#seestars30pro — Public Fediverse posts

The AAT's Boltwood cloud sensor recorded it getting cloudy between about 11 pm and midnight, and between about 12:30 am and 3 am, i.e. most of the best (darkest) part of the night between the Moon setting at 12:20 am and astronomical twilight at 5:20 am was cloudy.

I thought that would have wiped out the Thirty Millimetre Telescope for most of the night too, but when I checked what it got this morning i was pleased to see that it soldiered on through breaks in the clouds and seems to have got some good data on a couple of targets I really, really wanted to get while I was here. I think the cloud was worst in the direction I was taking the timelapse, and was patchier in other parts of the sky.

#SidingSpringObservatory #Astrophotograpy #Astronomy #Astrodon #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope

Tonight the Thirty Millimetre Telescope and the Inaction Camera are hanging out together. That way they can share a power bank and the Thirty Millimetre Telescope gets to be in the Inaction Camera's shot, along with the Three Thousand Nine Hundred Millimetre Telescope. And, tonight, I HAVE TURNED ON THE DEW HEATER.

#SidingSpringObservatory #Astrophotography #Astrodon #Astronomy #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope

I have also set up the Thirty Millimetre Telescope, near to the Three Thousand Nine Hundred Millimetre Telescope.

All my imaging devices (apart from my phone) have been given their tasks for the night so that will give me plenty of time to use my binoculars before I have more work to do at around 1:30 am.

#SidingSpringObservatory #Astrophotography #Astrodon #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope

Well there's a lesson in persistence. The galaxy NGC 300 with just under 3 hours of total exposure time (and some Moonlight) vs NGC 300 with just over 12 hours of total exposure times (mostly with no Moonlight).

As always taken with the TMMT (Seestar S30 Pro) from suburban Sydney (Bortle 7), and processed in Siril with SyQon, GraXpert and VeraLux scripts.

#TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Astrophotography

I got a bit more exposure time on the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex tonight and then reprocessed all the data.

This 4 panel mosaic now has a total of about 19 hours of exposure time with my Seestar S30 Pro in it, shot from suburban Sydney (Bortle 7). All processing in Siril with SyQon, GraXpert and VeraLux scripts. Orientation is north right, east left because it fits on computer monitors better that way.

At this point I think I'm going to call this done, at least for the near future. To do appreciably better with the Thirty Millimetre Telescope I think I'd need to get a *lot* of exposure time from a darker site.

Full resolution here: https://drhotdog.smugmug.com/Nature/Seeing-Stars/i-nLFdZKq/A

#Astrophotography #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #TMMT #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Siril #SyQon #GraXpert #VeraLux

Um pouco de ontem ao som de Nargaroth.

📍Serra da Freita, #Portugal
#solareclipse #seestarS30Pro

https://loops.video/v/htrevkRuHg

I took advantage of the clear and moonless (but still light polluted) skies last night to get some more exposure time on the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex.

For the second half of the night I did some more experimenting with using the Thirty Millimetre Telescope to go after galaxies. Most are too small to make for an interesting picture by themselves at this magnification, but with multiple objects in the field of view you can make something work.

Here's the Sculptor Galaxy with the globular cluster NGC 288, and the Fornax Cluster of galaxies.

#Astrophotography #SeestarS30Pro #Seestar #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #TMMT

Right, this was a challenging image mosaic to process!

It the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex, near the bright yellow star Antares (upper left) and Crab Globular Cluster, M4 (lower left).

It's a 4 panel mosaic with a grand total of 8 hours exposure time with the Thirty Millimetre Telescope, taken over two nights from suburban Sydney before the Moon rose. This would definitely benefit from a *lot* more exposure time (and darker skies) but this will do for now. All processing in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux scripts. It took a bit of trial and error to iron out the residual sky background gradients but I got most of the way there in the end. It's oriented north right, east left because it fits on computer monitors better that way.

Full resolution version here: https://drhotdog.smugmug.com/Nature/Seeing-Stars/i-hdHKKGF/A

#Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #Astrophotography #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

Well this came out better than I expected. It's NGC300 as seen with just under 3 hours of total exposure time on the Thirty Millimetre Telescope (Seestar S30 Pro), taken from suburban Sydney (Bortle 7) while the Moon was up.

Galaxies are not what this telescope is best at, but I wanted to try this one anyway as I feel a personal connection to it. It was the first target that we pointed the first "Huntsman Eye" single lens prototype of the Huntsman Telescope at during our first observing run. It is also the official deep sky object of the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant in Coonabarabran, near Siding Spring Observatory.

