falcon]

nah

you gotta belive!!!

[sinful sapphire]

idek how it is attached

glue?

[tight lodge]

Just use the purse

[sinful sapphire]

the wut

[sinful sapphire]

ah..

uh

i still need the mechanics to be intact though

i mean the best i can do is scrape that mf out there like burnt shit out of a pot

[frosty shard]

You would sacrifice a glorious Ritchey–Chrétien for your four-eyes Cassegrain????

[slate falcon]

i love it

[slate falcon]

its blasphemous

[frosty shard]

I guess the issue for me is that you're in the EU and I'm in 'Murica

[slate falcon]

get a plane ticket

[sinful sapphire]

no

well

maybe the secondary if i cant get it out

[slate falcon]

yk that renders the primary almost useless right?

[frosty shard]

if it wasn't for the Atlantic Ocean I'd be interested tbh

[slate falcon]

intrested in murder or intrested in helping?

[frosty shard]

in using the optics for a custom RC build

[sinful sapphire]

costs around 100 bucks to ship it to the us

[slate falcon]

[tight lodge]

I'm an ex mechanic and I'm intact because of the purse

[frosty shard]

well tbf that's not the only issue...I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing in the next few months with respect to career/living situation, so I don't think I'm in the position to take a project like that on

[sinful sapphire]

nvm its 150

[frosty shard]

Well if you're up for international shipping, maybe you could contact the Aussie guy Veloren mentioned who does custom truss tube RC conversions?

6" and 8" size

[sinful sapphire]

oh my god

250 EUR shipping cost

[tight lodge]

The primary is tricky. The secondary can be held with spit and chewing gum and will be more sturdy than an average GSO. @crisp flower Can confirm it

[silver ibex]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1374211989898792980/1452893726807560304/IMG_3100.gif

[frosty shard]

everyone says the US economy sucks, meanwhile I'm watching the euro hyperinflate before my eyes

[sinful sapphire]

once more the issues is getting it off lol

[crisp flower]

I can indeed lmaoo

[slate falcon]

[sinful sapphire]

nvm its 100

[slate falcon]

both are in shambles

[sinful sapphire]

its cheaper to send it to the land down under lol

[frosty shard]

How much would the mirrors go for?

[sinful sapphire]

good question

[frosty shard]

And that checks out, I wouldn't be surprised if there were import fees for the US

[silver ibex]

World economy sucks *

[sinful sapphire]

probably cheap tho

[slate falcon]

[sinful sapphire]

depends on whether or not i get the RC8 itself for cheap

[slate falcon]

economy sucks

[frosty shard]

Considering how quickly boomers ragequit RCs, luck may be on your side...

[sinful sapphire]

ive seen one for 500 recently

[slate falcon]

if we exterminate all the economists the economy would get better!

[sinful sapphire]

well actually it was 1000 but decoupled with a new focuser

but he offered to rebuild it back into the previous form

sold quikcly then

[frosty shard]

I was offered a 6" GSO RC for $300 once

Part of me really wanted to take it

[sinful sapphire]

lol

there was one here for 100

fella was just fed up

wanted it gone

[frosty shard]

Dang I would have snatched that up

Honestly I would have snatched it up and configured it as a visual scope

[slate falcon]

gso 6" rc's are meant to be better made than the newtonian counterpart

[frosty shard]

optically or mechanically or both?

I can attest to GSO RC optics being fantastic

[slate falcon]

optically, not mechanically

on par mechanical

[slate falcon]

all the gso newts are sub par quality

[frosty shard]

that does not surprise me, my RC is the sharpest 8" scope I've looked through. I'd take it over pretty much any SCT despite the 47% CO

[sinful sapphire]

fantastic?

their secondaries have... issues to say the least

turns out gso cant mass produce everything without issue

[sinful sapphire]

i mean scts generally suck

[slate falcon]

convex secondaries are hard to make

[sinful sapphire]

yeah exactly

which is why they have surface roughness issues

[slate falcon]

this is why we need to get hyperbolic gregorians

[sinful sapphire]

at times

[sinful sapphire]

unless theyre spherical

[frosty shard]

I assume the RCs hold collimation better but I'm just going off what I've heard

[slate falcon]

any company that makes cassegrains struggle

[slate falcon]

a lot better

[slate falcon]

even then its still iffy

[frosty shard]

Aside from surface roughness, are there other major issues?

[sinful sapphire]

usual stuff

shaping not being "great"

[frosty shard]

Turned down edge?

[sinful sapphire]

ive heard that too i think

the average RC8 is decent

[slate falcon]

yup, it causes freaky spikes

starburst effect

[frosty shard]

The thing with an RC is that at least you can adjust the mirror spacing if the conic constants aren't exactly right. Sure, you might get some coma, but that's pretty small in comparison

[frosty shard]

That's not turned down edge, that's improper mirror silvering

mine is actually better than other GSO RCs in that regard: I have only two unsilvered spots

most have 3 or 4

[sinful sapphire]

the edge didnt get his job because it was turned down

[sinful sapphire]

"only" 🗿

[slate falcon]

it should also cause that as usually just before the turn down theres a hump witch refracts light weirdly

[slate falcon]

😭

[slate falcon]

fire do you think i should get my mirrors corrected and re silvered by professionals

[frosty shard]

You did not just mention refr*ction

[slate falcon]

the sad but true truth

[tight lodge]

you telling me that you don't experience refraction?

