Google One's non-existent [illegal] support.

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No doubt an expert in Photoshop could have achieved far more "magical" results with my images but I can't afford it just to play with my few encouraging results. Besides, the learning curve is far too steep to be manageable without considerable anger and frustration. Talking of which: I am suddenly overloaded with video storage from all the solar videos I have been capturing with the ZWO. So I have ordered a 4TB external hard drive to give me some more affordable backup.

Google storage was far too expensive and I have had endless problems with it. Every time I opened the laptop it would DEMAND I sign into my account. If I wasn't then presented with a completely blank page [which I was, the vast majority of the time] I would enter my email address and password. It would then tell me that it could not access my account. EVERY DAMNED TIME WITHOUT FAIL!

Meanwhile, I would want to be using the laptop for something far more interesting but Google sign in took total precedence. Their support contact was an AI dummy salesman, with poorer typing skills than its total absence of realistic communication with a paying customer.

Perhaps the AI should have used Google's own spelling checker? I couldn't be bothered to enter the AI's fictitious name into the spelling checker in the middle of a completely frustrating, totally one-sided "chat." Every time it told me the AI was typing it's pretend name would be underlined as improperly spelt. Anyone would think I was calling my bank's Indian call centre!

I believe that paying for Google's services gives me some legal consumer rights under "remote selling laws" but don't tell Google. It is far too big and intrinsically immoral to care remotely about anything involving individual paying customers. Not even in their millions, or billions, going on past form. I wonder if St. Margrethe Vestager is too busy at the moment to help?

The Google AI salesman was totally bent on getting me to pay for more storage while completely ignoring any of my direct questions about access. I actually asked it is it was an AI and it denied it. It even started typing slowly and repeatedly cancelling its next message as it struggled to cope with with everyday, human reality. It was completely deaf, dumb[sic] and blind to my real needs.

Like having them stop pestering me to sign on at every start-up. AND, and, and giving me access to the storage I was actually paying for each and every bløødy month!! These backstreet advertising crooks couldn't organise a piss-up in a virtual brewery! It kept saying the AI had entered text but nothing appeared in the chat box! I thought I was technically illiterate! Google sets new standards of dumbitude!

My speedy laptop, with its USB3 to SSD, will continue to be used for video capture. Then I can dump any useful videos onto the big disk drive, again via USB3. Then empty the SSD ready for the next imaging session. I shall just have to turn off wireless to stop Google from pestering me to sign on!

I chose a PC style HDD with an independent, mains power supply. Hoping to avoid potential problems with rapid laptop battery drainage, loss of transfer speed or overloading USB ports. The downside is that I usually need to go online to check Gong H-a for anything I might have missed at the eyepiece. I also like to blog to fill in the long periods of thick cloud. Or to post my latest solar daub.

How do I stop Google from intentionally spamming me with completely false, log-in procedures? Don't ask for Google One Support unless you have your check book wide open! To go with your wide open mouth of drooling naivety and idiocy.

The Seagate HDD was less than half the price per TB of Google's online storage per year. 1/4 the price over two years, etc.etc. This ignores Google's likely storage price inflation if they should ever need to start paying taxes like everybody else. It surely can't last?

While never intended to be portable, the big HDD will not need to travel. The tiny 0.5TB SSD can do all the commuting between the observatory and the PC indoors. I had no idea I'd need so much extra storage when I bought the SSD. Though they still get very pricey indeed in larger capacities. It will be much easier to empty a smaller drive without worrying about the loss of useful files.

The problem is always finding enough time to waste on image and video sorting and deletion. I may not have enough useful man-years left to use it on such trivial matters.Without a suitable thumbnail it is impossible to recognise a good capture video from a bad one. The fear is always that I might delete files which become salvageable over time as image handling software improves. Or completely new and magical software options arise.

The HDD turned up as expected and I was careful to connect it to one of the USB3 ports on my PC. It still took about two hours to transfer all of my 50,000 Pictures files. 200GB but Google claimed I was using over 400GB of storage. I moved from the old HDD to the new expansion HDD. The old drive was then removed and the 4TB became the new storage medium.

So far the 4TB is taking its time to display [populate?] the screen. Picasa also took its time to share its files. I always use Picasa instead of W10 Pictures because of its ease of use, friendly display and built-in tools. In comparison, W10 "Pictures" is just a big and very slow, dumb, filing cabinet. It's only saving grace is the Search box. Which allows me to access all the rsz [resized] images I use on my blogs and to post on the forums. Later I discovered that Picasa takes ten seconds to open but "Pictures" are now available in an instant. After a day's use of the computer and the new HDD Picasa is also instant.

