This week we feature a bright blue magnitude 3 star in Perseus, SAO39053, 39 Delta Persei. The image comprises 72 x 450-second subs, that is 540-minutes or NINE HOURS on the Sky90 array with the M26C OSC CCDs. I have absolutely no idea why I used a whole 3 hours (of actual imaging time) on a single star shot.
I have repaired the damaged pinhole of the drain-pipe pinhole camera ready for this Winter’s Solstice. The original pinhole itself was a pinhole in a disc-shaped piece of Aluminium foil. For some unknown reason, some unknown species of bird, took it upon themselves to peck through the Aluminium foil pinhole thus ruining the Solargraph. What’s even more annoying they didn’t do this once, but TWICE, thus ruining a whole year’s Solargraphy.
OK I’ll sort you out whoever you are. The Aluminium foil disc has now been replaced by an Aluminium disc cut from a drinks can. See if you can peck through that you blighters!!! Now just need to load the photographic paper and mount the pinhole camera on the side of the house again. Don’t think I will wait until December 20th to put the camera out this year, will probably set up a few days early in the hope that I don’t completely forget.
I fired up the Hyperstar 4 last night fully expecting the ASI 2600 MC Pro would have water vapour in the sensor chamber – only to find – it was fine!! So I have only got to sort out the 2600s on the 2 x Canon 200mm prime lenses, and I can still image on the Hyperstar 4 in the meantime – lucky!!
So last night I chose the Pelican nebula and 5-minute subs (equivalent to 15-minute subs on the array) and managed to get 20 of them. The data looked great and I added it to earlier data using Registar to get the image you see above. Not much (if any) image improvement with the extra 100-minutes of data, which is to be expected when there is probably in excess of 10-hours data in the image I combined it with. So I am once again in the region of diminishing returns with this object and if I have any sense (which is questionable) I should consider this one as well and truly done.
This is the ELEGOO Neptune 4 Plus 3D printer printing out a Sierpinsky pyramid measuring 300mm on a base line. As you can see, with the brim, this is the maximum size of pyramid I can build on the baseplate. Only 109-hours to go, nearly halfway there.
This week we show the full spectral range of stars, WOBAFGKMRNS, Wow oh be a fine girl kiss me right now sweetie, with all stars imaged from the New Forest Observatory.
These are the first few base layers amounting to 4-hours of printing in what will finally be a 201-hour 3D print on the ELEGOO Neptune 4 Plus 3D printer. If it manages to go to completion this will be a Sierpinski pyramid 300mm along a base edge, the biggest I have ever printed.
This week we feature the bright star Tarazed, 50 Gamma Aquilae, in the constellation Aquila. This image comprises 2-hours of 5-minute subs using the Sky90 array and the M26C OSC CCDs.
And here, just finished, is a 122-hour and 33-minute 3D print of a 275mm diameter Mandelbulb on an ELEGOO Neptune 4 plus 3D printer complete with all the support structure. The printer performed flawlessly over the 5 days. The only thing I am really bothered about now is that all that support structure looks like it will be difficult, if not impossible to remove. I’ll soon find out and report back on that one.
Having now reached the age where I am unable to count to five – the Mandelbulb should be finished tomorrow (Saturday) and not today. This is a 5-day print that was started around 11:30 a.m. last Monday.
Quite a bit of progress since the last photo of this print – the ELEGOO Neptune 4 plus is a FAST 3D printer that’s for sure. Just one more day to go and the print should be finished some time tomorrow (Friday) if there are no glitches. What is clear from the print is that there is a ton and a half of support material to remove which will probably take as long as the print itself 🙂