[frosty shard]

Not with my glorious Ritchey–Chrétien.

(We don't talk about the filters shhhhh)

[slate falcon]

you should get it from the atmosphere too

[tight lodge]

AR window in front of the sensor

https://tenor.com/view/cra-cra-crazy-nuts-sleepless-gif-10559985

[frosty shard]

Microlensing on the sensor itself

Eyepieces when I'm doing visual 💀

[tight lodge]

For the ancient 533 maybe

[frosty shard]

IS THE 533 FINALLY GETTING REPLACED

[sinful sapphire]

also

do you know the size of the primary?

Is it 203 or 200mm

[tight lodge]

that sounds like a question and a statement at the same time

[frosty shard]

I've never measured it myself, but I have reason to believe it's 203.2 mm

[slate falcon]

jesus, yk its bad when ur 40 mins of data tops 2 hours of untracked

[sinful sapphire]

ts optics said its 200mm in their "diy mirror set kit" when they still sold it

[frosty shard]

the only time I've ever seen 200 mm is from specific vendors, and not GSO

[sinful sapphire]

and agena astro also says its 200mm

[slate falcon]

@sinful sapphire look at that yummy field curvature

[sinful sapphire]

can you measure it safely on yours

[frosty shard]

oh that's actually more vendors than there used to be

[frosty shard]

I'm not willing to disassemble my scope, but if I can find a way to measure it without too much risk I'll do it and report back

wait maybe @harsh matrix would know this

[tight lodge]

mask it down to a known size . 2mm is enough

[slate falcon]

not bad bg correction for 3 points

[frosty shard]

What I will say is that almost every 8" RC I've seen platesolves to 1624 mm or so native, not 1600 mm, and this is generally true across the GSO RC line

[sinful sapphire]

Theyre adjusted to the correct focal length

by mirror spacing

so that doesnt really tell me much sadly

[frosty shard]

It's usually within a few mm of 1624 mm, and not 1600 mm

mine nulled at 1627 mm

[sinful sapphire]

yup

still doesnt tell me much since their design is for a goal focal length being at 1624

not a goal focal ratio

[silver ibex]

That doesn't really tell you if the mirror is bigger or the scope is just slower than what advertised

[tight lodge]

all the RCs i've seen were marketed as 1623 or 1624mm

[frosty shard]

I would be very surprised if the scope was designed to null out at 1624 mm while having a 200 mm primary.

[silver ibex]

I also think that it's 203.2mm, because that's 8"

[slate falcon]

i love street lights :)

[tight lodge]

again. best way is to mask the mirror to a known size. you also avoid the beveled edge of the mirror

[silver ibex]

I was just saying that it's not certain by just knowing the focal length

[silver ibex]

Close the aperture, done, now you know the aperture is zero

[slate falcon]

im throwing this away

[frosty shard]

I think it would be extremely weird to design a scope to a target f/ratio of f/8.12 instead of f/8

[slate falcon]

not worth it to keep

[frosty shard]

I'd throw away those street lights too

[slate falcon]

i wish i could

its a single one that sat right above my rig

[silver ibex]

Wdym? 8.12 is such a clean number

8 is dirty

[slate falcon]

its the most optimal yet unoptimal spot

[frosty shard]

What bugs me is when people use 1000 instead of 1024 when they want a nice round number

Actually you know what

You just reminded me that I need to use powers of 2 for exposure times

No more 30, 60, 120, 240 sec exposures: it's gonna be 32, 64, 128, 256 sec

maybe I'll throw in 192 sec exposures as a treat

[silver ibex]

We should stop using minutes and hours

Let's embrace kiloseconds and megaseconds

[frosty shard]

*kibiseconds and mebiseconds.

[silver ibex]

You are right

[candid flame]

Because who needs sensible conversions

[frosty shard]

Reject SI, return to imperial

[slate falcon]

used 300s darks on a 10 second image stack lmaooooo

look at that

[frosty shard]

...why not just use a bias lol

[slate falcon]

im uncooled so hotpixels go brr

4 extreme stars

gah dam, i think i got a tilty focuser

yea

[sinful sapphire]

chromatic abberation??

[slate falcon]

i got tilt :(

[slate falcon]

cheap coma corrector remember

if i do ir then a single colour filter i get no ca

the stars become perfect in every way

[slate falcon]

so apparently this position is natural for my scope

then the other one is hell ig

it could also be wind rotating on ra

that could also be it

[frosty shard]

is that not within the range of acceptable variation

[slate falcon]

that one is

[slate falcon]

this one is not

i like it when tha stars perfect roundbois

[harsh matrix]

Technically yes but if the tilt adapter doesnt return to the exact same spot then this isnt true.

[harsh matrix]

Baader Diamond Steeltrack because all of the GSO derivatives aren't good.

