Episode 71 - A NEW Challenger Approaches!

The Astrocast has partnered with First Light Optics!!! We now have an affiliate program that all of our European listeners can use to support the show. Thanks so much as always, make sure to use this link to support the show and get the same great prices and service as always from FLO! A small proceed of the portions will go to help pay for the show, thank you as always!

WELCOME BAAAAACK TO THE ASTROCAST!!!

This week, Roo reviews an AWESOME new light pollution filter - and takes you through what makes him think it separates itself from all the others on the market! The Leviathan Optics Spectral Pro is a pricey piece of kit for sure, but for those of us in B6+ areas, it could definitely be worth the reach!!!

If you would like to see the Heart Nebula Photo and a comparison shot taken with bother the Leviathan and the L PRO, have a look at the FB Page! While you're there, give us a follow and say hi! 

We also discuss upcoming astronomical events, a C8 update, guiding cameras, and a whole lot more! 

If you would like to support the show, please feel free to use any of our affiliate links when making your astro purchases! You get the same great price, and a small portion of the proceeds goes to support the Astrocast! WIN WIN! 

First Light Optics

High Point Scientific

Agena Astro

Amazon Affiliate Link

You can also support the show by joining our Patreon and becoming a member of The Astrocast Society! You'll immediately get access to the Astrocast private Discord, where you can chat with me and all the rest of the group about all things astro, and even life! ITS AN AMAZING GROUP!!!

Until next week, clear skies!!

<3 Roo

Transcript

00;00;00;15 - 00;00;18;29
Roo
Hey, everybody, this is Roo! Just a quick word before we start today's show. We have officially partnered with First Light Optics. So we do have a link in the show notes. If you would like to make a purchase through First Light Optics to support the show. We are now an affiliate with them, so thank you so much for your support.

00;00;19;01 - 00;00;55;01
Roo
To all of our listeners in Europe. And, let's get to the show. Clear skies.

00;00;55;03 - 00;01;05;13
Captain Cumulus
Main Engine Start. T Minus 10, 9, 8 7, 6, 5

00;01;05;15 - 00;01;18;07
Captain Cumulus
You are listening to, THE ASTROCAST (LIFTOFF!)

00;01;18;09 - 00;02;02;29
Roo
Welcome back to the Astro cast. Oh, I'm your host, Roo. Today is Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025. Oh, the new moon has arrived. Thank goodness for that. Well, certainly looking forward to this one. Did anyone happen to catch the, Venus and Crescent Moon conjunction last week? Man, that was beautiful. What a sight to see. I didn't even know it was happening.

00;02;02;29 - 00;02;22;22
Roo
I happen to be waking up early on, Friday morning for something. I had to run an errand super early, and I just happened to walk out, and I look up and there's Orion looking down at me, and then, Venus and the, crescent moon. And then Regulus was right beside it, and Leo. And it was just.

00;02;22;22 - 00;02;49;16
Roo
Wow. It was quite a sight to see. So hope you've all been doing, great. I've certainly been busy. As you might imagine. I apologize for last week. Not happening. Like I say, I did record the episode. I did, you know, one of our Under the Stars episodes, and I went to drag the wav files over the next day, and I used the wireless DJI mics on.

00;02;49;16 - 00;03;08;21
Roo
I have the outdoor episodes, and I don't know what happened, but the quality was just garbage. It was really bad. So, I'm gonna have to look into that. I got a little bit frustrated and just kind of set the mics down, so I haven't bothered digging into them. The good news is those are relatively inexpensive microphones, and they're getting cheaper all the time.

00;03;08;22 - 00;03;36;07
Roo
I've actually got an extra, DJI mini from this gimbal that I purchased before we went to Florida. But I have been, imaging quite a bit lately. I've been very lucky to have some good clear skies. We had, three nights in a row of really nice clear skies. Right at New Moon. So I started working on a new project, and it's something I've wanted to do for a while now.

00;03;36;07 - 00;04;01;14
Roo
But just haven't had the chance because the seasons are changing, obviously. So certain targets are finally coming back around, and, you know, summertime was basically a bust for most of us in North America. We didn't really get, too many opportunities to to have good skies. And if if we had a clear night, it wasn't necessarily, you know, aligned with New Moon.

00;04;01;14 - 00;04;26;27
Roo
But one of the great things about being an astronomer in the fall is you, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, same thing in the southern Hemisphere when it rolls around, just different time of the year for you guys. But, you know, the seasons changing, the cooler air comes in and we tend to get a lot less, clouds and rain showers and these types of things.

00;04;26;27 - 00;04;55;27
Roo
And it's always one of my just favorite times of the year, because Andromeda is back in the night sky, you've always got like, a million new astronomers that snapped a photo with their, smartphone. And they're posting and saying, what is this I captured in my photo? And it's always Andromeda. Orion has, peaked back around. I know many of you have probably seen the, the Pleiades rising earlier in earlier in the evenings.

00;04;55;29 - 00;05;12;16
Roo
And sure enough, Orion's coming up now. You know, if you stay up late enough, I should say get up early enough early, because it's still going to be, you know, a month or two before he's coming up, early enough to where you'd start imaging at the beginning of the night and then, taking them on later.

00;05;12;16 - 00;05;38;03
Roo
But, you know, with those cooler conditions and overall better weather, we tend to get more nights of imaging. I don't know if that disappoints me that we don't get the cooler weather while the core of the Milky Way is out. But I suppose it just makes it that much more special when you do get one of those, you know, really good nights during the summertime.

00;05;38;03 - 00;06;11;24
Roo
But summertime is ending. We did do early on. We did an episode called The Seasons of Astronomy, and it was really one of my favorites to talk about, just because, I love, love, love, love watching constellations come back around again. And whenever I first got into astronomy, I didn't understand how it all worked. And I didn't realize that you could only see, you know, certain stars at certain, you know, times of the year, you know, had I thought about it logically, I yeah, I would have figured it out.

