45 galaxies Live Stacked in SharpCap (240 million light years away)
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- Опубліковано 23 лип 2024
- Join us as we travel 240 million light years along the Pisces - Perseus supercluster of galaxies that stretches across the autumn sky.
We use Sharp Cap livestacking to provide live views - as the camera sees it bearing in mind the staggering distances involved!
“Are we significant or mere motes of dusk?” On my laptop screen are galaxies so distant the light we see set off before the dinosaurs evolved and long before the continents we know today formed from the original Pangea.
Equipment
- Telescope Celestron C11 with F6.3 focal reducer
- Mount AZEQ6
- Camera Player One Saturn-M
- Software Sharp Cap 4.1
Original presentation I used to plan these observations from the BAA Deep Sky Section: britastro.org/videos/deep-sky...
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00:00 introduction to galaxy clusters and superclusters
02:14 live stacking equipment set up
06:10 open observatory
07:00 NGC 383 Group: Arp 331
09:23 NGC 507 Group: Arp 229
11:06 NGC 706 - the wrong galaxy!
11:50 NGC 708 Group: Abell 262
13:28 NGC 906 Group: Abell 347
14:54 NGC 891 - beautiful galaxy
16:06 NGC 1275 Group: Abell 426
17:00 M42 the Orion Nebula
19:14 Acknowledgements - Наука та технологія
Sharpcap has a Bahtinov mask focus assistant tool (under 'tools') which makes it easier to know when you've achieved prime focus. Also you can pre-load Darks and Flats in the pre-processing tab on the right to calibrate the live-stack. And you can filter your live stack to reject subs based on brightness and fwhm. I didn't even know about Sharpcaps annotation tool, thanks for that!
Ooh - that's good to know, thank you for the tips. I am too lazy for darks and flats so just use the gradient tool (if the object is in the light pollution or near the moon) and hot pixel removal. Yes the annotation tool is useful. With that and Sky Safari Pro I can identify all but the faintest of the galaxies in the stack.
Love this channel so much!
Glad you enjoy it, Nacole. Hope the weather is better in your part of the world.
Exellent work Mark you always make me feel I,m along there with your observations the way you make your videos. See you sometime in the New year!
Thanks, Steve👍- hope the weather is better with you!
Another great vid Mark. Thanks & keep them up.
Happy New year to you & ALL our Astro friends
Thank you David and happy new year to you too.
Excellent encore…!!
Merci Christophe - more to follow!
Mark, another wonderful video. One of the primary reasons for me building an observatory is to do visual observing which is difficult with so many lights around. The observatory allows one to get dark adapted, and stay that way, while observing. But I have sharpcap and have the same Saturn M camera for solar imaging, so may have to give this a go. I think my edge 11 should do mostly the same as the C11. Thanks!
Cheers Terri - let us know how you get on. I thoroughly recommend it. Your Edge will have sharper stars than my XLT so you should do better than me!
Happy Christmas & Boxing Day, Mark! I haven't watched your video yet but it's on my playlsit for Box Day evening. Thanks for all your uploads, they are appreciated.
Wishing you and your family a lovely Christmas too - and thank you for your kind words.
Magic. Caroline and William Herschel would be amazed to see this.
Yes I wrap my scopes as well. Takes a bit longer to cool down but keeps ice sheets away from the tube and optics in winter as well.
Thanks, Nick. You are right, they would be amazed to see the difference of how we observe (albeit under much worse light pollution). No need to repolish the speculum mirror every other year!
I love this channel and the very genuine videos you make. I don't have a backyard to observe from, but I'm considering how to modify part of my house's roof to install the AZEQ6. It’s complicated but would be a dream come true. Your videos are an inspiration.
Thankyou, Mike!
Please do, Mike. You won't regret having a permanent set up - it has been my best upgrade. Please reach out if you have any questions or comments!
@@RefreshingViews Sorry. I wanted to write “Mark.” 🫢
Greetings from Spain!
@@lucesextranas942 Ah, vale. Y saludos a usted desde Inglaterra. Espero que tengas una buena viejanoche.