[harsh matrix]

Why that date specifically

[slate falcon]

im kinda sad the gay asteroid is gone

i gotta wait until 2028 to image her 😭

[bleak solar]

Okay thanks 👍

[frosty shard]

The asteroid 65 Cybele transits the galaxy that night

[crisp flower]

that thing doesnt rotate if i look at it the wrong way, does it?

[frosty shard]

I will try to image it, but you will be at a significant advantage with more astronomical dark and a more southerly latitude

[harsh matrix]

no

[frosty shard]

Why 2028?

[harsh matrix]

it takes an excessive amount of force to move with the screws torqued down

the only thing I dont like about it is those flat head M6 locking screws strip easily

[slate falcon]

bc she quick

[harsh matrix]

fortunately they provide spares with the focuser

[slate falcon]

she goes to australia for a while

[crisp flower]

got it

[frosty shard]

Oh is it at opposition in Sagittarius or something

[slate falcon]

idk :/

[slate falcon]

im gunna have hot flashes and nightmares over trying to decide between class cass and rct

[frosty shard]

Glorious.
Ritchey.
Chrétien.

[harsh matrix]

tempted to do Rho Ophiuchi first light for the roki

👀

[frosty shard]

next opposition is a year from now, declination –7°, should be feasible to image

[frosty shard]

Do it

[slate falcon]

wat

-7°????

[frosty shard]

https://astro.vanbuitenen.nl/minorplanet/Thusnelda

[slate falcon]

i could juuuuust barely get it

[slate falcon]

46mm toob length diff

[harsh matrix]

https://tenor.com/view/hehe-gif-1840159130613519810

[slate falcon]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/807791810662760489/1470604581875744822/togif.gif

[frosty shard]

in all seriousness what would the classical Cassegrain do better?

[slate falcon]

on axis its sharper

smaller secondary

[plush raptor]

advert https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1490486111984947370 tea can you join or smt

[slate falcon]

aand thats it

[slate falcon]

please stop spamming this

please stop

[plush raptor]

im not tho

[frosty shard]

You can recover the contrast loss through deconvolution, so for imaging the larger CO is not that big of a deal

(It is still technically a loss of signal)

For visual it matters more

[slate falcon]

not just the contrast

you loose some resolving power

[frosty shard]

Not really, if you define resolving power in terms of the modulation transfer function

The spatial frequency where the MTF approaches zero only depends on the outer radius of the aperture

[slate falcon]

but i loose 0.03 arcsec

[frosty shard]

How is that value calculated?

[slate falcon]

guesstimate

i should probably try calculate it properly

gimme a sec

[frosty shard]

see what I mean here?

[slate falcon]

hmm i see

[frosty shard]

You only lose resolution if the MTF reaches zero at a lower spatial frequency

If your MTF drops, but doesn't hit zero, you lose contrast

also funny enough you get improved contrast at very fine spatial frequencies lol

[slate falcon]

oh damn

i just found out

the 6" rc with the massive co

is equivalent to a 74.8cm mirror unobstructed

[frosty shard]

You also reminded me of the people who insist that to compare the sharpness of an obstructed aperture to a clear aperture, you need to subtract the diameter of the secondary from the diameter of the primary

[slate falcon]

fick

i cant brain

gimme a sec

units

aaaffhhh

[frosty shard]

These people expect that an 8" RC would have the resolving power of a 4" refractor

[quartz meadow]

and now compare that to the 8"

[frosty shard]

That's not how you compare the mirrors lol

[slate falcon]

its equal to a 132.7mm mirror

there we go

[frosty shard]

That sounds about right in terms of light gathering

[slate falcon]

the 6" rct basically has a 132.7mm mirror

[slate falcon]

yea sorry for struggling so hard to maths, i rooted instead of dividing by pi first

whiiich doesnt woek

[frosty shard]

In terms of resolution, only the outer diameter matters so the CC and RC are the same (assuming that the CC does not have a secondary that's too small)

Some GSO CCs had that issue

[slate falcon]

wdym too small 0_0

[frosty shard]

also I am guilty of doing the exact same thing

[slate falcon]

[harsh matrix]

which is unequivocally false LMAO

[slate falcon]

god no

i could never!

im not that stoopid

[frosty shard]

Anyone who unironically believes that is welcome to test that hypothesis against the general public in an outreach smackdown with me

[slate falcon]

i think my 40mm guidescope has better performance actually!

[slate falcon]

gimme a sec

i actually dont know how big the co is

[frosty shard]

47% of the aperture (203 mm)

[slate falcon]

oh damn, ur scope must only be as good as a 4"!

[frosty shard]

Alright, you and me, Library Mall at UW-Madison, next full moon.

[slate falcon]

im exited to blow you out the water

[frosty shard]

Also to be fair to your guide scope, my RC would suck at showing people the Pleiades

[slate falcon]

my guidescope is ca

my guidescope is f4 and uncorrected

[quartz meadow]

I mean you could show them each star individually

[frosty shard]

It doesn't just have chromatic aberration, it is chromatic aberration

[slate falcon]

exactly

[frosty shard]

I just show them the Beehive now

[slate falcon]

i have seen singlet lenses perform better than my guidescope

[quartz meadow]

have you shown some people galaxies?

