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DSSR and Windows Text Size

News, Tutorials Comments Off

Feb 272015

We just had some problems with new users which was tracked down to the Windows text size which can be altered in Control Panel>Appearance and Personalization>Display.

Any setting other that 100% may prevent DSSR from starting and will certainly prevent it from autoguiding.

Apparently, a lot of laptops are now shipped with 125% text size out of the box and these need to be changed to 100% before running DSSR. This will also solve problems in other software with text not displaying correctly.

If you have trouble reading text at 100% then use a lower screen resolution which will not affect DSSR.

DSSR Fixed – Again

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Feb 222015

DSSR 4.9 is now available on the Downloads page.

This version fixed a problem where the WinTrak window was not showing for some users. It also has improved error logging and the expiry date has been removed. This version should see you out.

I also uploaded new versions of DVS and DFM where the only change was to remove the expiry date.

Enjoy and clear skies,

Starry Dave

Another M42

Deep Sky Comments Off

Feb 212015

Click for Full Size Image

Flash in Orion

Deep Sky Comments Off

Feb 172015

I was imaging Orion when I captured this shot. Still trying to work out what it was. It was taken from Inverness, Scotland on 16th February, 2015 at 21.04UT.

Below are some other shots I took the same night.

M42 using 300mm lens

M42 using Nexstar 4SE

Flame Nebula using 300mm lens

All images taken with Canon 1100D, stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in StarTools and Krita.

Alt-Az Orion Nebula

Deep Sky Comments Off

Feb 142015

I got a book on astrophotography for xmas and one of the things it said was that you can’t do deep sky imaging with an alt-az mount. I thought I would try it out and left my NexStar 4SE tracking M42 un-guided while I watched the football. My Canon 1100D recorded around 50x good 30sec exposures which were stacked in DeepSky Stacker and processed in StarTools and Krita to give the result below.

Click for full size image

New Version of MS ICE Mosaic Stitcher Released

Moon, News, Tutorials Comments Off

Feb 072015

Microsoft have just released an update to their Image Composite Editor (ICE). I gave it a quick try on my last set of lunar mosaic tiles and it looks like a much nicer package. In particular, the export to disk is now almost instantaneous. Download the 64bit version here.

ICE Screenshot

Another Lunar Mosaic Tutorial

Moon, Tutorials Comments Off

Feb 022015

This was shot with my 5.5″ mak – DMK21 – HEQ5 Pro combo.

Scaled down terminator detail.

Click on the image to see it full size.

The image was made up of 50 video files which were automatically captured by DSSR . The whole capture process only took 23 minutes.

I then used AS2_Cull_Movies by Andrew Cool of SkippySky to remove videos with only a sliver of Moon because these will crash the stacking process.

AviStack then processed the videos in batch mode and ICE was used to produce the final mosaic.

Cluster of Clusters

Deep Sky Comments Off

Jan 252015

Here is my first real go at capturing clusters with my Nexstar 4SE OTA and Canon 1100D combo on an unguided HEQ5 Pro. All stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in StarTools and Krita. Krita is very cool and easy to use and can handle the 16bit tiffs from StarTool. Lights and darks all 20s and biases 1/4000s, all at ISO 6400.

M46

M47

M48

M67

2015 Orion Nebula

Deep Sky Comments Off

Jan 232015

This is my latest M42 captured on my Canon 1100D thru a Nexstar 4SE OTA mounted on a HEQ5 Pro. Stacking was done in Deep Sky Stacker and Processing in StarTools. I know it looks very gaudy but I like it. To me, it looks like we are peering thru furnace clouds into the blue white heat of the stellar foundry within. There is even a hint of some Pillars of Creation type features around the blue core.

Pillars of Creation?

Image was composed of 189 lights, 22 darks and 23 biases. All shot at ISO 6400 with 20s for lights and darks and 1/4000s for biases. Mount was unguided.

Update

StarTools creator Ivo took pity on my processing efforts and produced the image below from my data. Talk about chalk and cheese. You can see his processing workflow here.

DSSR Drift Alignment

Deep Sky, Tutorials Comments Off

Jan 202015

I normally keep my mounts poorly aligned to allow testing of DSSR’s autoguiding feature. However, I wanted to take some deep sky shots so thought I better drift align first. Drift aligning is done in 2 steps and you can use the Sun, Moon, planets or stars as drift targets.

First, setup DSSR looking at a target in the South (or North if you are South of the equator) with roughly 0 degrees declination and open the Autoguide window and its Graph window. Right click on the target (I used a sunspot) which will turn on the drift monitoring mode and watch how the mDV line drifts off the horizontal. Stop monitoring, adjust your east-west mount adjustment screws and start monitoring again. If the slope of the mDV line gets steeper you have adjusted in the wrong direction. Repeat this process until the mDV line is horizontal like this screenshot.

Next, choose a target near the eastern or western horizon. Repeat the monitoring process but this time adjust the north-south screws on your mount to get mDV horizontal like below.

You can see above that I over-adjusted and the mDV curve started to climb. I then had to adjust in the other direction to bring the curve horizontal. I am now drift aligned.

ps Make sure you set your scope rate to suit your drift target.

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