00;06;11;24 - 00;06;33;28
Roo
But, you know, I didn't because it just never occurred to me to really think about it. I used to think it was crazy to even, you know, be able to recognize one constellation. I would just look up and be like, yeah, it's a bunch of stars. But, you know, now, here we are, five, almost six years later into this hobby, and I can recognize the vast majority of the major constellations.

00;06;33;28 - 00;06;58;17
Roo
And, I just, I love seeing them come back around, so. Yeah. Taurus. Aldebaran. Obviously Orion, like we talked about, it brings a whole host of, nebulae that have been, you know, either not necessarily gone, but not in a great area for imaging. Obviously, we already talked about Andromeda. We've got the rosette Nebula is coming back around.

00;06;58;17 - 00;07;31;16
Roo
The Pleiades is a great target, for reflection nebula. Very, very bright one. And then obviously the the heart Nebula and Soul Nebula, and that has actually been the, the project that I've been working on. So the Heart Nebula has always been one of my favorites, as I'm sure it is yours. And to me, the Heart Nebula is a really, really good test of how much you're improving year over year as an astrophotographer.

00;07;31;19 - 00;08;07;04
Roo
I can look back, over the last five years of my images, and I always get at least one shot at the Heart Nebula each year. And you can see distinct changes and improvements from each year to the next. When I look at that photo, specifically, you know, with something like Orion, I suppose you could say the same thing, but Orion's a little bit trickier because it's just it's so bright that you know, really with just a single exposure, you can get a pretty darn good shot of Orion.

00;08;07;04 - 00;08;37;00
Roo
I mean, I've seen plenty of, you know, one three minute exposure. Heck, 1/62 exposure of Orion. That looks fantastic. But the hard nebula, it's it's a little bit deceptive because when when you get that first sub that comes in, you can see the outline of the heart faintly, and you notice the cluster and the center, and you know, some other, you know, very standout ish type things in the nebula.

00;08;37;00 - 00;09;02;20
Roo
But the more time that you sink into it, the more faint details come out. Like, I noticed there's a little, what I believe is like a doubly ionized oxygen patch at the kind of bottom left hand side of the heart. If you're in the northern hemisphere, it's upside down, obviously, but if you were looking at it as a heart, right in the bottom left corner, there's a little, little blue area there.

00;09;02;22 - 00;09;29;20
Roo
That came up last time I was imaging it. So I, teased on the last time we talked that I am reviewing a new filter. So. Sorry. I didn't mean to bump the mic. There. I've got, friends over at Leviathan Optical, and we've been talking, for quite a while, and they actually sent me over a review unit of their new filter.

00;09;29;22 - 00;09;57;05
Roo
I was really excited to try it out because it's what they call a next generation light pollution filter. And it's it's great for a lot of different reasons. But for me in particular, living in Bortles seven and nearly eight light pollution is, you know, a problem for me that that I always have to deal with. And I love making dark sky trips.

00;09;57;05 - 00;10;20;19
Roo
But the reality is I can't go on a dark sky trip. You know every time that we get clear skies outside and I still want to be able to work and having, a good light pollution filter can make a huge difference. And up until now, I have been a big fan of the El Faro because I've gotten pretty good results with it all things considered.

00;10;20;19 - 00;10;45;04
Roo
And, you know, it does the job. I actually, I own two El pros. I own a, 1.25in one that I've used successfully with my two, nine, four and five, eight, five. And then I also have a, clip in one for my canon, R5 or R7, depending on what I feel like shooting. Actually, I don't know if it would go into the R7 because the R7 is Aps-c, but it is the same mount.

00;10;45;04 - 00;11;12;11
Roo
It's an RF mount, and I think it's the mount that matters with those. I'll check on that later and let you know. But there are a couple of things about the L pro, that aren't great. Predominantly the halos that it gives off. So if you don't know, and you probably do if you've ever used, an L pro or like most light pollution filters and oftentimes narrowband filters, it just depends.

00;11;12;11 - 00;11;39;19
Roo
It can be a real problem. Halos when you're imaging and these are basically you know, really bright, circles of light around the star that really shouldn't be there. But the stars are just so bright that the it's still comes through anyway. And you see this a lot with the, really narrowband, filters as well. I'm not going to sit here and go through which brands have halos and which ones don't.

00;11;39;19 - 00;12;04;20
Roo
I don't see any, value add in doing that. But you probably know that some are, you know, more often associated with halos than others. So, one of the first things that I noticed about this filter was I was not getting, any halos. And that was really, really exciting. I noticed that on, like, the first sub that came through.

00;12;04;23 - 00;12;38;02
Roo
So let me back up a little bit. So I got it in the mail. And it took quite a while to get it because he actually, was shipping, I believe from Ireland, if I'm not mistaken. Either that or the UK. Forgive me, if you're listening. And I got that wrong. But as you know, we've got issues with tariffs right now, etc., etc. and even though it was a clearly marked review unit, they still tried to charge me, some god awful amount of money for the review unit just to come to me.

00;12;38;04 - 00;12;59;21
Roo
I obviously I'm not going to pay to have your products on those people who were, kind of skeezy get paid to review products, but I'm not going to, you know what I mean? Pay to review a product. In any case, he worked with, the carrier and managed to get it through. So I was super excited when it came through, but I was really, really busy.

00;12;59;22 - 00;13;22;02
Roo
Had to wait a couple of weeks before I could actually use it. So I had the, AM3 set up, which I've been using all the time. God, I love that that now. And I'm just going to say, like harmonic drive mounts in general are just so great. They're so lightweight. And especially if you've got like, one of the carbon fiber tripods that goes with it.

00;13;22;02 - 00;13;50;21
Roo
Or if you're like me and you have a pure set up, it's like it's so easy to work with, particularly if it's a lightweight rig that you're running. Like, for me, I use the Asscher, SKA 55 on it, predominantly. So I put my, 294 MK Pro on the Asscher scar, 55 on the Am three, and I have a, filter drawer on that particular rig.