[slate falcon]

f 15 of course but still!

[frosty shard]

Yeah, M82

I have thought of trying M104 as well

it just isn't as conveniently placed

[quartz meadow]

isnt that like quite small already?

[frosty shard]

yes, but both of these galaxies have excellent contrast

[slate falcon]

179.181

[quartz meadow]

oh yeah 100%

[frosty shard]

I can even see the dust lane in M104 from near downtown

[slate falcon]

oh yea, i cant do visual with my rig anymore

[slate falcon]

[quartz meadow]

nice

[quartz meadow]

ur mount gave up?

[frosty shard]

That was in a 5" SCT btw

The craziest observation I've managed with the 5" SCT in the city though...is the Veil Nebula

I still can't believe I actually managed that one

[slate falcon]

not only that, but i have the focuser pointed down for weight distribution

[sinful sapphire]

@harsh matrix

do you happen to know the exact size of the GSO RC8 primary mirror?

[harsh matrix]

nope

[stiff mason]

I thought GSO mirrors were amazing and ultra sharp

[harsh matrix]

GUYS

IM FIGURING IT OUT

[slate falcon]

wiaaa#

wgats the hell is going on

[harsh matrix]

I joined 2 Hubble images to make a mosaic

[slate falcon]

[harsh matrix]

I actually got Pix to plate solve all of the images too

ive never been able to get this to work

nothing i ever tried worked

I thought id have to use whatever system NASA made to make it happen but that's not the case!

except we have a new problem

this thing doesnt like the diagonal boundaries of HST images in the vertical axis

[slate falcon]

[harsh matrix]

this is the closest i can get

the little diagonal strip of gray that isnt a k = 0 is overwriting either side of the mosaic with the script

i could attempt to trim out the gray except it wont happen at a diagonal

and the overlap is very thin

this is legitimately so cringe

i rotated it and it still gave me the exact same overlap

yeaaaaaaaahhh

bruh

the overlap with the k = 4 is adding brightness to the regions with data in the other side causing the bright rectangles

[slate falcon]

why not manually overlap them?

[harsh matrix]

I still need to make a mask somehow

which is what im trying to do

[slate falcon]

a

[harsh matrix]

either that or force clip the k = 0.004 parts

oh it's k = 0.0004

maybe i can force it in a different order tho

ill keep trying

i think im going to make my PC crash at this rate

ugh

i think if i knew more about writing code I bet i could produce just the right kind of mask

arg

is there some way I can take this preview and make it all white or all black, or everything inside the bounds white and the rest black?

god dang it

getting there

got a mask but it aint big enough

🤔

[digital nexus]

My power supply died

Can’t check Collimation :/

Next time I use the rc6 will be with my mono cam

[slate falcon]

@frosty shard btw the class cass also has theoretically much sharper spots on axis

for the trade off of slightly worse spots off axis

[harsh matrix]

https://tenor.com/view/hehe-gif-1840159130613519810

[slate falcon]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/653856722540167188/1188234242812026971/63c2e7173f5ba58b636db5c792210446.gif

[harsh matrix]

these slit things or whatever they are are driving me nuts though

[slate falcon]

the bleeding pixels from the torture of the ccd?

is that what you mean?

[harsh matrix]

yes

[slate falcon]

idk how the mfs that work on the data correct it

[harsh matrix]

me neither

i cant figure it out other than clone stamp

[slate falcon]

ig they just get a noise brush an paint over it

[harsh matrix]

they must have to

or healing tool

idfk

look at how well my SHO workflow works on this stuff

😩

this is just setting the image up for more manipulation

all im doing is getting the channels prepped

I love this workflow so much

[plush raptor]

did we fix the issue thingy

[harsh matrix]

it's like 99% gone

for some reason there was still a ghost left

[plush raptor]

yay, what was the issue

or what was cousing it

[harsh matrix]

I think it's camera settings or clouds that's causing it to remain now

[harsh matrix]

the bulk of the issue was the focuser

the weight of my phat imaging train on the focuser I was using was making the drawtube of the focuser deflect by a horrifying amount

[plush raptor]

hm

[harsh matrix]

getting somewhere

NASA straight saturation clipped the blue stars in the published image LMFAO

[frosty shard]

Is this Westerlund 2?

[harsh matrix]

yes

god

[slate falcon]

has hst shot tombaugh 4?

[harsh matrix]

I processed this sucker

holy

[harsh matrix]

ive no idea

[slate falcon]

awh :(

[harsh matrix]

looks like the answer is no

[tight lodge]

They are average... just like the rest of the mirrors on the consumer grade telescopes

[harsh matrix]

next

[tight lodge]

What are you doing?

[plush raptor]

NGC 4038 my goat

[harsh matrix]

I am honing my workflow

since i dont have good skies for the foreseeable future

[frosty shard]

now that I see this process, I realize the famous Hubble image really doesn't have vibrant H-II regions like in your process

[harsh matrix]

yeah actually it's pretty lax on the saturation

it's cooking in contrast though

their background is clipped to hell

[frosty shard]

Also you should think about uploading some of these processes to Wikimedia Commons!