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29th May 2019 Solar: Cloud, Prom and Google's illegal storage idiocy.

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Wednesday. 49/55F Out/In. Opened up at 9.00am with the cloud already becoming a nuisance after an early clear sky. Nothing visible on the disk in white light. Still waiting for a clear view in H-alpha.

I had to close the hatch because I needed to stand just there to use the binoviewers. It is increasingly tempting to move the ladder outside to access the dome via the veranda. But that means making a much better double door with externally accessed security. I put the stairs inside the building to avoid an icy climb in winter. Hindsight is an awful nagger!

9.10 Disk clear in H-a but the large pyramidal prom of yesterday seems to have shrunk. More misshapen now. Tracking has not started automatically nor to clicking "Track" in C-Du-C.

Set up my adjustable height [ironing] observatory chair. I find it is easier on the neck to relax in a chair to tip my head back.

Far too much cloud today! The "Skywatcher" focuser motor paddle is still misbehaving. Continuous rotation after button release. No reverse rotation on the opposite button.

The image was the result of 10% of 500 frames in SharpCap, stacked in Registax 6, with only one wavelet bar and then recoloured and resized 200%  in PhotoFiltre. The Sun's disk was simply "filled" with black. "Atmosphere" using black fill again but with only 10% opacity to gently kill the background glow and improve contrast. The wispy edges of the prom were lost to my clumsy digital image handling.

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28th May 2019 Solar. Prom.

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Tuesday: A rather cloudy day with short sunny periods. At 5pm I finally managed to see a superb prom through the binoviewers in H-alpha. Situated at 10.00. Could see nothing visible on the disk in H-a or white light. Didn't try to image today.

The "Skywatcher" clone DC focuser motor had completely flattened the 9V battery. A brand new battery showed only 5.6V DC straight out of the pack. I believe these things respond to a 12V DC wall wart, power supply. I have loads of these in various voltages so ought to give this a try.

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20th May 2019 Solar/ SharpCap/FireCapture problems.

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Monday: A more cloudy than sunny morning. As we'd been promised no sun I made the most of it.

The drives behaved perfectly for the first time ever. On the first slew from the Parking Position the sun's image arrived safely in the centre of the heat sink of the Lacerta 2" solar prism. Sync! 

Interestingly, the telescope circles [reticule?] were sitting right on the 'E' of the eastern horizon when I "Connected Telescope" in C-Du-C. Another first!

Then I connected the ZWO120MC camera to start imaging. The SharpCap screen showed the same orange ripple. I have been right through every surface of both telescopes and found nothing amiss.

The ripple is on the laptop screen where the sun's image is shown. It does not move with either telescope and does not rotate with the camera. It moves up and down to mouse scrolls. Hopefully that eliminates camera or filter damage.

The image right is a snap of the sun's image side of the laptop screen. The similarity to H-alpha, solar surface texture is just a weird coincidence.

So I went though every setting in SharpCap to see if something was causing the problem. Nothing had any effect except displaying a dimmer image. As soon as the image brightened the ripple was back. Trying to use the resulting video in Registax includes the ripple. So I can't do any more imaging in SharpCap until the problem is fixed. Grr!

Onto FireCap then. I had to change the 4K screen resolution to make the ridiculously tiny labels visible. Finally I could see them without an electron microscope. For all the good it did me. The screen was covered in a finely meshed overlay. Making seeing the image all but impossible. Nor did it offer an Avi. file output. So my first effort at capturing a video produced 2000 solar stills. Each covered in the same fine mesh of course. Dogh!

15.50: Back to SharpCap. Temperatures 69/78F [In/Out] with dome's inner plywood surface above 115F on the sunny side! That white paint is looking appealing!

First video looks better but with a "brushed" fine texture. Made worse by Registax! The next video showed the same coarse ripple.

Sunday 19th May AWR Drive problems solved.

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Problem solved! The simplest answer really was the correct one. Several LST calculators were showing the same LST. So AWR must be wrong. There was no other answer.

Going back into the AWR menus showed my local time for UT. That certainly wasn't correct!  So I reduced UT by 2 hours in AWR's menus. The wrong coordinates immediately showed on the IH2 screen. That is, until I Synced on the manually [paddle] centred sun in C-Du-C. The coordinates then showed correctly. As did LST in AWR. Finally!