00;13;50;21 - 00;14;10;18
Roo
I mean, I got filter drawers on all my rigs, but I, I went to go install this in my filter drawer, and I was actually really worried for a moment because it's the two inch mounted version. And it is a little bit thicker in terms of its, you know, actual thickness, than any of the other filters that I had.

00;14;10;20 - 00;14;29;02
Roo
And when I went to go put it in, it actually wasn't going in. And I was like, oh no, oh no. Because I was so looking forward, to using this new filter. But I sat down and turned some better lights on and started kind of looking more closely, and I realized that I just didn't have a proper angle on it.

00;14;29;02 - 00;14;50;06
Roo
So it does fit perfectly fine in my, zwo filter drawer. I also tested it and my SV bani, my newer filter drawer, and it fits there as well. So that's good news. The filter itself, it comes nicely packaged. Just like you would get something like an old pro. It comes in its own, you know, plastic carrying case with foam inserts.

00;14;50;06 - 00;15;07;25
Roo
It's got a very nicely, I don't know if it's laser etching how they do that, but it's got, you know, Leviathan Spectral Pro written on the side of it. So you can easily tell which filter it is that you're dealing with. And yeah, it's it's the quality as far as the build is concerned is very good.

00;15;07;25 - 00;15;38;22
Roo
So obviously this is a new company. It's a small company. So it's important that they really nail things like build quality because, you know, it's, it's an expensive filter. We'll, we'll get to the price later. I'm not going to lie to you guys. It is definitely a pricey filter, but they're not really aiming this filter at, you know, people who just got into astrophotography and are paying 100 bucks for, you know, SD Bonior, a zwo, dual band filter.

00;15;38;22 - 00;16;04;23
Roo
That's that's not who this is aimed at. This is aimed at, like observatories or people who take their astrophotography very seriously that have already spent, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars on their rigs. And, you know, I would think, that a lot of folks who use one shot color, obviously, one shot color with the light pollution filter is generally what you'll see.

00;16;04;25 - 00;16;07;15
Roo


00;16;07;17 - 00;16;56;04
Roo
You know, some of us don't like to go mono, and that's me right now. I just I get it, but after using this filter, I actually had somebody comment when I posted the photo and they said, if you can get results like this with a one shot color, why would you even bother messing with mono? And when you think about having to buy, you know, entire sets of filters like RGB, etc. and that's not even, you know, talking about if you want to get like, oxygen and all the others, hey, at any in any case, I'm rambling now, a lot of filters for one mono rig can easily add up to

00;16;56;04 - 00;17;16;20
Roo
being a lot of money, and I probably don't need to tell you that if you have a mono rig. Another thing that that this, kind of sets it apart from other, filters is that it's made for a fast optical system, so it'll work with your regular f 5.6, you know, double it telescope like I have.

00;17;16;23 - 00;17;46;08
Roo
But it can also work with up to f two lenses. So if you've got a wrasse, if you've got a hyper star, if you've got, rokinon 135 or an F2 Astra RAF in general, it is designed to work with an F2 system. And that is a distinction that is worth mentioning because a lot of filters can't work at F2, or they will have lots of, you know, really bad, artifacts and what have you halos, etc..

00;17;46;10 - 00;18;13;08
Roo
Or they just won't work with an F2 system. I had issues originally with my rokinon 135 and whenever I went to go buy my l'extreme, which was, I want to say close to $400, I know it was over 300 when I had to purchase it or when I did purchase it. It was because the, original Pro that I had didn't work well with Rokinon at F2.

00;18;13;09 - 00;18;51;05
Roo
So, overall, I'm just going to basically sum it up for you. It's phenomenal. So I imaged, the heart nebula overnight one night, which is something that I have done countless times with my old pro and I got results, that are head and shoulders above what I was able to get with my Oprah. And I will post, both my L pro and my Leviathan Spectral Pro images of the heart Nebula, and you can judge for yourself.

00;18;51;05 - 00;19;14;06
Roo
Now, I will give you the caveat that obviously I have gotten better at processing over the years, just like I talked about earlier in the episode, you get better and better each and every year. I don't have the time to I frankly, I don't have the skies to, do individual subframe test with each and every filter that I have.

00;19;14;12 - 00;19;35;07
Roo
But I am happy to show, you know, the final result of a six hour night with an L pro and a six hour night with the Leviathan Spectral Pro. So I'll post both of those on the Facebook page if you'd like to check them out. And I think I will make, the newer Heart Nebula photo, the, the background for this episode.

00;19;35;07 - 00;20;07;27
Roo
So if you're on like, Spotify or what have you, you should be able to see it for the, cover artwork. So, yeah, it's it's pretty incredible. It has what they say is a measured and verified 98% transmission rate, and it maintains above 95% even at F2, which is very, very difficult to do. And I've seen some filters claim to have those kinds of numbers, but rarely can they actually prove it.

00;20;08;00 - 00;20;32;01
Roo
Leviathan has actually done the lab work to back it up. I'm a results speak for themselves kind of guy and man, oh, man, I'm just I'm really blown away with how well, how well it worked. So the rest of the project, before I send the filter back after my review is over, I'm going to also image the Soul Nebula.

00;20;32;01 - 00;20;52;16
Roo
Because what I'd like to do is a mosaic that combines both the heart and the soul. I've always wanted to do that. My mother has always wanted one of my prints, and I haven't found the right one to give her yet. And I think that is the right one to give her. So once I finish that up, I will be sending it back in.

00;20;52;16 - 00;21;19;05
Roo
And, like I say, no, favors or money or anything like that changed hands. I just thought it was very nice of him to send me such a high quality piece that he clearly worked so very hard for, as a small business owner. And let me review it. So, big, big thank you, to Leviathan Optical and James in particular, because he's the guy I've been talking with, and I'm pretty sure it's just his company.

00;21;19;05 - 00;21;40;16
Roo
I don't think he has a whole lot of people involved. I'm sure he's got some people involved. But he's clearly put a lot of his blood, sweat and tears into this project. And, yeah, it's it's an awesome filter. So he's done a phenomenal job. I'll be curious to see what other people, think of this particular filter.