[plush raptor]

rip

[harsh matrix]

I can certainly consider it

I've never really liked any of my HST processes until today

this is crazy that ive knocked out 2 good ones back to back with the same work flow

[frosty shard]

(If you really cook I can nominate them for featured picture status on Wikimedia Commons...)

[harsh matrix]

this is Nasa's for reference

[frosty shard]

The colors here are more like those I saw in the chromosphere during the total solar eclipse

H-alpha should be very saturated because it is IRL

oh also last time I checked the "what is Hubble shooting" website (which was back in September/October I think?) it was shooting IC 10

I cannot wait for that dataset to drop

There currently isn't enough H-alpha coverage of the galaxy but I think the investigation was imaging star formation, so fingers crossed we'll have full H-alpha coverage

[harsh matrix]

👀 👀 👀

[frosty flicker]

what galaxy

oh antenae galaxies

[stiff mason]

Then what is a good brand

[tight lodge]

Orion optics

[stiff mason]

The one that's dead?

Did like orion stop making telescopes or sum

[stiff mason]

Omfg i meant to say didn't

Also all RC mirrors are made by the same company GSO

[tight lodge]

The US one. But Orion UK is still rocking top quality stuff🤤

[sinful sapphire]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1090672324195401881/1275445030127013981/rating.gif

Their best mirrors are average

Their average mirrors are alright, could be better

[stiff mason]

Ohhh peak

[stiff mason]

not my word

[tight lodge]

Just search Orion UK CT10 and you will have a very beautiful morning 🫠

[stiff mason]

Ehh idk

[tight lodge]

1/10PV💀

[stiff mason]

Not that i meant the absurdly long optical tube

And on paper Hubble optics also has 1/10 PV or better

[tight lodge]

Yeah... but they only make dobs

[stiff mason]

Nobody said you couldn't buy a ota gut the insides out and replace the mirrors with hubble optics ones the neat part about hubble optics is they do sell mirrors separately

Or you can also technically mount a dove tail to the the ota of the dob and turn it into a newtonian

[tight lodge]

Orion UK sells mirrors as well 😅

[stiff mason]

Still a slight difference

Hubble optics uses sandwich mirrors which are significantly lighter than full mirrors while also cooling much faster

So you can use a giant telescope on a smaller mount

For example their 16 inch mirror weights just 10.5kg

Their 12 inch f3 weights 5.8kg

[tight lodge]

Anything above 16" should be forked.

[stiff mason]

For better stability right

[crisp flower]

Isnt their 16" mirror about 10k? Xd

[tight lodge]

Exactly

[crisp flower]

Oop Just checked, im wrong

[tight lodge]

There's a reason why PW starts to fork their OTAs above 12"

[stiff mason]

Half that

[stiff mason]

I've seen people rock a 16 inch on a eq mount

It probably was for visual tbh

But then wouldn't a fork mount make more sense for visual

[crisp flower]

Yea i Had the price for the 24" mirror in my head for No particular reason

[stiff mason]

It's really good price to performance

[crisp flower]

True

[tight lodge]

A fork is not very visual friendly... especially at zenith

[stiff mason]

Oh

[tight lodge]

Only if I could afford a 16" mirror... then a prime focus forked setup is my dream🤤

[stiff mason]

Hell yeah

[tight lodge]

But for the moment, I got these 2 money pits to finish up

[stiff mason]

Make the radio dish bigger

Aperture fever to the max

[tight lodge]

I'd much rather have a 3m dish

[tight lodge]

That's a 900mm aperture 😂
And jokes aside... this is one of the fastest telescopes in this whole server

f/0.38

[stiff mason]

Bigger

https://tenor.com/view/bigger-equals-better-neil-degrasse-tyson-star-talk-more-quality-gif-20197202

[tight lodge]

No space. Me and a friend in #📡-radio-astronomy we had the idea of a backyard arecibo inspired dish

[sinful sapphire]

@frosty shard i cant butcher an RC8

they dont have a primary mirror cell

thats why they need to be decoupled

and thats why the truss versions with a mirror cell are decoupled, because theyre actually attached to a cell

[frosty shard]

Honestly I love fork mounts for visual

[frosty shard]

Serves you right for even thinking of desecrating a glorious Ritchey–Chrétien

[tight lodge]

EQ forks

[frosty shard]

That is certainly a Design Decision™ though

[frosty shard]

Yeah those things are fire

[sinful sapphire]

its cheaper if you dont need to make a cell

[sinful sapphire]

a 16" mirror is like 900 bucks

[tight lodge]

f/4?

[sinful sapphire]

4.5

close enough

https://aperturetelescopes.com/product/16-inch-400mm-25-mm-float-glass-f-4-5/

From what im seeing this company makes mirrors that are somewhat on par with synta

[tight lodge]

I do love their logo

[stiff mason]

Ehh a bit suspicious

[sinful sapphire]

its not. its gso/synta level and thats the price before shipping and taxes.

