263 replies to this topic

[MrNeil]

You are very lucky and im very jealous!

 

haha Someones parrot escaped the other day I should have tried to capture that, I think the nicest bird we have is the King Fisher but I dont think id be lucky enough to even find one, keep taking your videos they are wonderful to watch!

[MrNeil]

So this is the M101 with just over 10 hours exposure, the image does look clearer with more defined and sharper stars, the below image dosnt really show this that well as a reduced image, the M101 itself to me looks very similar to the previous @ 7.5 hours, my last session (last night) was taken with 120 exposure and 0 gain whereas the previous sessions were all 120 exp @ 10 gain. 

Attached Thumbnails

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[Craig1970]

Nice M101!  I hear you when you say increased imaging time beyond a certain point doesn’t always make much of a difference. Guess it’s the law of diminishing returns.

is it just me or is it really fiddly to upload photos here?  Guess just me…

 

Anyway, here is the Pelican nebula, 60 exp, 70 gain, for about 90 mins or so.   Very basic image with lots of faults I know, but it was fun.

 

[Craig1970]

At some point I need to learn how to get the right gain setting and maybe dial back my Apple photos processing, but fwiw here’s the Heart Nebula from last night, 120 exp, 30 gain, about an hour’s shooting. I tried the scheduler to also shoot a second session between 4-5am but all I got was blackness, so that went well.   
 

When I see the image, the heart is there but I mainly see a crouching dog

 

Edited by Craig1970, 10 July 2025 - 02:31 AM.

[MrNeil]

I love that image and one that ill be trying to enhance, for 90 minutes isnt it amazing we can point this little box to the sky and its so accurate and precise that we dont have to worry about anything or spend thousands, get so much fun and excitement from it, not to mention the 90 minutes exposure giving so much detail, colour and clarity I would never had expected was posible, nice round stars and so interesting to compare with others images and settings, it will never give what a 5000 £/$ rig will give, but it does give more to those who would never had done the hobby otherwise. Great shot mate, keep them coming, did you use the Atlas for that one, I found I had to do a manual goto to include that whole area of sky

[Craig1970]

Thanks Neil!   Yes I used Atlas, haven’t tried manual targeting yet. It’s frustrating as so many of the database images never pop up above either the horizon or my treeline. I guess that’s what a dark site and also different time of the year will bring.

 

Agree this thing is absolutely outstanding value for money.  It would be amazing if they’d release additional filters for it - maybe that’s coming.  It would also be good if the Schedule would allow longer than 60s subs, but I can’t really complain, it’s an astonishing piece of kit for the money.

 

I feel tonight could be a Bubble Nebula extravaganza session

[MrNeil]

I might try the schedule tonight, Im driving most of tomorrow so need a good night sleep

 

The one thing id love DwarfLab to create, is a lens attachment that works with planetry imaging, wouldnt that be the icing on the cake by zooming in on the planets like they were the moon!! 

[Craig1970]

Once you set the shooting schedule (which itself is a little fiddly the first few times) remember to hit Sync or it’ll never start.  Easy to forget if you set it up in advance of a session.  Sorry, probably obvious I know - good luck!

[Craig1970]

C33 - managed an hour last night and stacked with a previous session to give about 2.5 hours in total, 60 exp, 60 gain, stellar studio processing then messing about with Apple photos (which usually results in me ruining previously good images).

 

One question - sometimes when I’ve imaged using the Schedule function, I check all the individual images before stacking them using the Dwarf app.  Sometimes there’s a ‘poor image’ flag marked by a red circle, which is usually planes overhead I guess, so I delete those before stacking.  But sometimes it’s a totally black image, again flagged with the ‘poor image quality’ mark.  Do I delete those before stacking too, or are they the Dark frames the D3 wants to add in?  If the latter, presumably it shouldn’t mark its own dark frames with a ‘poor image quality’ flag.  But if it’s not the darks, what would give an entirely black image?  If it was a building then the preceding photos would start to show that building slowly come into shot, but it goes from stars to jet black.  Hope this makes sense…

[GSBass]

It is a satisfying device for the money, I appreciate the versatility, it’s the little things like just grabbing it the other day to use as a remote camera for the humming birds was very satisfying because they are very squeamish and you would never get those kinds of shots without remote operation

I love that image and one that ill be trying to enhance, for 90 minutes isnt it amazing we can point this little box to the sky and its so accurate and precise that we dont have to worry about anything or spend thousands, get so much fun and excitement from it, not to mention the 90 minutes exposure giving so much detail, colour and clarity I would never had expected was posible, nice round stars and so interesting to compare with others images and settings, it will never give what a 5000 £/$ rig will give, but it does give more to those who would never had done the hobby otherwise. Great shot mate, keep them coming, did you use the Atlas for that one, I found I had to do a manual goto to include that whole area of sky

[Craig1970]

M31 last night, managed 2 hours at 60s exp, 60 gain, Bortle 4.  I lose so many subs to planes and satellites, didn’t realise the house was a landing strip!

 

[Craig1970]

File Transfers and Edits

 

Help needed please…?!   Sorry if not the right forum though.

 

My D3 storage is almost full, so I’ve tried to transfer the files to my laptop.  I have embarrassingly poor knowledge of all this.  I’ve copied the “Astronomy” folder, which has all the Raw files.  But I can’t open any of them.  Each one seems to be a Maxim DL 6 file and when I double click, it asks for User Registration - which seems to be USD 250 software licence??  That can’t be right.  How can I view the image I’ve just transferred to my laptop without buying a 3rd party licence?   Am aware this is a really stupid question….

 

Or do I just drop the files into Siril or GIMP or whatever (never used them before, will download later today) and they’ll be usable there?  This is all new to me and I find the D3 manual dreadful…

 

Sorry for an inane query.

[Uwe Pilz]

Normally, you get FITS files. You may switch to TIFF, but I prefer FITS.

 

At your PC you need an application which may open them. I use Irfanview for this which has a FITS plugin.

[GSBass]

More humming bird hunting with dwarf

 

photo mode https://x.com/artemi...1XgzO5JXF9NadZA

 

and another 10 sec video in auto detect mode https://x.com/artemi...1XgzO5JXF9NadZA