00;21;40;18 - 00;22;09;04
Roo
As far as pricing goes, it's a little bit crazy right now because obviously a high end filter is already expensive. But unfortunately with the tariffs, the way that they are, the pricing is significantly more than it would otherwise be. So it basically for us customers, it starts at 695 and goes all the way up to 998.

00;22;09;05 - 00;22;30;09
Roo
Now I will tell you that does include all of the tariff costs. So you're not going to like, pay an extra, you know, $400 when it shows up at your door for 50% tariffs or whatever the number is. That's decided on the particular week that you may order it. And like I said before, I know that's a lot of money.

00;22;30;12 - 00;22;53;13
Roo
It's it's not for everyone. You know, this is not something that I don't. Honestly, I'll be honest, I don't think the average astrophotographer will buy this. But if you're a person who loves one shot color like I do, and you live in heavily light polluted areas, and you want the best that you can get, this is the filter for you.

00;22;53;13 - 00;23;15;26
Roo
So I think with that being said, it's a good value. So, you know, things can be expensive and still be a good value. And I think that's definitely the case here. Now, could that price come down on the future? Yeah, of course it could. If the tariffs change, if he gets enough orders for the first batch, obviously that could lower production cost for the next, etc., etc..

00;23;15;28 - 00;23;45;29
Roo
So if you are someone who is interested in things like this, I would highly, highly recommend that you, you know, check out their page at shop Dot or I'm sorry, just Leviathan optical.com. If you go there, you'll be able to, you know, find the filter and everything else. They actually have some other products, that are really geared at, you know, the, the more scientific side of the astronomy community from what I was saying, they have a, desktop spectrometer, which is really cool.

00;23;45;29 - 00;24;18;17
Roo
And then a, 350 to 700 nanometer reconfigurable reconfigurable spectrometer as well. So, definitely a really cool up and coming company. I can't wait to see what else they come out with. James, thank you again for, sending this unit out to me for review. It really means a lot that, you were the first person to send something over to me so that that's really special, because, you know, I've got partnerships with High Point and Agena and first light optics.

00;24;18;18 - 00;24;45;15
Roo
We'll get to that later. But I haven't had a whole lot of people, you know, throwing your at me yet and saying, you know, try this out and let me know what you think. So, the actual image though of the heart Nebula is, is really breathtaking. So in pix insight I ended up going with like a Hubble palette kind of feel with the, you know, the golden to rust colored reds for the hydrogen alpha.

00;24;45;18 - 00;25;11;07
Roo
And then I really tried to lean on the blue colors, for the center of the heart Nebula. The stars are just just perfect. And that was one of the big differentiators for me, because I had had a lot of, bad halos with my elbow. I mean, really, what I would do is I would shoot all of my, either broadband or narrowband.

00;25;11;07 - 00;25;39;06
Roo
If I'm doing dual narrowband data, and then I would pull out my filter and pop in just a regular uvi air filter and get 2 or 3 subs with just the stars at three minutes each. And then I would, obviously separate those, by doing, you know, star extraction and then layer them back on. But this, saves me from having to do that because I don't have to worry about, separating the stars because they actually came out perfect.

00;25;39;08 - 00;26;03;02
Roo
With the broadband filter, you know, another thing, and don't ask me how it works. Maybe I'll have James on the show to explain it to me one day. You know, that's actually not a bad date. Bad idea. Maybe we will do that soon, James. But, it apparently is able to block the dominant L.E.D. and obviously sodium, light pollution bands, which is really impressive.

00;26;03;04 - 00;26;30;00
Roo
I know LEDs are getting worse and worse, and all of our cities and, you know, LED broadband light is really, really difficult to deal with. Don't ask me how they do it. It might be voodoo, for all I know, but they definitely did it. And then, like I say, you can see it. I'll also, like I say, I'll post that photo in the show notes and I'll post it to the Astro Cast Facebook page so you guys can check it out if you're interested.

00;26;30;03 - 00;26;55;27
Roo
And, let me know what you think. I actually got on the photo itself. There's this, like, streak of hydrogen alpha that comes off the, the top right part of the heart if you have it flipped right side up, obviously, to look like a heart. And I had never gotten that before on any of my images, so that was really cool because, I mean, I faintly gotten it, but I didn't really get definition in it and really bring it out.

00;26;55;29 - 00;27;21;23
Roo
And, I was able to bring out everything in this image. And with just six hours, which is crazy, like, you know, if I went just in with this filter and, put, you know, 50 hours on it, I can't imagine what those results would be like. And again, I'm using a two, nine, four. So if you had like a a 2600 MK Pro, you could even get more, even more impressive results.

00;27;21;25 - 00;27;48;04
Roo
So I highly, highly recommend checking it out. Like I say, not for everyone. Definitely expensive, but if you want like the best of the best for light pollution filters, I'm going to go ahead and say leviathan's got it. Got it in spades. In other news, I've, still been working on the C8 and I've learned a few things along the way.

00;27;48;07 - 00;28;16;26
Roo
I have learned first and foremost that a ASI one 20 millimeter mini is not the guide cam to use with the C8 that, the sensor on it is just so insanely small that you can only see 2 or 3 stars in the image, and they very quickly move out of frame, even when you have tracking on that is just it's way too zoomed in.

00;28;16;28 - 00;28;45;25
Roo
I don't know what the, the crop factor is on something like a 120 mini, but it's got to be above five x and, already imaging at what, 1200 millimeters? That brings you up to, just, insurmountable high focal length, effective focal length, I should say. So I started looking into options for things that would work better without having to replace, the off axis guider that I purchase.

00;28;45;25 - 00;29;14;26
Roo
So I bought the Zwo regular off axis guider. They also offered a large model. And then Celestron also sells their own off axis guider, which you can purchase. I found a really great video on, YouTube that goes over, guide scopes and their sensor sizes. And the guy actually uses, detailed imaging to show you how much of the scope takes up, how much of the sensor.