[crisp flower]

prolly overdid saturation in mast but needed to take a quick look at the lrgb, and i might be in love

also need to get flats going on the rgb

@harsh matrix did u get the sct-version of the focusser? im asking because im prolly gonna get the same one

[waxen mountain]

Very nice

[crisp flower]

Thank u
Im gonna give this a proper Go after i have the Flats for the rgb taken and restacked everything

[slate falcon]

yummy ifn

[crisp flower]

Not quite but yummy indeed

[quartz meadow]

hints of it

[slate falcon]

yummy doost

[quartz meadow]

but very nice

[crisp flower]

Yoooos

[harsh matrix]

I got the frac version

[sinful sapphire]

veloren i have found out a terrible truth

yk how i asked you about the RC mirror size for the cell it has?

the gso rc8 does not have a mirror cell

[frosty shard]

@harsh matrix you may find this interesting: https://spacetelescope.github.io/hst_notebooks/

in case you want to work with the STScI codebase interactively

[harsh matrix]

yes

all it does is sit on a little plastic bushing in a big metal cap at the back of the telescope

that's its cell

[slate falcon]

[tight lodge]

@frosty shard do you like parabolas?

Or hyperbolas?... shiiiii you can hardly make the difference between them visually

[frosty shard]

Maybe you can't

[tight lodge]

Does this look alright to you?

Second one has a ρ = 0.14

I know... not a hyperbolic shape because ρ is less than 0.5

[frosty shard]

What's rho supposed to be?

Also what are you trying to model

[tight lodge]

Some funky ratio that I can't remember

[tight lodge]

An antenna

Soooo... sub f/1 ratio😅

[frosty shard]

If you're talking about eccentricity (e), e > 1 for a hyperbola, and for the conic constant k = –e², k < –1

[tight lodge]

Soooo close enough is good enough... right?

[tight lodge]

I don't think you can input these values in fusion360

[frosty shard]

I got nothing when it comes to antenna design tbh, but honestly at that wavelength I don't think any spherical aberration or coma correction makes a significant difference

[tight lodge]

21cm line 😂

plus, i only got one pixel

[frosty shard]

Yeah your reflectors can be spheres I don't think it makes a significant difference

[tight lodge]

no, actually spherical reflectors are bad since they decrease the gain of the antenna. you know how a sphere focuses light

[frosty shard]

Oh sure I was mostly thinking about resolution

[tight lodge]

Angular resolution? about 7.9°

ok... that would be the HPBW

[frosty shard]

That is equivalent from what I'm seeing?

[slate falcon]

im having major issues with both motors now

[harsh matrix]

What is your mount rated to carry and what's the weight of your OTA and other accessories?

[slate falcon]

oh yea no its overweight by about 0.5 kg

buut previously ive been able to get 1-0.7 arcsec guiding depending on where the mount is pointed

now it just slews and wont start tracking

tracking is just dead

[plush raptor]

rip

[harsh matrix]

That could probably be the problem

[slate falcon]

ya

[harsh matrix]

I think I ran my EQM35 overweight by about that much and the gear on the RA drive came loose on the post by doing that.

[slate falcon]

just weird im only now having problems

[harsh matrix]

It stopped tracking at the meridian and I couldn't get it to move at all.

[slate falcon]

ah

[harsh matrix]

Ive avoided running it with anything even mildly heavy since.

Those rickety EQM35 and EQ5 equivalents come apart easily.

They can barely handle anything close to the capacity, let alone anything over capacity.

[slate falcon]

i use the skywatcher eq3

[oblique sun]

I think my rig is underweight yet my eqm35 still struggles

Once I get a ragdoll or sal33, this eqm35 will never have more than 250mm focal length put on it again

[plush raptor]

I use a ragdoll

[oblique sun]

wow nevermind

it likes this night

[harsh matrix]

you know what

i didnt try sky flats yet either

and i didnt try them because the sky has clouded out every morning

trying new camera settings tonight

[harsh matrix]

something is still moving

wtf

okay something is very wrong

i dont think the dew shield can or will explain this

this is why the flats arent aligning

and yet i cannot figure out what exactly is making it move atm

im going to tear the whole thing apart again tomorrow

honestly it might just be because im using the compression ring

i genuinely dont believe that i can get away without threading the train onto the telescope directly ngl

it's too heavy

alright total change of plans

im going to ditch the reducer entirely

go with the M 54 adapter for the BDS focuser, and get a M54 to M54 M to M adapter so that I can use my rotator

that way the only vignetting is optical, and I can always downsample a little bit to improve SNR if the seeing is too nasty. I can't use my full fov as is anyway. Plus I think needing to flock the rear of the starizona is causing weird star shapes across the field.

I think the compression ring is causing flexture because the reference surface, that being the lip at the back end of the starizona, is about 1.5mm thick. It would be a lot better if this reducer had a much larger flange at the back but it doesn't which is resulting in a small amount of movement (I believe), unfortunately.