All in agreement at last! This is not a minor event. I have been struggling with the Goto aspect of the AWR drives from the very beginning. I was convinced it was my own fault that they could not manage a Goto slew to find a target as big as the Moon or Sun. You would not believe the times I have measured the altitude of the PA and the north pointing of the mounting. Including the allowance for 3° of easterly magnetic declination. I checked them both again this morning! This involved a double stretch ladder and two builder's 2m, straight edges! Measuring north accurately is no trivial matter with a raised observatory!

Having broken the back of drive problem I then proved the drive system with numerous returns to the Parking Point. Home: SetP[ar]K then slewing back to the Sun and then back again. And again! By Syncing on the Sun after the telescope returned and had pointed perfectly it was able to return to the parking place and back again with repeated, perfect centring precision.

This is quite a slew from horizontal east pointing to high in the south west. The RA motor runs for quite a while before it stops and leaves the rest to the Declination motor. And [for once] it didn't try to go around the pole and turn the OTA upside down! A reflector would have needed heavy duty mirror clamps simply to have survived this long!

AWR needs to be UNPARKed  before C-Du-C can slew again: The question remains why UT in AWR became two hours fast. I shall have to edit the last two posts because they duplicate so many details as I sought an answer to the problems. Finally, AWR can remember the parking position when switched off and can slew to a target from a cold start. This is another first! I thought it just had as bad a memory as my own! I kept wanting to replace the button battery in the box in case that helped.

Chris Lord once said that you don't get a finished, Goto drive system from AWR. You buy an unfinished, DIY project. I would add a 72 page, unindexed manual and no inbuilt object database. The mounting's movements [slews] are also very slow. Ideal [probably] for a very large instrument but not one of more typical, amateur dimensions. Having both axes running is quicker but it's still an achingly slow 2 minutes per 90 degrees of sky.

I might have changed the parking position to point at the N Pole. Just to try and reduce the waiting time before it can find the Sun or Moon. But that would fill the southern half of the observatory dome with telescopes. At least the easterly pointing parking spot is well above my head height. In fact I really need to stretch to touch or adjust the telescopes. Just the price of having large refractors, I suppose.

BTW: The sun was blank in WL.

AWR/ASCOM/C-Du-C goto drive errors continued.

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After a further couple of hours of testing I can confirm that the AWR drives ALWAYS needs the parking coordinates to be entered into the IH2 paddle every single time that the system is woken. 

This seems completely pointless to me with a fixed observatory, fixed parking orientation, on a fixed pier. It just seems an unavoidable step before the system can be used as intended. Not only must the mounting be calibrated but SetP[ar]k must also be pressed before the telescope is moved under power. Otherwise it will never find its way back to the parking coordinates. 

Manually moving the telescope is not allowed or the sky position is immediately lost. However tempting, the telescope must never be nudged nor slewed by hand! You would not believe how tempting it can be be given the glacial speed of movement under power.

Trying to press SetP[ar]k without first entering the parking coordinates [Calibrating] is denied. The IH2 screen will say "Not Calibrated!" Trying to enter a manually entered Goto via Coordinate to slew the telescope from the parking position is again denied. Not Calibrated! 

I should mention that I don't have a celestial objects catalogue onboard because I am using a computer with planetarium software. It just seemed like an unnecessary duplication, at greater expense, when I ordered the AWR Goto drives system.

Once calibrated by entering the telescope's parking orientation: Horizontal East, weights down, the system knows where the telescope was pointing [is calibrated] and can then safely manage a slew. And, perhaps more importantly, can always return to "Base" on Home being pressed on the IH2 handset.

After a few frustrating attempts to send the telescope to align itself on the pole, lying over the PA, weights down, I switched off the system. Then Calibrated the parking orientation from scratch. [LST + 6 hours in RA, 0°,0',0" Dec. 

I could then safely send the telescope to point at the Pole via a manually entered,  Coord[inates] slew. Once settled on the Pole, pressing Home then reliably returned the telescope to its parking position. This action could then be repeated with close agreement on the coordinates each time.

Since I had deliberately left the laptop indoors for this exercise I was unable to confirm how ASCOM[AWR] and Cartes-Du-Ciel [Skychart] would manage. They do seem to be unable to read the AWR coordinates [as a team] from those I have already entered. So they too must, themselves, be set to the Parking position first with one proviso.

Unfortunately there is no useful object directly on the eastern horizon. So the nearest object to this position must first be found and used to calibrate [Sync] C-Du-C before proceeding. I had hoped the small variation from the true Eastern horizon wouldn't matter. C-Du-C offers no means to Sync [Calibrate] without an object lying under the cursor have been chosen. Moving the cursor to click onto Sync at the top of the screen will simply move the coordinates to Sync on the Sync button!