00;29;15;02 - 00;29;44;09
Roo
And he basically list all the popular EEGs, along with all of the popular guide cameras that go with them. And what I found was the one that you actually want is the AC 174. Mini camera. It's got a, a significantly larger sensor than what the the 120 does. And therefore it's just a lot more capable.

00;29;44;17 - 00;30;16;29
Roo
I mean, you can just look at the sensor and tell that it's, you know, easily it's a one. And I never know how to pronounce this, but one, 1.2in filter. One I don't know how you say that half point to, I don't know. But anyway, significantly larger sensor size than what the 120 has. But the only issue is it's $499 right now, which is, you know, a really large amount of money, for a guide camera.

00;30;17;01 - 00;30;45;07
Roo
I also saw the ASI 220. Many which does have, you know, a larger sensor than the 120, but it's not hugely larger like the 174 is. I'd be curious to hear from any of you guys to any of you out there, have a C8 with an off axis guider, perhaps the zwo one, and if so, what kind of camera do you use for your guiding?

00;30;45;10 - 00;31;06;00
Roo
Because, you know, if I have to, I will. I will spend that money on the 174. But if I could get something a little bit more affordable, obviously I would, love to do that. With all the tariffs and everything, as pricing is already gone up as we know. So, you know, paying 500 bucks for a guide camera is, kind of a hard pillow pill to swallow.

00;31;06;00 - 00;31;29;22
Roo
But, you know, then again, nothing in, astrophotography is cheap, as we know. So beyond that, I also, I got the, the Bob's knobs in the mail for collimation. I found a really great video that I think it was a Luka Magico video. I could be wrong, but I found a great video that, goes over collimation.

00;31;29;24 - 00;31;54;22
Roo
But it kind of left out a lot of the really practical details. I guess you could say about, collimation and, I actually, I think I had mentioned it on the show, and after I did, a friend of the show and member of the Patreon, Nate Nathan, he actually wrote up a collimation guide for me and sent it my way.

00;31;54;22 - 00;32;14;06
Roo
So I just wanted to, send a shout out and a thank you to you. Thank you so much for doing that. It's incredibly helpful. I know you said you're still working on it. I would love to share it with the, the listeners of the show so they can also benefit from it. So I won't post it yet, because I know that you said you're still working on it, but please let me know.

00;32;14;09 - 00;32;46;25
Roo
When you are done with it, you know, in no rush, obviously, but when you are done, let me know and I'll mention it again on the show and make sure, that I link it out. So everybody can have a look, because it is a, a very well written guide that really goes over the practical benefits. I think so many times I'll look up how to do something on astrophotography and just immediately jargon and theory and yada yada yada, and none of it's like practical, you know, put this there and do that.

00;32;47;01 - 00;33;11;14
Roo
Oh, which is, which is really what I personally like. I like straightforward, easy to understand instructions. And I think, I don't know, we, we tend to, live or be in a community that some people like to keep with. And I personally don't appreciate that. It's not to say that I've never, you know, said anything snooty myself about astrophotography.

00;33;11;14 - 00;33;39;25
Roo
God knows, I probably have. But I do my best to try to remember that not everybody knows every single thing about this hobby. I will say in our discord, we have multiple members in there that are way more talented than me, and no way more than I ever will, about astrophotography. And, I just really appreciate that having them around to answer, you know, the kind of questions that come up on a regular basis.

00;33;39;28 - 00;34;01;15
Roo
And obviously I pitch in whenever I can as well, with a little bit of knowledge that, that I have been able to retain. Now, one thing he did mention that I will share is he said to forget about using the ZM 26, for trying to do, you know, guiding, auto guiding whatever you want to say.

00;34;01;17 - 00;34;35;19
Roo
With the C8 and I kind of figured that was going to be the case, but I had it, you know, obviously set up on the pier and I had the metal plate already drilled for it and all these sorts of things. So I had hoped that I would be able, to use the C 26 because, you know, if I was able to do that, I would just essentially leave the C8 on my pier, and then I could use that whenever I want to do, to do a little bit of planetary work or, you know, if I wanted to, you know, in galaxy seas and really zoom in on something and have a

00;34;35;19 - 00;35;00;09
Roo
look. And then I could use my AM3 right beside it on the zwo tripod or, you know, who knows, maybe I'll pour another beer. And, you know, have the two with, you know, vastly different capabilities, working hand in hand. That said, obviously I can put the Widefield refractor on the CSM 26, and it can handle it.

00;35;00;10 - 00;35;42;01
Roo
No problem. But that brings me to something else I've been thinking about. With this past summer and all the light pollution that we had are not light pollution. I'm sorry. Bad weather that we had. Plus all the light pollution that we have here in Charlotte, behind our, neighborhood right now, they're actually building this new mega development that really has no business going in in this area of town, because literally within ten minutes of my house, you can get to pretty much anything you would ever need.

00;35;42;04 - 00;36;09;03
Roo
Be it entertainment, food, products, whatever it is that you need. And Matthews, North Carolina, you can get to it in about ten minutes, but whatever. They're building more, office space and retail space and then apartments as well. And this area that is, you know, pretty much right behind our neighborhood. And because of that, I am very, very worried that the light pollution is going to get significantly worse than it already is.

00;36;09;05 - 00;36;41;20
Roo
And it's bad already. So I've been thinking about potentially sending one of my rigs down to a remote observatory. Now that I've got a few mounts that I'm able to use, I've got an AM3, chem 26, obviously, I've got the move, shoot, move. I've got the, the GTI, I've got a, Scott IOP, Tron, sky Guider pro.

00;36;41;22 - 00;37;03;17
Roo
I got, what, five mounts in total. If you count the move, shoot, move as a mount. And it is a mount. It's a tiny mount, but it's a mount. It can handle a camera. The main thing is, I have the, you know, the GTI that I can use for the refractor. I've got the AM3 that I can use for the CSM or.

