IC 5070 Pelican Nebula HOO (first light EQ6)

[fmeireso]

Also my capturing program APT does a great job.

Yeah, I too really like it and I used it up to now, Freddy. Great piece of software, but unfortunately it is Windows only.

the only thing i make sure off that my capturing laptops are NOT connected to the internet...i don't want Win updates spoiling all the fun

These forced updates since the forever last version 10 of Windows (haha!) are a pain the neck! You would have to upgrade to Ultimate, Professional or whatever to get rid of them

No you don't

Easy solution. In any browser set it to 'proxy server' ip address 127,0,0,1. that is the local host. No internet. Nothing goes out, nothing goes in (so no malware either). and off course no updates...what a relief....

should you want to update, it is an easy change...when it is convenient for you.

But your machine still will be visible in the LAN to if you want to control it from remote (in the house );

[Stefan B]

Am I seeing a little star egginess here and there? I believe I saw something similar in Stefan's otherwise crisp Perseus Double Cluster. Could be tilt, backspacing, who knows, so many possibilities.

I don't want to distract from Dietmar's first light, just a short resolution to the mystery of my oblong stars: Bad guiding Don't know why, don't know how, also got better during the night. I didn't discard all of the subs...unfortunately, even 50% binning wasn't able to hide the issue.

Now back to Dietmars reflection mystery I wouldn't bet on Deneb. Not bright enough, too far away. My guess is some kind of stray light reflection which somehow hit a spider vane and got thus oriented like the star spikes. But I don't know of course.

Regards
Stefan

[fmeireso]

It's kinda strange. It follows the difraction spikes of the stars , but it is just so much longer...still very thin..strange..;

[Mike in Rancho]

No you don't

Easy solution. In any browser set it to 'proxy server' ip address 127,0,0,1. that is the local host. No internet. Nothing goes out, nothing goes in (so no malware either). and off course no updates...what a relief....

should you want to update, it is an easy change...when it is convenient for you.

Whatever works for anyone, but this seems overkill for a minor nuisance. Myself, I also run the mount over my home WiFi via SynScan, so even more of a hassle.

If you really have to image and haven't gone through an update (either the downloading or the installing-restarting) that is there, just hit the pause updates button. Done.

Also keep Patch Tuesdays in mind. At least here, Windows update day is the second Tuesday of every month. So anything a day or so within that and use of pause might be in order.

Also generally only an issue with old and slow computers. Even my 2017 laptop and 2016 desktop do fine. Anything newer should just sail through most updates.

[Mike in Rancho]

I already thought about the same and looked it up in Stellarium. But I thought this star would be much too far away?! Even Alnitak in my horsey does not show such enormous spikes. So this is why I thought it could be a nearby light shining into the tube/spider from the side. Hm. I would love to hear more opinions on this

Now back to Dietmars reflection mystery I wouldn't bet on Deneb. Not bright enough, too far away. My guess is some kind of stray light reflection which somehow hit a spider vane and got thus oriented like the star spikes. But I don't know of course.

Regards
Stefan

It's kinda strange. It follows the difraction spikes of the stars , but it is just so much longer...still very thin..strange..;

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Decay Pelican Deneb.jpg (566 KiB) Viewed 12814 times

[decay]

In any browser set it to 'proxy server' ip address 127,0,0,1. that is the local host. No internet. Nothing goes out, nothing goes in (so no malware either). and off course no updates...what a relief

I guess this is a reasonable solution for you, considering your 10 years old notebook you are using outside. I know, these updates can be a pain on weak hardware.

For me it's history, since I switched to Linux running on the Raspberry Pi that I attached at the tripod. Astroberry creates a WiFi hotspot by default, but you can configure it to use your own WiFi network. You can control it via VNC from inside.

Best regards, Dietmar.

[decay]

Very cool, Mike!

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Your sad devotion to that ancient ... hmm... theory ... has not helped you ... ahem... to prove it or to convince us. (We should omit the part using the force and choking )

But seriously:

How can the spider diffract a star that isn't coming down the tube to the sensor? Off-axis/angled photons?

That's a long time ago for me, but AFAIK according to famous Mr. Huygens every point of a wavefront is the source of new wavelets, which in turn can interfere later on causing all this funny diffraction patterns. So yes, I would say it is possible that diffracted light of a star outside of the FOV can reach the sensor. Phff. Of cause, with a grain of salt. But I do not get the point, why this star has to be aligned to the actual direction of the arms/legs of the spider? You have proved that this is true in this/my case (again, very cool!). But what if this would not be the case, say there would be an angle of 15 degrees inbetween? How would the strike be oriented? And, more important: Where in the FOV would it be visible? Really, I don't know.
Another observation: The spike has its maximum intensity on the left side. Deneb is on the upper right side, but there the spike is not visible?! Of course, this again could be a result of interference of some kind

Very best regards, Dietmar.

[dx_ron]

I already thought about the same and looked it up in Stellarium. But I thought this star would be much too far away?! Even Alnitak in my horsey does not show such enormous spikes. So this is why I thought it could be a nearby light shining into the tube/spider from the side. Hm. I would love to hear more opinions on this

I once had a similar off-axis diffraction spike from Phecda in an RC6 image of M109. Phecda is only ~38' away from M109, while Deneb is nearly 2° from the Pelican - but Deneb is over a full magnitude brighter. Anyway, it, too, drove me nuts searching through the stack for some super-bright satellite or airplane (I live quite near a general aviation airport), until I realized the culprit. Luckily mine was in basically black space so I could easily Heal it out of existence.

[dx_ron]

For me it's history, since I switched to Linux running on the Raspberry Pi that I attached at the tripod. Astroberry creates a WiFi hotspot by default, but you can configure it to use your own WiFi network. You can control it via VNC from inside.

Have you encountered any issues caused by being several updates behind? I used astroberry until I switched to the 571c camera and the rPi could not keep up with the larger image files. But that also happened to coincide with Ekos moving to 64-bit and the cessation of updates for astroberry. I hear Radek is planning to finally produce a 64-bit astroberry at some point.

There are some *really* nice new features in the Focus module that you're missing out on, for certain.

[decay]

But what if this would not be the case, say there would be an angle of 15 degrees inbetween? How would the strike be oriented? And, more important: Where in the FOV would it be visible?

To answer my own question, before wasting someone elses time:

2023-09-22 07_35_07-Window.jpg (147.92 KiB) Viewed 12763 times

So simple. Thinking before writing would help for sure.