3075 replies to this topic

[rj144]

What was the blackout?

[GSBass]

So my experience so far has been mostly positive, build quality is excellent, the optics are excellent in clarity however a little ca is evident on the brightest stars, probably as a result of being an F4 system, however it’s tamable and the images look nice imho. I noted an advantage of running the autofocus routine between objects, not because of focus but because Vespera I think needs a second to track normally after the slew. You can look at your stars in the first few frames to determine if it would benefit to restart. There may be more of an issue near zenith because it does use 10 sec exposures for just about everything and from my experience with sharpcap it’s hard to keep the stars perfectly round at that exposure depending on target. All these images are jpegs straight from Vespera, I did minor level adjustments and noise reduction. I think the noise level is high enough to benefit from some post processing, but not much, a minute or two and your good. You can save 16bit raw tiff images but they are not “as seen”.  If you save a tiff you will have to go through all the stretching and level adjustments….I will not be doing this and have requested a “as seen” tiff option. In the Mean time jpeg is it. Another update was released today but it just says bug fixes so not sure if anything new is added, 

[dcm_guitar]

Thanks for posting this!!!!

[GSBass]

Initial shipping was a logistics check so we were asked to be quiet for a week… all base model Vesperas are in the mail now

What was the blackout?

[jonnybravo0311]

The images you shared - are those the results directly from the Vespera (i.e. live stacks saved as JPG) or something you manually processed?

[GSBass]

Those are jpegs by Vespera, I did minor level adjustments and noise reduction, I was impressed, I’m experienced enough to know they are not perfect but still pretty amazing.especially for 50mm, they all looked really nice, hoping for manual exposure settings in the future, doing stuff like imaging Orion and keeping the trapezium in tact is something I always tried to do with my refractor, Vespera blows that out almost immediately…. Still pretty.. just saying it’s one limitation currently, if you could dial exposure down you would have more control but of course would have to image twice as long

The images you shared - are those the results directly from the Vespera (i.e. live stacks saved as JPG) or something you manually processed?

[imtl]

A bit of info I posted in the other thread a while back.

Vespera, is a 50mm ED quadruplet using S-FPL-52 glass. 200mm focal length (F/4) uses the Sony IMX462 sensor (2.9um pixel pitch). Also used in the ASI462mc. It is a non cooled 1/2.8” sensor (5.6mm*3.2mm), considered as a planetary camera (link)
The image scale here is 3"/pixel. FOV is 1.6^ox0.92^o.
The sensor has 11.2ke- full well at zero gain, depth 12bit. Peak sensitivity is at 850nm. Here is the plot of the RELATIVE QE curves:

[jonnybravo0311]

Those are jpegs by Vespera, I did minor level adjustments and noise reduction, I was impressed, I’m experienced enough to know they are not perfect but still pretty amazing.especially for 50mm, they all looked really nice, hoping for manual exposure settings in the future, doing stuff like imaging Orion and keeping the trapezium in tact is something I always tried to do with my refractor, Vespera blows that out almost immediately…. Still pretty.. just saying it’s one limitation currently, if you could dial exposure down you would have more control but of course would have to image twice as long

Plenty of people with far more dedicated setups blow out the trapezium... it's an extremely hard target to do properly. I was targeting Orion last night... my 10" luminance subs still led to some fully saturated stars, and my camera has a whole heap more full well capacity than the one in the Vespera .

[GSBass]

Yep I know it’s challenging…I think I do it because it was so mesmerizing visually when I got my first mak in the 90s, I’ve been successful but I lose a good bit of the nebula also

Plenty of people with far more dedicated setups blow out the trapezium... it's an extremely hard target to do properly. I was targeting Orion last night... my 10" luminance subs still led to some fully saturated stars, and my camera has a whole heap more full well capacity than the one in the Vespera .