Processing in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux scripts.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

Huh, the Moon doesn't rise until almost 11 pm tonight and clear skies are forecast. I have a Plan!

The Seestar is set up outside, I've taken twilight flats and checked polar alignment, and the Plan is loaded and ready to start as soon as it gets a bit darker. Going to work on a Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex mosaic until the Moon rises, before switching to other targets for the rest of the night.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope

And now the Prawn Nebula gets a similar treatment. For this one I had a little over 1000 30 second exposures in the bank, and put 600 of the best into the stack.

Seestar S30 Pro with dual narrowband light pollution filter, all processing in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux scripts.

#TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Astrophotography #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

After much farting about in Siril I now have my version of the Lagoon, Triffid and Chinese Dragon nebulae. It's certainly different to the results from the Seestar app, and overall I think I prefer this version. Plus it's more satisfying doing it this way!

To get the best possible result I dug up all the data I had on this target (almost 1000 30 second exposures) and selected 560 of the best to stack together. Some were taken in Kurrajong with lower sky background but worse focus, while most were taken from Sydney with measurably more sky background (despite the light pollution filter) but better focus.

All processing in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux scripts.

#TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Astrophotography #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

While I still think it's possible to get better results, and certainly more control, processing astrophotography images on my computer in Siril I have to admit that the latest versions of the Seestar firmware and phone app can produce some pretty good looking results by themselves. The adjustable star reduction feature makes it easy to get nice looking nebulae shots, like the Lagoon, Triffid and Chinese Dragon nebulae here from last night. I didn't even restack the images for this, it's just the live stacking result run through the app's "AI enhance" with minor tweaks to the settings.

#Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Astrophotography #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope

Oh, neat. Using the very latest version of INDI I was able to successfully connect KStars/Ekos to my Seestar S30 Pro. Full control over the mount, camera, filterwheel and focuser, with a proper sequencer.

This should give me more control over calibration and (re)focussing, amongst other things. Going to take a while to learn how to use it, though.

#Astrophotography #Kstars #Ekos #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro

The Helix Nebula.

This is more of a target for bigger telescopes really, but I have been curious about what the little Thirty Millimetre Telescope could do with it. Between last night's data and a smaller stash I'd previously taken I put a little over 8 hours worth of 30 second LP filter exposures into the stack. All processing in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux scripts.

It would probably benefit from even more exposure time, but the Seestar was already well into the diminishing returns domain as it was and I'm not sure it's going to get dramatically better no matter how long I go.

https://drhotdog.smugmug.com/Nature/Seeing-Stars/i-VqQVR3M/A

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

It's clear again tonight so I felt compelled to get the Thirty Millimetre Telescope out again. I took the opportunity to do a flat field calibration using twilight flats because I noticed some residual low level radial variation in the background in the images I've taken recently. I had to redo the polar alignment as I had brought the tripod inside since the last time I used it, but that only takes a few minutes.

It's a Full Moon tonight so I'm not even going to try taking images of anything that isn't an emission nebula, the dual band light pollution filter will be in use all night long. I've decided to spend most of the night on the Helix Nebula, with the Eagle Nebula filling in the first part of the night while the Helix is too low. I'm hoping for decent seeing as my plan for both targets is to see how much resolution I can squeeze out of them given plenty of signal to noise.

#TMMT #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Astrophotography

This is the nicest photo I've ever taken of a bunch of dust.

This image of part of Corona Australis includes the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud, one of the nearest star formation regions to Earth.

Turns out this is a challenging target for the Thirty Millimetre Telescope, especially when the Moon is up! I put a total of 14.3 hours of exposure time into a 3 panel mosaic and I still think I need to revisit this target with some darker skies (and better flat field calibrations) to do a better job of it. I'm calling this a work in progress until then.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

My god, it's full of stars.

M24, the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, and neighbouring bits and pieces. Just over 4 hours 10 minutes of total exposure time over the last two nights with the little Seestar S30 Pro and its UV/IR cut filter. Not bad considered how irritatingly bright the Moon was being at the time. Processed in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux scripts.

I should have been using the light pollution filter under conditions like that, but I've already done all the big HII regions that are conveniently placed at this time of year so I've been trying to do stars and dust despite the Moon.

Edit: Full res, with *all* the stars, here https://drhotdog.smugmug.com/Nature/Seeing-Stars/i-B7XMtVm/A

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Siril #VeraLux #SyQon #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope #TMMT

Mais um objeto de Messier capturado e impresso numa #instax mini.
Desta vez Messier 27 (Dumbbell Nebula).
#astrophotography #zwo #seestars30pro

One thing I checked out with the Seestar last night was the Rho Ophuici Cloud Complex. I only managed to get just over half an hour of images before the clouds appeared, and the Moon was certainly not helping either, but taking the look at the data now I can already see the potential.