Nice video Mark thanks for sharing your work
My pleasure, Tony.
Nice video! Don't worry, some of still use books a bit :)
That's good to know, Josh. My kids told me off for adding this cheeky line into the video!! I'll check out your channel over the break. Take care and have a good Christmas.
"for the younger folks, this is called a book, a bit like an app".....I feel attacked 😂😂😭😭
Glad you found that part, Tulga!! My kids were also offended. Hope you’re having a nice Christmas from a very wet England.
Great video Mark. Sharpcap flats and darks are easy, I take darks every imaging session. I image time series of flare stars mainly, and CV's when in outburst.
That sounds interesting, Doug. I will have to get round to it but as I swap between f6 for deep sky and f20 for lunar / planetary I would have to take flats each time. How do you take yours?
Thanks for sharing Mark! I think it's a great idea to use a mono camera for this, the added sensitivity really helps bring out detail.
Absolutely, Ziggy. I got it for the solar imaging and then found it is quite good for faint stuff - at the cost of not having any colour. Hope the weather is better with you!
Wow looked like an excellent session. I haven't had a lot of luck with live stacking but might give SharpCap a go: I hadn't realised that it was so fully featured.
Regarding the OTA silver foil jacket, I assume that that is only for scopes that are permanently outdoors? If you take it in and out like I do presumably it would just slow down thermal equilibrium?
PS minor slip of the tongue that made me smile - I think that Newton discovered, not invented gravity ;) You're doing a marvellous job though so please keep them coming. I can't imagine how difficult it is to make professional looking videos and you do a great job of explaining things to those of us who aren't uber experts :)
Hi Andy, thank you for your kind words. You are right re Newton. That was added deliberately to attract feedback (my kids call it click bait!).
SharpCap an amazing bit of software. Don't tell the developer it should be priced far higher. Amazing bit of kit that has changed how I observe. Best eyepiece I have ever bought.
As for the silver jacket. Defo try it and see how it works. The problem is that the tube soon reaches thermal equilibrium but is still radiating to the cold of the upper atmosphere. It then cools below ambient introducing tube currents. It only cost pennies and seems to work
I love it!
Cheers Springer Spaniel
Sorprendente amigo las galaxias en el campo profundo
Diria que hay tantas galaxias Misael - espero que las veamos todos!!
I would rather say when newton 'discovered' gravity than 'invented' 😀
I was wondering when someone would comment on that one, ha ha!
That's British humour for you 😄
Very nice. Wonder how many stars are in that cluster.
Good question but I dare not try and work it out!
Hello. Mark All the best for this festive season, do you prefer digital images to observe or do you still use eye piece's too.? Just some times you have to pinch yourself, to attempt to comprehend how such unimaginable deep sky objects exist in this vast cosmos *
Hi John - and a happy Christmas to you and your family. I don't think I have a preference. The good thing about the camera is that I can share the screen and reveal details that aren't readily visible through the eyepiece (eg subtle details on Jupiter and 16-17 magnitude galaxies!). The eyepiece is a much more pleasing view but it has hard to share (other than through a sketch). That being said, I must admit I do like sketching the view from the monitor as it seems to combine the benefits of both approaches - while listening to the comedy on Radio 4!!
What exposure length were you using Mark please?
I think these were 20 second exposures (from memory)
Does Sharpcap have the PGC catalog? That would boost the number of identified objects dramatically.
You can download it and install it for the fainter galaxies. That being said, I have Sky Safari Pro and simply look them up while the image builds on the screen.
complete noob on the subject here - and i’m curious about something…
if these can see galaxies so far away couldn’t you point it at something closer like mars and see insanely good detail ??
Of course! That's what scopes are for ... In fact planets are my favourite objects to observe: ua-cam.com/users/shortsDXtgkPoCzMY?feature=share and try this ua-cam.com/users/shortsD0LLdUG_f28?feature=share
"When Newton invented gravity."
Click
I was wondering when people would comment on this! Good spot!! :-)