00;37;03;17 - 00;37;33;04
Roo
I'm sorry, not see M26, the C8, And then I've got the move, shoot, move for my Widefield stuff like Milky Way shots. So I was thinking I could potentially send one of those mounts, and I've been debating which one I would send. And I think I would have to research it a little bit because I, I know in my heart that the M3 would be the one that you would want to send down because they're easy.

00;37;33;04 - 00;38;01;18
Roo
They're reliable, etc., etc. but I love the M3 and I'd love to have that here with me, especially with the nice tripod that I have. I don't know if it would make sense to send the guy down with the ACR. Ska 55. I don't see any reason why I couldn't do it. I have certainly, looked at some videos of star front observatories down in Texas.

00;38;01;21 - 00;38;26;04
Roo
They're probably, I guess you'd say the most famous one. There are other, observatories that you can ship your gear to, but they're the most affordable and most well known. I would say, considering they just opened, like their 20th building or something along those lines. And you see a lot of different mounts whenever you watch, the most recent video that Bray put up, I believe his name is Bray.

00;38;26;06 - 00;38;54;24
Roo
I watched it just the other day, and lots of non harmonic drive mounts down there, so I don't think it would be out of the question to send something like the CM 26 or the, you know, GTI with a wide field refractor. There. You know, the benefits are obvious. You get you know portal one skies, you've got the vast majority of the year is clear skies because of the area that it's in.

00;38;54;27 - 00;39;24;15
Roo
The downside is, you know, you lose a little piece of the soul of the astrophotography, in my opinion. But again, now that I'm several years into this hobby and I've got several telescopes and several mounts, I ask myself, would it be worth letting go of one of those rigs physically? To be able to get that really great data on a very consistent basis.

00;39;24;18 - 00;39;46;05
Roo
And I'm leaning towards, yes, especially at 149 a month for the mini period, which is all I would need for for the ACR. That's definitely, the, the rig that I would send down now as far as which mount, I haven't decided that, but the scope would without a doubt be the NASCAR, just because it's the highest quality telescope that I have.

00;39;46;08 - 00;40;07;23
Roo
And if you're going to be under water one skies, you might as well have high quality. Now, there are other questions that I ask myself, like, what filter would I install on the rig? Would I just go for broadband? I mean, portal one skies. I figure I would probably just go broadband, but what I maybe want to occasionally do dual narrowband even under portal one skies.

00;40;07;23 - 00;40;24;17
Roo
I would imagine if I had access to clear skies more than 300 nights a year or whatever it is down there. I'd probably want to do some dual narrowband stuff too. And, I don't know. I mean, I suppose you could probably ask them to slide, filter draw in for you. And they would they would do that for you.

00;40;24;17 - 00;40;45;18
Roo
But, you know, little questions like that. I don't want to install a filter wheel on that rig just because it seems like overkill to me. But then again, you know, if you're sending it down remotely, you're going to need to be able to take darks and having a, you know, a filter wheel with a dark cap and it can save you a lot of pain whenever you need to do that.

00;40;45;21 - 00;41;10;19
Roo
And I also would need to figure out, my flats situation. I was looking on their website and they said, what is Astro? Dad is the company. I think anyway, they make flat caps for rigs, and those are pretty much the only ones they accept if I read correctly. But a lot of people just do Sky flats there, which is obviously something you can do because they always have the buildings open as long as the, the weather is okay.

00;41;10;19 - 00;41;36;01
Roo
So it's definitely been on my mind. I think I'm going to do it, but I'm not 100% certain yet. I'd like to know if any of you guys have done it. Have any of you, sent one of your rigs down to Texas? Under portal one skies? I think it would be an excellent road trip, too, because I know a lot of people hand-deliver their scopes for obvious reasons.

00;41;36;03 - 00;41;54;17
Roo
I talked to Justin on the show a couple months back, and he had some damage during shipping when he shipped one of his scopes, obviously. That's something that I would be terrified of. And more than likely, if I did decide to do this, I would take a few days off of work and drive it down myself.

00;41;54;20 - 00;42;18;27
Roo
I realize Texas is a very, very far drive, from Charlotte, North Carolina, but I'm always down for a nice road trip, so I'm sure I could make that work. But yeah, if any of you guys have actual experience with sending your scope down, please let me know. Send me an email at Ru Astro cast at gmail.com and tell me all about it.

00;42;18;29 - 00;42;42;10
Roo
I would certainly be interested in hearing what your experiences. Are you getting a lot of data now? I hear some people say when they have access to a remote observatory on their portal one skies, that they end up with more data than they know what to do with. Which I could definitely see being the case, especially, you know, if you fully automated.

00;42;42;10 - 00;43;24;05
Roo
Because obviously, if I sent it down, I would not send it with an ACR. So this is another thing that I've been, pondering quite a bit lately. I think I'm gonna go back to Nina, because I don't I don't know what it is, but I've had some weird issues with my ACR lately. Like, for example, when I first got my M3, I was regular, regularly getting 0.3 and point four, guiding and they took an update and then it jumped up to, you know, over one on a pretty regular basis, and it goes back down to .3.4.

00;43;24;05 - 00;43;47;07
Roo
And I'm like, what is going on? Because I always nail my, polar alignment. And then, you know, there's little issues like that. Obviously the ACA can be a little bit buggy, Nina being open source and it's been in development a lot longer. It just gives you more flexibility, particularly if you want to set up plans to run night after night after night.

00;43;47;09 - 00;44;11;19
Roo
That's something that would be highly valuable in a situation like that. And if I were going to do that, I would need to get a basically a mini PC, that you remote into from your home computer. And they, they help you do all that, set it all up, down at the remote observatory. And I realize I keep saying remote observatory.

00;44;11;19 - 00;44;40;14
Roo
I'm talking about star front whenever I'm, discussing this possibility, because I probably wouldn't be willing or able to spend more than $150 a month, to rent up here, I think. I think they have excellent value. 150 a month is very good to get access to portal one skies year round. And I understand they got to the level of volume now that they were able to cut the price of their largest peer that you can rent in half.