Definitely need to revisit this next time I have clear skies, preferably without scattered Moonlight, ideally with less light pollution too (can't use the light pollution filter on this). It's going to need a lot more exposure time and, I think, a 4 pointing mosaic in order to get the whole cloud complex in frame.

Removing background gradients is really challenging here because there's so much stuff! There's gas and dust almost everywhere so there's barely any truly empty sky to measure the background in. That makes it especially important to minimise background gradients in the data to begin with, i.e. take images close to zenith and with no pesky Moon nearby.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope

Bonus astrophotography! I though I was done for the next little while as I was expecting there to be enough cloud tonight to ruin any plans I made, but as it turned out it was completely clear for the first half of the night. So I improvised and managed to get a good 4-ish hours on the Running Chicken Nebula and Pearl Cluster, then just played around in interactive mode looking at some different sorts of targets, getting ideas for the future.

That included my nemesis the Moon, which has been up and brightly illuminating the entire sky for most of every clear night that I've had since getting the Seestar 4 weeks ago. That is why up until now I've concentrated almost exclusively on emission nebulae that I can use the light pollution filter with.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope

This, meanwhile, is a preview. The Large Magellanic Cloud is only just rising high enough to take images of right at the end of the night, plus the Moon is currently almost full which pretty much forced me to use the light pollution filter with everything. I will return to this in a few months when I can hopefully get lots of time in better conditions, and I can try imaging it without the light pollution filter too.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope

The Eagle and its Nest.

This is what my telescope has been spending most time on for the last couple of nights, 9 hours in total. It's the Eagle Nebula, M16 and, below (north) of it, is something the Seestar app calls "NGC 6604 - Nest Nebula".

As far as I can tell it would be more accurate to refer to the nebula as Sh 2-54, NGC 6604 is the star cluster near the centre of it.

Edit: I wasn't entirely happy with the processing so had another stab at it. It's better now.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #TMMT #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope

That's better. I'm going to call this done now.

"Eta Carina in Context", all shot with the Thirty Millimetre Telescope (Seestar S30 Pro) from suburban Sydney (Bortle 7), mostly during full Moon, using the built in light pollution filter. Processing in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux.

50% scale version in this post, full resolution (6047×3411) here: https://drhotdog.smugmug.com/Nature/Seeing-Stars/i-RXPkcWj/A

#Astrophotography #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope #TMMT #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

The Thirty Millimetre Telescope is back outside and cooling down, tonight's Plan has been prepared, and now it's just a matter of waiting for it to get dark.

I will check the polar alignment before starting the plan just in case, but I have found that as long as I don't move the tripod I can detach and reattach the telescope without needing to realign it afterwards.

#Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #ThirtyMilliMetreTelescope #TMMT #Astrophotography

The weather forecast is promising two completely clear nights in a row so I made sure to get home just as it got dark and quickly set up my telescope. I already had a plan ready for it to execute so it should now run for the rest of the night fully automatically.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #TMMT

Next I decided to go back to the third target I ever pointed my Seestar at and reprocessed the data to see what difference 3 weeks of additional experience with Siril made.

This is the Prawn Nebula, IC 4628. The results are clearly different, though I'm not sure I could say the new version is definitely better. It might be best to tweak the stretches to get something in between the two, I think.

Interestingly on this image I found SyQon Prism Lite just wouldn't stop deleting faint stars along with the noise even with the strength turned way down, so I went back to VeraLux Silentium and it did a much better job of preserving faint stars while still doing a decent job on the noise. A reminder that it's sometimes worth trying several of the available algorithms/plugins/scripts to see which gives the best results on a given image.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

In the absence of new images I'm continuing to rummage through my Seestar reject bin to see if the fancy machine learning algorithms can salvage something from the less than ideal data sets.

This time it's a couple of reflection nebulae, the Blue Horsehead Nebula IC4592 and Sharpless 1 SH2-1. Both definitely needed a lot more exposure time and the results here still show it, but the processing has done an impressive job of pulling an image out of the noise.

#Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #Siril #SyQon #VeraLux

Sadly, fog and cloud ruined everything after about an hour and a half. I did get data on Eta Carinae before it got too terrible, but nothing at all on the other three targets.

Given this is from what is essentially the middle of Melbourne, with city for 20+ kilometers in all directions, it’s not terrible.

#astrophotography #space #seestars30pro