[harsh matrix]

i think im seeing some very, very subtle movement over the course of hours

lovely

https://esawebb.org/images/potm2403b/

@frosty shard JWST shot I Zwicky 18

[frosty shard]

INJECT THAT RAW DATA INTO MY VEINS IMMEDIATELY

[harsh matrix]

im watching the video about JWST on NASA's website rn

got me thinking about this

[harsh matrix]

well this one was a huge challenge

the banding in the 1 to 2 micron regions is so bad that it overpowers most of the signal

also the entire image size was like 950 x 950 pixels so i upscaled it and it looks worse 💀

[tall summit]

fantastic resolution in the center

Soo, my Sharpstar with 585 doesn't hold a candle to my RC6 with 2600 on tight clusters and galaxy detail resolution, I haven't tried RC6+585 combo yet

But it's a lean and mean nebula machine

in that regard, should I have gone for 150mm F4 newt, would it be a better all purpose scope (having 2600 and 585 cams)?

I guess that's why larger fast scopes cost what they cost. Next size Sharpstar for example is about + $1k at 150mm

[sinful sapphire]

a 150mm F/4 Newt + Starizona Nexus to F/3 would've honestly been a better pick if I am completely honest.

Though for a true all purpose scope I feel as if an 8" F/4 would perform very well with those two cams

Not sure what mount you have again (so if it even can handle an 8")

[tall summit]

It cant(

[slate falcon]

tf you got

[tall summit]

cg4

[sinful sapphire]

It may just be best to pick up a nice used deal for a better mount.

I mean given time you can find an NEQ6 for a very good price (like 800 bucks or lower)

This gives you access to scopes that are great in their use cases

[slate falcon]

i want oneeee

[sinful sapphire]

Though honestly, if youre fine with F/4, you could maybe go for used fully modded 150mm F/4

It wont compare to the speed of your HNT

But it will be multi-useful and you can use something like the starizona nexus to reduce to F/3

[slate falcon]

@frosty shard i also forgot, if i get the class cass i can make an f3.3 noot

[slate falcon]

fire should i make a folded gregorian out of a cc

[sinful sapphire]

youre going to make a cassegrain newtonian?

[slate falcon]

what do you mean

i can just shove a coma corrector and a camera in front of the f3.3 mirror

[sinful sapphire]

then it wouldnt be newtonian

[slate falcon]

shhh

[slate falcon]

prime focus cassegrain then grr

[sinful sapphire]

WHAT

WHAT

"Prime focus cassegrain" hurts to hear

it burns my braincells

[slate falcon]

i dont even think you can count it as a cassegrain

idfk what to call a prime focus parabolic mirrored scope

[sinful sapphire]

a prime-focus reflector

[slate falcon]

what would you do if i stole your corrector of your harmer wynn

[sinful sapphire]

haha good luck getting them out of the baffles

[slate falcon]

didnt you get the files for the harmer wynn

[slate falcon]

plieers:

hammer:

never said i would get it out intact

[sinful sapphire]

not yet

next week

[slate falcon]

wjen you do drop me a link

[sinful sapphire]

what if i cleaned your mirror with a metal sponge and bleach

[sinful sapphire]

idk

[slate falcon]

i would thank you for the free clean

i cleaned it incorrectly but perfectly with no scratches last time

buut im never doing what i did ever again

so a free clean from you would be nice

[slate falcon]

i could also make a gregorian

theres so many designs you can base off of a class cass

[slate falcon]

fire we should dig a massive tunnel connecting our scopes then turn it into the largest scope with highest resolving power

ignoring the fact it would be like f100

[tall summit]

I was contemplating it , but at 600mm its getting too close to my rc6 920mm, having two of them sort of becomes redundant

[sinful sapphire]

Costly but you could then put a nexus on it for 450mm

[slate falcon]

orion is now an mc

[slate falcon]

@harsh matrix ra had 20° rotation before it reached the edge of backlash

20 friggin degrees

ig it rattled itself loose over time

[sinful sapphire]

who gave this guy mininerd

[slate falcon]

well you can tell the owl nebula is 🔵 so thats why probs

[haughty steppe]

I hate my eqm35 pro. I have to power cycle it before it will even slew. And for some reason some times it doesn't meridian flip. Same sequence, another night it flips. Completely random

[slate falcon]

i am so glad i didnt get the eq35

eq3 ftw

[harsh matrix]

Bruh

I found the M 90 tube came loose

How does this crap keep happening

I got it literally as tight as my fingers could manage and it still came loose. 😭

Thats probably why I saw what I saw darnit

Now its too late to do more testing.

[sinful sapphire]

how many problems did you have with your RC at this point

[harsh matrix]

I found a couple of issues this time around ngl

I think i might have had a colossal skill issue

That or the sudden temp drop shocked all of the metal parts

[harsh matrix]

it's not even with the scope now

it's just because of the weight of the imaging train and some focuser troubles

that extension worked its way loose and i think i didnt tighten the locking screws that hold the compression ring onto the focuser well enough either

maybe even the same deal with my OAG, not being tight enough

[slate falcon]

average thread moment

mfs shake loose

[harsh matrix]

i think this big phat imaging train acting like a giant lever arm in gravity worked it loose

💀

this is unironically probably why the 533 works better

[slate falcon]