00;44;40;14 - 00;45;05;01
Roo
So that went from like, I think it was like $800 a month to three, 99 a month. And that's for like your 96 inch swings. Like mega size, plane wave scopes and what have you. But for a smaller refractor, again, 149 is going to be, more more than enough for what I need to do, which is image wide field nebula.

00;45;05;04 - 00;45;28;26
Roo
So there is an additional charge if you want to do a piggyback. And it makes sense because it's a, you know, separate optical train. It's going to be taking up more resources, more energy, more bandwidth, etc.. And if they have to troubleshoot it, there's more troubleshooting that has to be done. But overall, like you really can't beat the value if you've got a C star, they'll do it for $99 a month for the S 30 or the S 50.

00;45;29;02 - 00;45;55;09
Roo
I couldn't imagine paying a monthly fee to send a smart telescope down to portal one skies, but I don't know. That's not me. I'm, I've. I've come around a little bit on them. I, I definitely appreciate, you know, why people buy them now. I got to see one in action not too long ago. And, you know, obviously, the image quality leaves something to be desired, in my opinion.

00;45;55;09 - 00;46;15;03
Roo
And then there's a lot of, mosaic thing that you have to do with the S50, for example. But, you know, to each their own. But yeah, it's definitely something I'm thinking about. And I'll let you guys know if I decide to pull the trigger on that. If I do, it'll probably be in the coming months.

00;46;15;03 - 00;46;34;25
Roo
I'd like to, you know, get it down there before winter is out. And, you know, honestly, if I did do that, that would give me a little bit more time to focus on the C8 and have more, you know, hands on work with that particular scope. Especially with, you know, Galaxy season in the spring, which will be here before you know it.

00;46;34;27 - 00;46;55;11
Roo
I definitely want to image some smaller galaxies and planetary nebula and all that kind of good stuff. If you have an ass, I want 74 mini that's just laying around, and, you know, you want to, sell it to me for a very fair price. Please hit me up on that. But I'll be I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for a good deal on one.

00;46;55;17 - 00;47;18;15
Roo
I know last year, Zwo had a really good sale, right before Christmas, where they had, like, some ridiculous deals. I want to say that 2600 was going for, like, 999. It was almost a third off, if I remember correctly. So maybe I'll get lucky and, you know, get something like that. I'm not in a rush, so we'll see what happens.

00;47;18;18 - 00;47;39;23
Roo
On another note, while I'm thinking about it, we had a another new member join the discord recently. I should say the Patreon recently and then jumped into the discord. I want to send a shout out and just a really big thank you, to Edward Kaplan for joining up. Thank you so much, Edward. It means a lot, to have you in there in the chat.

00;47;39;26 - 00;48;00;08
Roo
We're always so busy in there every day now, all day long. Just messages. Messages, messages. And I love it. I love peeking in in the morning. It's one of the first things I do is, when I'm waking up and, you know, rubbing the crust out of my eyes in the morning, I always pull up the, the discord and check to see who's asked what and what have you.

00;48;00;10 - 00;48;24;05
Roo
Also shout out to Kelly. I saw that you got your your guiding working and you had some really great images. You've come so, so far. I know that you still have a little bit to learn in terms of pix insight, and we are going to get there. I'm sorry I haven't done it yet. I'm an extremely busy person who works a full time job and does my absolute best to recording this episode every week.

00;48;24;08 - 00;48;53;10
Roo
So I'm sorry if I can't jump right to it, but we're definitely going to do that one evening soon. And we'll do a little, tutorial session, for how to learn pix insight. So that will be coming as well. And if any of you guys are interested and, you know, chatting with us or learning a thing or two or have questions about astrophotography and you're new to the hobby, please feel free, to join up on the Patreon, you can go to Patreon.com forward, slash the Astro cast.

00;48;53;10 - 00;49;16;17
Roo
And I check that every single day. Usually a couple times a day just to make sure I haven't missed anyone. So generally, you know, within a few hours, I will send you the link to the discord. I think the longest I've gone recently, was Edward, actually, he messaged me, the night before, right after I went to sleep, and I saw it the next morning and sent him the link right away.

00;49;16;17 - 00;49;45;13
Roo
So, if you'd like to join up with us, please do that. We would certainly love to have you. One other thing. That's been in the astronomical news that you may have heard about, is this new comet, the new swan comet, which is, 2025 R2 Swan. It was actually, discovered not too long ago by an amateur who was flipping through, images that Swan had captured.

00;49;45;15 - 00;50;07;16
Roo
And it has been, seen by quite a few amateurs in the southern hemisphere. But those of us in the northern hemisphere obviously have not been able to see it. So the comet, made its perihelion, which is obviously the closest approach to the sun, on September 12th, which was just, you know, ten days ago.

00;50;07;18 - 00;50;37;07
Roo
And it is now approaching Earth and in the Northern Hemisphere. We do have a chance to see this, next month, in October. So probably towards the later part of the month. Some estimates put it around October 21st. The brightness, though, I've seen some kind of different ranges, but the general consensus seems to put it around magnitude 6 or 7.

00;50;37;07 - 00;51;04;10
Roo
So, you know, depending on where that lands, if you're in perfect sky, well, not light polluted. Sky's magnitude 6.5 is generally about as much as the naked eye can see. And I believe it was at magnitude seven, before perihelion, when it was observed in the southern hemisphere. So it may be visible to us, in late October.

00;51;04;12 - 00;51;25;23
Roo
It's definitely worth keeping an eye on. And, mind you, even if it is, magnitude 6.5 or 7 and you can't see it with the naked eye, that doesn't mean it won't be a really cool object to image or check out with binoculars. If something isn't visible to the naked eye, a lot of times with binoculars, you can bring it right into view.

00;51;25;23 - 00;51;55;22
Roo
I mean, I can see Andromeda from my incredibly, light polluted skies with my, Celestron binoculars. I love doing that, seeing if I can, find the faint little fuzzy patch that is Andromeda from my portal seven skies. And it is doable, so definitely worth, keeping an eye on. Swann has made just so many discoveries over the years of different comets and, just yet another one, that we hope will get brighter and brighter.