[GSBass]

Update, notified by Vaonis, the fits file feature will be added to Vespera in 60 days, probably working on memory management would be my guess since it will be transferred wirelessly instead of usb like Stellina…. I’m not really sure I’ll fool with it, if I’m going to process files I think I would be more apt to pull out my big rig….. I admit I am wondering how that will go, I imaged and processed 5 targets in the same amount of time I would have spent on just one with my regular setup…. I know the pros and cons but that is really something, I think Vespera will have me imaging really obscure stuff that I wouldn’t have bothered with…. Just speculating 

[GSBass]

Me sitting in recliner watching while the Horsehead came in, it was in the 20s last night …. I had Vespera out there for about 5 hrs so I set the umbrella up for dew shield, worked well, she stayed dry while frost was forming on stuff nearby, I only let it run on batteries for 2 hours and decided to plug it in…. I think it still runs on batteries but charges at same time, battery is rated for 4 hrs

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[imtl]

Now it just needs a Margarita!

[Melgabean]

Would be a fun item to have to show young children what's up there. Not really sold on the price yet but the images you took are pretty nice.

 

off topic a bit... when folded up I think it kinda looks like the Turrets from the video game Portal by valve.

[GSBass]

If I were showing it to children I think I would like to have a scope present they could look through at same thing, would be a great lesson on light accumulation and the great distances involved. I was not sold on Stellinas price but feel Vespera is a bargain after first light, it’s really that nice imho, 1500 is still a lot of money for most people though so we will see how well it does…I would say the price makes it a possibility for the masses while most could not even consider a Stellina, if I were wealthy though I would want to give one to every school, valuable tool that can be mirrored on a huge screen

Would be a fun item to have to show young children what's up there. Not really sold on the price yet but the images you took are pretty nice.

 

off topic a bit... when folded up I think it kinda looks like the Turrets from the video game Portal by valve.

Edited by GSBass, 04 January 2022 - 04:20 PM.

[Melgabean]

I set up my telescope for my Nephews and they just were not interested in looking through it at all. They will however stare at the screen of a tablet all day long. It baffles me the lack of interest in anything that isn't a screen. I like your idea of setting up another scope at the same time. It really would be a great item for schools or teaching.

[jprideaux]

Nice images.  And no fuss for the first night out!  I think you told me before that you are operating in bortle 5 skies.  I have a Vespera (with filters) on order but the bundles with filters are delayed (supply-chain problems)  for a couple/few months so it may be March/April/May before I get mine.  Until then I'll just watch for the posts for those that got the base-model.

[nwcs]

Thanks for the report. It’s fun to see the differences between this and Stellina.

[GSBass]

It’s still on my list to see how Vespera reacts to having the l’enhance placed in front of the lense, just going to fashion a cardboard holder of some sort…. May not work but will be a good experiment, hopefully you will get yours sooner  or at least they will decide to go ahead and ship the scope and have your extras delivered separately

Nice images.  And no fuss for the first night out!  I think you told me before that you are operating in bortle 5 skies.  I have a Vespera (with filters) on order but the bundles with filters are delayed (supply-chain problems)  for a couple/few months so it may be March/April/May before I get mine.  Until then I'll just watch for the posts for those that got the base-model.

[GSBass]

I would expect the Stellina to perform better, it’s possible Vespera is engineered a little better just from what they learned from building Stellina but still a 50mm can’t really compete with 80mm, Stellina  should show more detail….. I do think they made Vespera so good that a Stellina V2 could be imminent…. CES is going on now so more clarity on that should come this week…. I have no idea, just speculation, if they don’t update Stellina then it makes it a harder sale next to Vespera… I mean it’s not twice the price but almost three times the price

Thanks for the report. It’s fun to see the differences between this and Stellina.

[nwcs]

I would expect the Stellina to perform better, it’s possible Vespera is engineered a little better just from what they learned from building Stellina but still a 50mm can’t really compete with 80mm, Stellina should show more detail….. I do think they made Vespera so good that a Stellina V2 could be imminent…. CES is going on now so more clarity on that should come this week…. I have no idea, just speculation, if they don’t update Stellina then it makes it a harder sale next to Vespera… I mean it’s not twice the price but almost three times the price

Depending what would be in a Stellina 2 I might be totally on board and use both! I’ve given a thought to that with acquiring a Vespera at some point but it is very early in that process obviously.