[harsh matrix]

well i dropped the reducer from the setup

and that makes it quite a lot lighter 💀

another issue is that the lip on the starizona that's supposed to act like a reference surface is all of 1.5 mm in width or something compared to the flat 3 to 5 mm space on the compression ring side of the focuser so a bad meshing there could have been causing some sway

it would really just be nice if i could thread everything onto the focuser and call it a day

(i have adapters coming to make this possible at long last, since they brought the M 54 BDS adapter back )

gonna put the rotator to use and everything

oh and it will be M 54 all the way through

so no mechanical vignetting, i can utilize the full image circle of my scope, etc.

im actually pretty excited because this could fix a lot of the weirdness that's still going on

not to mention, the imaging train sitting farther back in the tube further reduces the possibility of scattered light from the baffle tubes making it to the camera, leading to fewer or no reflections when paired with a dew shield

the drawtube of the BDS is well baffled and does not reflect light so it will stifle any remaining reflections and scattered light

[plush raptor]

did sum one mention the nexus

[harsh matrix]

I just accidentally found when the transition between no issues and issues began

I WAS using the apex threaded onto the back of the apertura focuser I got up until I decoupled the RC8

it was about this same time when I sold my RC6 with the reducer that had the piece I was using to make that happen.

and from there everything started

so it really must be because of compression fit vs a solid threaded connection

glad i ordered those new adapters and stuff, that will solve this once and for all

I used that way longer than I remember doing.

[harsh matrix]

btw this filter on JWST is 900 nm and they say it's optical

i can shoot this wavelength with my 585 too

[slate falcon]

samesies

[harsh matrix]

which id like to in the summer with my quatt

[slate falcon]

when i go cooled i wanna shoot 1100nm

[harsh matrix]

would be a lot of fun

[slate falcon]

btw 585 can go to 1.2um max

[harsh matrix]

hell yeah

[slate falcon]

qe of 5%

at 1.20001um it has a qe of 0%

straight after 1.2um it stops sensoring stuff

[harsh matrix]

hmmm i wonder what im doing next

i cant tell

[tall summit]

not that great (black is pushed too much to hide the walking noise). Only if you don't zoom in:)

HNT + 585

[harsh matrix]

lol i already have a decent color balance going

all i did was colorize everything

oh cool the 4.7 micron filter is not aligned

much better

hot

this workflow is nuts

[slate falcon]

@harsh matrix

🤤

WIND YOU JUST HAD TO RUIN IT

we need a ban on wind

i need to tighten my dec i think

dither test

if it cant dither i explode my scope

i will say im imaging in 20mph wind

okay yea it dithers fine

[frosty shard]

I kinda prefer the darker background in your process compared to the original Cosmic Cliffs

[harsh matrix]

Mine is still in the color composition phase lol

Ive not done a thing to the contrast yet

[harsh matrix]

[slate falcon]

not bad eh

[slate falcon]

@sinful sapphire 🤤

60% brightness at the edge tho from light cuttoff

okay i fit the obstructions correctly

you would probably need a machine to auto collimate

[sinful sapphire]

@frosty shard the true reflector is before your eyes

[sinful sapphire]

Good

What if you run the optimiser btw

[slate falcon]

no

no no

it is perfect

[sinful sapphire]

What about the focal ratio

Must be like f/15 or something

[slate falcon]

f14!

[sinful sapphire]

Ay I wasn’t too far off

[slate falcon]

yk what is crazy, a completely flat secondary with the focal point at the same distance makes it f18

with a worse spot diagram

[slate falcon]

idfk how this makes sense

it doesnt

[sinful sapphire]

Run best asphere on the secondary trust me

[slate falcon]

buut we ball

[sinful sapphire]

welcome to Cassegrain world

[slate falcon]

best asphere dowesnt work remember

[sinful sapphire]

It should though

[slate falcon]

yk what it is, its because the focal length isnt based fully on where the light travels its based on where the light travels with little alteration afaik

because its a concave secondary

its "shortens" the distance the light travels

from the last surface

best explain i can come up with

im sure something else can explain it

[sinful sapphire]

Remember

The secondary hits the same beam twice

So making it flat would shift the focal point backward with the first reflection

And then forward to its original position with the second reflection

[slate falcon]

ah so i was right

thats crazy

[sinful sapphire]

The movement of the focal point is cancelled out by it catching light twice

[slate falcon]

do you wanna see how tiny the hole is

11mm radius sensors only

[sinful sapphire]

Thats what she said

[sinful sapphire]

I mean ig it’s scaleable

[slate falcon]

you could probably fit a diagonal on this

would be great for visual

i hate wind so much

im getting 1" guiding

when it could be 0.5 or even 0.3

yk what

i need to build a dome

or just a shed

i need a big wooden box

with a concrete pillar

[slate falcon]

its actually so perfect (an 12" would be able to use a 22mm radius sensor)

waiiiti this is without flat field too

lmaooo this good without flat field is crazy

hey its not even that bad at 12"

1 hour of data already on the northern version of the smc

[harsh matrix]

Roki adapter I designed and had CNC'd arrived today

it surpassed my best expectations

nothing bad to say about it

I shot the Eagle Nebula with it

[slate falcon]

shot that with a roki?!?!

[harsh matrix]

YEAH