Even after all this, the planetarium system has been repeatedly and grossly in error in finding the Sun in a first slew. Which is my usual first target these days. I click the cursor on the Sun, in the on-screen chart and then hit Slew. The system will then send the telescope to completely overshoot by a mile in both Azimuth and Altitude! This is despite having being told exactly where the telescope is pointing before a single command is given. 

This might well be an error in reading the Local Sidereal Time.[LST] This just seems a logical conclusion if the telescope repeatedly points an hour [or two?] beyond the Sun. In the sense that it is not just a completely random error of pointing.

I have repeatedly checked the parking coordinates shown in the bottom left corner of the Skychart screen before moving. If these agree with both the Equatorial and Altazimuth coordinates showing on the AWR screen then it has no excuse for overshooting. I must ALWAYS use the simple paddle to point the telescope at the Sun and then Calibrate with a Sync on the carefully centred Sun. 

Much of this a is a repetition of the last post but I find it useful to confirm my findings so I can return to them as reference material once I have completely forgotten what I had found. [Memory of a sieve.]

As I write this at 18.30pm I am intending to go back out to the observatory, with the laptop this time, to test C-Du-C and ASCOM yet again. I need to confirm both LSTs match and that Skycharts shows the same initial [parking coordinates once calibrated.] 

Having to re-enter the coordinates into the IH2 and then C-Du-C before I dare to move the telescope is a complete bore. The IH2 keyboard is fixed to the pier low over the laptop shelf and is not remotely user-friendly for entering multiple key strokes for RA and Dec. Three key presses per coordinate, plus enter,  for AWR. Fortunately Skycharts can read the laptop keyboard.  Even if it then completely ignores it!

I'm going back armed with the laptop: Wish me luck!

Later: AWR is showing LST +2 hours ahead of C-Du-C and an online LST calculator. I used C-Du-C to slew to Polaris after setting the parking coordinates. The telescope slewed well past the pole and the polar axis twisted too to put the weights perhaps 20° off. They should have remained quite closely aligned.

On pressing Home [for parking] the telescope went well below the horizontal and ended up pointing Northwest! The telescope cursor ring also showed well below the horizon in C-Du-C. Something is obvious very wrong. Who is winning the battle of the coordinates? AWR was fine on its own. Add ASCOM[AWR] and Cartes-Du-Ciel and slewing goes crackers!

I have just realized that forcing a slew to align with the Polar Axis is not a "real" sky coordinate. Just one relative to the supposed parking position and mounting alignment. Both are known and easily checked geometrical position in Altazimuth but nothing to do with the sky.

Providing I have northerly aligned the mounting well and quadruple checked the altitude of the Polar Axis then Polaris should not be a million miles [well, less than one degree] from aligned with the mounting. 0.66 degrees away amounts to a small circle 1.32 degrees around the true pole.

The Moon and sun are each about half a degree in diameter on the sky. Such a small deviation from polar alignment would not be visible in telescope pointing. So why is the telescope pointing 20 degrees away?

13th May 2019 Garbage Software and Skywatcher [clone] focuser paddle.

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Monday: I set up early, just after 9am, to try and catch any better seeing conditions before things warmed up.

Yet again AWR and ASCOM + C-Du-C provided garbage results. As usual I check whether AWR's IH2 has remembered where it was parked yesterday. Even when I do not connect the serial cable to bring ASCOM & C-du-C into play the figures on the little screen may be correct in Altaz but are total garbage in Equatorial coordinates. 

So for the umpteenth time I tell it where it is parked [AGAIN!] and then press SETParK. PERIMETER EXCEEDED! AGAIN! My feeling is that the AWR clock is the problem when converting from Altaz to Equatorial coordinates. I have to reset the parking position by an hour forward every time. Which, of course, it promptly forgets overnight.

Then  I connect the serial cable, connect the telescope and tell CDC I am using ASCOM[AWR] and tell it [YET AGAIN] where I am parked by Syncing on the eastern horizon. Now one would think, after all that, that I could safely aim a CDC Goto slew for the Sun. But no, it couldn't find the sun if it was filling  the whole damned sky! 

