Starry Dave's Window Sill Observatory

Mosaic Preview Finally Fixed

Moon, Tutorials Comments Off

Dec 302014

DSSR has a cool mosaic module that automatically captures videos for making lunar and solar mosaics. Part of this module is a mosaic preview image that shows the progress of the capture process. This was a bit hit and miss in older versions but I just tried out version 4.7 and I think I have finally got it.

Note that my mount is very roughly aligned so I set the mosaic size to 0.8×1.0 degrees to make sure I got the Moon. First up was a mosaic with the scope west of the pier. This took 22min with each video at 10sec and the mosaic started in the top right tile. The blue tiles are sky which DSSR automatically skips using the Exposures module.

Next up I did a meridian flip and tried again. Continue reading »

Happy Holidays from the Taxman

News Comments Off

Dec 212014

New European tax rules mean that it is no longer viable to sell my software online. Therefore, all my astro software is now freeware and is available in Downloads.

Clear skies and enjoy your holidays!

First Winter Orion Nebula

Deep Sky Comments Off

Dec 182014

Click on image for full size

Managed to get this winter’s first shots of M42 last night with my Canon 1100D/Nexstar 4SE OTA/HEQ5 combo. Clouds and poor alignment meant I only got 36 decent shots of 10s at ISO6400 at prime focus. Stacking was done in DeepSkyStacker with post-processing in StarTools.

First Winter DSSR Lunar Mosaic

Moon Comments Off

Dec 072014

I have now dusted down my winter observatory and I did a quick test mosaic using DSSR. This comprised about 100x 10sec videos which my HEQ5 zipped thru in about 15 minutes. The videos were batch processed in AviStack 2 and merged in Microsoft ICE. Click on image for full size.

Canon 1100D and Nexstar 4SE First Light

CHDK AstroKam, Deep Sky Comments Off

Jan 012014

Just tried out my new 1100D at prime focus thru my 4SE’s optical port in alt-az mode. I captured 90 frames (each 20s x ISO6400) using Canon EOS Utilities and then used AstroKam to filter them down to 56 good frames. DeepSkyStacker did its stacking magic and then Star Tools brought out the detail and colors.

Click on the image to see the original or click this link to see a zoomable version.

Update: I actually captured in 3 batches to give a total of 114 good light frames. Below is the new result and it looks like the extra frames give more detail in the fainter regions.

Again, here is a zoomable version.

Orion M42 with Canon A810 at 2x Zoom

CHDK AstroKam, Deep Sky Comments Off

Dec 112013

This was taken with my Canon A810 looking thru my Nexstar 4SE in alt-az mode. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Star Tools then Gimp.

M42 in Orion – Click for full size image

DVS Tips

Tutorials Comments Off

Dec 062013

We recently got a request to help a user align a series of full disk Sun images while keeping the Sun’s position static. The normal method of aligning on a surface feature would result in the disk moving sideways as the Sun rotated. We came up with the idea of using the entire Sun as the alignment target and it worked like a charm. You can see how this works in the screenshot below. This is really stretching DVS so you need to give it time to work thru each frame.

The second tip was suggested by the user who came up with the idea of having 2 sets of processed images for hard-to-align image sequences. The first set has the contrast or sharpness or gamma cranked up so that DVS can easily lock onto the alignment targets and perform an alignment pass. The second set is processed normally to give the desired images for the final animation. The trick is now to load the second set of images and load the first set’s alignment results using the Data button. This will align the frames and you can now export your animation.

Big thanks to Matthias Mass for these suggestions.

AstroKam M42

CHDK AstroKam, Deep Sky Comments Off

Dec 052013

Here is my latest AstroKam shot of M42 in Orion taken with my £50 Canon A810 mounted on my Nexstar 4SE in alt-az mode. AstroKam automatically slewed to M42 during an all-night survey and spent 60 minutes shooting lights, darks and offsets. The best 43 lights were selected using AstroKam’s Sort module and stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in the beta version of Star Tools.

M42

Canon 1100D First Alt-Az Light

CHDK AstroKam, Deep Sky Comments Off

Dec 012013

UPDATE: Ivo of Star Tools showed me how to process my FITS files and here is his take on my M42 below. He used Star Tools’s Repair module to turn my arrowhead stars into points – not bad for an alt-az mount.

M42 rework by Ivo of Star Tools

I just tried out my new 1100D with a Canon 75-300 zoom on some deep sky objects. The camera was mounted on a Nexstar 4SE mount in alt-az mode aligned using 1 star with no guiding. My location is in a heavily light polluted city. Capture was by the Canon EOS utility program which captured around 30 shots at 30 seconds and 1600 ISO for each object. Stacking was done in DeepSkyStacker and post processing in Star Tools.

Still getting the hang of the software but I am pretty pleased with my first efforts at deep sky. I am still trying to figure why the stars are little triangles – vibration or lens distortion? Click on any image to view the original frame.

M42

M81 and M82

M45

AstroKam v4 Released

CHDK AstroKam Comments Off

Nov 222013

AstroKam v4 is now available from the link at right. The main change is that you can now edit your automatic capture plans in-programme before you capture.

The Image Sort module can also now handle Canon .CR2 and .CRW raw files.

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