[GSBass]

In my opinion the biggest difference that goes to justify the cost is the mechanical derotator,  I think software basically works frame to frame so you can’t compensate for movement that occurs during the exposure…. And a lot of movement occurs in 10 seconds……… sooooo the answer of course is user intervention to shorten exposure time but even then the stars will not be as good as Stellina. .. hope that makes sense, I have been battling this demon with sharpcap for a year…. Just a battle of correct exposure times when using software field rotation. I’ve had to use 5 sec exposures often but it’s not ideal. That’s the main draw back of software field rotation, if some genius ever figures out how to compensate during the actual exposure then the issue is solved

———-

I do think that is possible but the astronomy market is so small I can’t see the chip makers doing it… in my mind a predictive algorithm that knows where the photons are falling in an initial short exposure and then simply corrals or ignores photons falling outside of the expected…. Something like that should work …. Apple uses a.I. like that in their cameras but for different purposes

Depending what would be in a Stellina 2 I might be totally on board and use both! I’ve given a thought to that with acquiring a Vespera at some point but it is very early in that process obviously.

Edited by GSBass, 04 January 2022 - 07:18 PM.

[jprideaux]

In the limit even with perfect software rotation, the Vespera would end up after time with a circle image while the Stellina could retain the rectangle. But that doesn’t really bother me except knowing that some parts of the sensor did not get included in the final good part of the image. But for more typical integration times, you will probably only loose a bit in the corners due to software-only derotation.

I’m assuming, though, that the Vespera has no means to initially frame the object - like trying to get as much of m31 as possible by initially having it go from corner to corner on the sensor. Let me know if I’m wrong.

[GSBass]

Interesting thought, Vespera does spend sometime analyzing (platesolving?) once it arrives on target and they have been extremely well centered, interestingly I could see the field rotation on the very first image I took but they seemed to disappear after that… perhaps some type of initial calibration going on. From my experience with sharpcap…On a 30 min exposure you lose some, an hour you lose a lot , 2 hrs and your talking half…. But it’s because the chip is 16 x9, you wouldn’t lose near as much on a square chip

In the limit even with perfect software rotation, the Vespera would end up after time with a circle image while the Stellina could retain the rectangle. But that doesn’t really bother me except knowing that some parts of the sensor did not get included in the final good part of the image. But for more typical integration times, you will probably only loose a bit in the corners due to software-only derotation.

I’m assuming, though, that the Vespera has no means to initially frame the object - like trying to get as much of m31 as possible by initially having it go from corner to corner on the sensor. Let me know if I’m wrong.

[GSBass]

From what I’ve seen… I would speculate Vaonis has a more advanced algorithm to deal with rotation than sharpcap is utilizing, they both work but fVaonis has made it transparent… the finished image does not give a hint of what’s going on behind the curtain, as you watch the image come in you can see slight shifts in the position of stars etc on screen, but there is nothing predetermined, Vaonis recommends exposure times but it’s not going to stop imaging til you tell it to… no preset timers etc… you have to select stop

In the limit even with perfect software rotation, the Vespera would end up after time with a circle image while the Stellina could retain the rectangle. But that doesn’t really bother me except knowing that some parts of the sensor did not get included in the final good part of the image. But for more typical integration times, you will probably only loose a bit in the corners due to software-only derotation.

I’m assuming, though, that the Vespera has no means to initially frame the object - like trying to get as much of m31 as possible by initially having it go from corner to corner on the sensor. Let me know if I’m wrong.

[GSBass]

Just thought more about the timer thing, that would be a nice update to be able to select 4 or 5 targets with predetermined exposure times and just let it run… but as it is right now everything is manual, even saving the photo you just completed requires a manual save,there is a button on the main page to save in to a gallery within the app, but you can also click the right hand corner and save to your camera roll .

 

this brings up one issue that I wish didn’t exist… obviously if your capturing your wifi is connected to Vespera, so if , for example you wanted to save the photo you just took to iCloud to edit on your laptop or other device then your out of luck, all images are stuck on your device until you disconnect from Vespera and get back on your network, I may try saving to a usb-c thumb drive next time. You kind of feel like you should keep the robot busy while it’s set up… as soon as you finish one you are sending it to the next immediately so it keeps your device offline for quite a while