So for the umpteenth time I take hold of the AWR Simple Paddle and "manually" slew until I centre the sun's image in the base of the Lacerta solar prism. Only then can I tell CDC that I can Sync to remind CDC that it missed by several long miles and that I am now pointing at the sun no thanks to its help. Now it can happily track all day long. That is assuming that tracking actually does start automatically. It seems to be a random feature and I have lost track of the number of times I have had to tell the IH2 to start tracking. The drive pulleys move so slowly that I have marked them clearly to be sure they are actually moving.

I have taken a series of images of start up coordinates on the AWR IH2 screen and bottom corner of the C-Du-C screen to try and get my head around what is actually happening.

I have decided I need a trolley or small table for the laptop + mouse mat. No fixed position works well, all year round, over the course of a full day. I played with a large cardboard box to try and make a deep shade for the laptop screen. Not a great idea as it needs constant adjustment. Seat height also changes the desired viewing geometry. I am deliberately wearing a very dark grey jumper or black T-shirt to avoid direct screen reflections. The laptop screen must be seen clearly to be able to achieve best focus and centring of the field of interest.

The damned Skywatcher clone focus motor paddle is now running non-stop on the right button but nothing [at all] on the left. The motor only stops when I press the left button or pull the plug/cable out! Not a useful choice.

Despite all these problems I captured a lot of videos for later, artistic impression. Because they are always on the laptop I have to go some considerable rigmarole to be able to post them from the PC. I was advised to get rid of unwanted video files to make room on my computers. Useful advice. I gained 100GB on the SSD alone by being selective and removing duplicates captured at similar times of the same area of the sun.

14th Not a great day for solar imaging until late afternoon because of cloud. I re-collimated the 7" using the Cheshire. The very first time with the FeatherTouch focuser in place. What a huge surprise to have it stay perfectly aligned unlike the Vixen 2".

15th Sun out of a clear sky today.  Already captured some 2k frame and 5k videos of the sunspot in white light.

C-Du-C missed the sun by miles again on the first slew. It stopped probably 20 degrees away in both azimuth and altitude. After manually slewing and syncing on the sun Home [Park] meant a severely nose down pointing.

The ZWO 120MC in SharpCap has an overlaid ripple like old fashioned obscuring glass. Bad in WL but worse in H-a. There is a graininess to the laptop screen even when the camera has no telescope attached.

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9th May 2019 White light solar. Two nice sunspots.

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67/63F In/out. Cloudy until after 4pm. Then a partial clearance allowed me to capture a couple of 1000 frame videos: Limited to best 40% in Registax 6.

The  original spot is well onto the disk now. With another following on.

Drat! I failed to rotate the camera to ensure correct orientation.

Quite pleased with the surface detail this time. The spots are showing lines of magnetism too.

Saturday 11th a sunny day but with some fluffy cloud coming from the north west. Another chance to work on improving my imaging.

The seeing was not nearly as good as the last time. No fine detail on the laptop screen during SharpCap captures. With a graininess also overlaid on the final images. The cloud thickened as the morning wore on.

I seemed unable to pull anything worthwhile from the videos. Trying Autostakkert instead of Registax after watching some tutorial videos to get a better grip on the settings. Getting 80fps by reducing frame size. The final images look as if they are covered in rippled glass!

Back out again after lunch. Only to have to close up and come back indoors as the farmer sprayed the field just beyond our hedge.

15.00 64/57F in/out. Dome panels at 115F up high in the direction of the sun. Falling to 100F lower down.

16.00. Larger plates of cloud stopped play. I'm experimenting with black shading cloth for my head but think a black box for the laptop would be best. It would have to be roomy to let the fan breathe. A deep crossbar would provide a "letter box" to view the screen and a lower slot to access the keyboard. Painting the inside of the dome black would also help to kill the unwanted brightness. I routinely wear black clothing to avoid direct reflections from the screen but bright sunshine makes even matt black look pale grey and reflective.

One of the buttons on the "Skywatcher" clone DC focuser motor paddle has already died. The other button forgets to stop the motor when I let go. Cheap crap! Grr!

Sunday Another sunny  day with cloud and rather windy. Solar> WL and H-a.

I am experimenting with different capture and stacking software. Also pushing hard on Registax wavelets and being much more subtle. As can be seen here in today's H-alpha results.

I am using PhotoFiltre7 to false colour and finish off. Usually with increased contrast and matching gamma to retain neutral brightness. There is a very long way to go to maximize my results via software.
We must remain grateful that the sun keeps providing spots to practice on as we sink toward the Solar Minimum. A bare sun is not much fun.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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Monday 6th May. Solar and painting the counterweights.

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Monday 6th May Even more cloudy and much windier than yesterday. Frequent complete overcast. Thought I'd see if I could do better with H-alpha than WL. No such luck. Very dark videos in SharpCap. Tried all the options without improvement. Ended up with TV lines on the image in Registax. Nice prom on the limb above the spot with a lower hedge below.

I am remembering to orient the camera correctly to match Gong-Ha  N, S, E & W. This is so much easier with a highly visible sun spot to go by. Tried FireCap and it can't be used with 4k screens. The Layout button only provides a doubling of content size. Even with a 40mm eyepiece as a "magnifying glass" I couldn't read the microscopic text!

Tuesday 7th: Hail and rain showers which were not forecast. I left the dome shutters open and found the southerly floor wet on my return ten minutes later. Since I couldn't do any observing, nor imaging, I did something else. I spent some time going around screwing the observatory wall panels more firmly to the framework.

The extra screws in the machined grooves will help to reinforce the building by multiple triangulation. The so-called "stressed skin" effect saves me fitting heavy diagonal braces. Cutting and fitting such braces to the frame of an octagonal building is a geometrical nightmare of compound mitres! If the braces don't fit perfectly then they do no good at all.

I also tightened up the mounting base fork and the bearing box compressing, furniture nuts and studs.

The plywood dome panels are already getting warm and it isn't even summer yet. I keep thinking I could get away with white paint on the dome now.  The dome is now all but invisible from the road and will soon be completely hidden by neighbour's trees and hedges.

Sage green was an excellent choice for making the dome disappear against the bare, background trees in winter. The view beyond the dome [from the road] is grass or winter grass-like crops for miles. When the trees are in leaf they form a solid background. Bright white paint would hopefully lower the temperature differential between the inside and outside of the dome. This should reduce the dome's effect on seeing conditions when practising solar imaging. This will be the dome's first summer.

Wed. 8th: Heavy cloud so I painted the cheap, "Olympic Standard barbel" counterweights with Hammerite Smooth white paint. A second coat might have been desirable for cosmetic reasons but I was too impatient to get them back onto the mounting. Hopefully they will now be more visible than rusty black iron in the darkness. I had already given the very rough exteriors a light cut at the very limit of my lathe's capacity on diameter. Even so I needed a reversed boring bar to reach around the outside from the tool post. Olympic Standard weights have a nominal 2" bore but it is a very loose 2" going on my limited experience. Some people happily pay more for a stainless steel counterweight than my entire mounting cost in raw [usually scrap] materials!

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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4th May 2019 Solar New spot!

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Saturday 4th 36F Overnight frost followed by sunny periods. It just reached 50F by lunchtime and then started to hail big soft blobs! Wearing a big down jacket for warmth in the observatory.

Between heavy clouds I captured 4 x 1000 frame videos in white light using SharpCap RGB24 1920x960, ZWO 120 MM. 180mm F/12 2160 f/l, Lacerta 2" prism + green 1.25" Baader Solar Continuum. 'Skywatcher' DC focusing. I was seeing fine surface detail on the laptop screen but the images looked like crap in Registax.

Shutters were already closed as I was called in for lunch. That was before I could process anything worthwhile. The sun has now come out again after a leaden sky moved on. 14.00 Time to return to the fray. No. Cloud and more cloud.

Sunday 5th 36-54F. Large clumps of cumulus spoiling an otherwise sunny day. I have only managed a few videos from the ZWO120 without cloud racing across and turning the SharpCap screen black. Haven't even looked in H-a today while I have been busy with white light. Added a 2x WO Barlow to the camera nose for 4.32m focal length. Amazing surface detail in better moments. Not enough frames of such detail shown in the video in Registax. Time to get back after lunch in the hope of more blue sky.

Sky now milky white but much less cloud. Captured a better video with 2x WO Barlow. I am going to have to transfer my captured videos to my PC for the Registax treatment. My results on the 16.6" 4K laptop look completely different on my bigger 71cm monitor indoors.  I keep trying "imppg" but it won't accept my AVIs for some reason. Of course it won't. As has been kindly pointed out it is used in conjunction with Registax instead of the wavelets. [I think.]

Another odd thing is a "shower curtain" sort of "thick glaze" to the laptop screen in SharpCap. As if unwanted "sharpening" was already being applied during video capture. I find the final images in Registax are also sharpened even before I use wavelets. Perhaps there is a setting in SharpCap I have overlooked or have set accidentally? The stacked image is always awful in Registax regardless of how many % of best images I select for Limit.

Click on any image for an enlargement. 

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