00;51;55;22 - 00;52;16;21
Roo
But, you know, realistically speaking, this probably, you know, I'm just going to say it, it's not going to be a Neowise or even, like, see, 2023 A3 last year that we had, in 2024, that actually just popped up on my memories the other day. The photo that I was able to get. Now, that was a pretty cool comet.

00;52;16;23 - 00;52;38;28
Roo
It wasn't quite Neowise great, obviously. But it was naked eye visible and anytime you can see a comet with the naked eye, there is something really special about that. So I wasn't able to go out to, like, you know, a portal 2 or 3, but I was able to go out to relatively dark skies, like a board or five, and view that comet.

00;52;38;28 - 00;52;56;09
Roo
And we were able to easily see it with the naked eye. The, the best night that we were able to see it. And the other nights, I was able to find it with binoculars. No problem. So definitely keep an eye out for that. If it comes in is high enough in the sky where I can image it.

00;52;56;13 - 00;53;17;10
Roo
I would definitely love to get a photo of it. Comet photos are so, so cool. In astrophotography, particularly when they're close enough where you can, you know, get the tail and everything, that's really, fun to do. I know that with C 2023 A3, I got some of well, not some of I got my best comet photos that I've ever gotten.

00;53;17;13 - 00;53;37;28
Roo
I photo a lot. Lots of comets that are, you know, far away and or just green fuzzy specks basically, on my astrophotography rig. But whenever I can get one with a, like, a camera lens or even a track lens, like I used my, 135 rig on, the 2023 comet. And that came out really, really good.

00;53;37;28 - 00;53;53;05
Roo
I did, I think I did one with the 80 millimeter doublet as well. And that was like a really zoomed in view on it. And I didn't capture all of the tail, but I was able to frame it up in such a way where I got the vast majority of the comet. And that was really, really cool.

00;53;53;05 - 00;54;15;05
Roo
So I'm hoping we'll be able to see it. You know, even if it's a situation where we just see it with the binoculars. That would be super cool. We got some, other stuff coming up. Obviously, the Leonids are going to happen in November, and you never know with Leonids, they can always pop off. I don't know when the next, meteor storm is predicted to be with the Leonids.

00;54;15;05 - 00;54;32;13
Roo
I'll have to look that up because I know that, you know, every I don't know if it's like every 20 years or the Leonids. I know that I saw them back in 2002, and it blew my mind when I saw that as a young man. So if I ever get a chance to see him like that again, I would certainly love to, but.

00;54;32;15 - 00;54;49;19
Roo
Yeah, definitely. Keep your eyes peeled, for that new comet. And let me know if you're able to see it. All right, let me give a couple recommendations this week. I've got two for you. I'm going to get a little bit geeky with one of them, and then I'm going to go, Stephen King with the other, as I often do.

00;54;49;19 - 00;55;09;25
Roo
So, one of the books that I read, I want to say was last year, it might have been two years ago, the Institute by Stephen King. It was a really, really good book. I really enjoyed it. Just a great story. Stephen King, in my opinion, is the ultimate storyteller. He's just very good at it. Sometimes he doesn't stick the landings.

00;55;09;25 - 00;55;35;11
Roo
I agree with a good friend of mine on that. But the actual stories when when they're good, they're great. And the Institute was a really good story. So recently, MGM plus, and. Sorry, I know no one has MGM plus, they did a version of it. It's eight episodes long. And men just just finished watching it, and it was really, really good.

00;55;35;11 - 00;55;55;15
Roo
So definitely would recommend, that you give that a try, particularly if you read the book. I was talking to a buddy of mine who's also a big King fan, and we were talking about what would be great to make, a movie into. And I was like, man, why haven't they done Billy Summers yet? Like, that would be a fantastic movie.

00;55;55;18 - 00;56;20;05
Roo
If you never read Billy Summers, it's a Stephen King novel about a hitman, who basically has one last job to do. And it's it's a really great story, too, and that's one that they could definitely make a great movie up. But if you do want to watch the Institute, if you're an Amazon Prime customer, as I know many people are, you can go on Amazon Prime Video and it's an add on for that.

00;56;20;05 - 00;56;36;10
Roo
You pay like, you know, $5 a month or whatever, but I think you can get a free trial for it for like seven days. And if you just want to binge watch the show, it's only eight episodes, so you can watch it in a week. If you watch one every night, then you can get away without paying any extra to see it.

00;56;36;10 - 00;57;05;15
Roo
So definitely would recommend that. The other recommendation is something that's been taking up a lot of my free time. What little I do have, it's going to be Hollow Knight silksong. So this is a, metroid vanilla game. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it. But for those of you who do probably already know what Silksong is, but, Hollow Knight is a really great game that came out back in 2017, I believe.

00;57;05;15 - 00;57;26;18
Roo
And, shortly after they announced DLC, for one of the other characters that appeared in that game, called Hornet. And it kept developing and developing. And eventually they said, you know what? This DLC has gotten out of control. Or just going to give Hornet her own game. And then we heard nothing for like another year.

00;57;26;25 - 00;57;45;18
Roo
And then they said, it's going to be called Hollow Knight Silksong. And then we heard nothing again for like five years. Anyway, it took like eight years of development. And a lot of people thought it was never going to come out. But it finally came out and it's really, really good. I will say that the opening of the game is a bit tough.

00;57;45;20 - 00;58;05;27
Roo
I was like, man, am I, like, stuck in this area? I felt like I was just running in circles for hours at a time. But stick it out. After you get through that little opening section, with the first few areas, it really opens up, and then you start having fun. You get lots of new moves and movesets and, weapons and tools and all kinds of good stuff.

00;58;05;27 - 00;58;24;18
Roo
And it's really just been a real pleasure to play. I've I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm playing it on switch to because it's fun to be able to take it on the go or docket and play it on my gorgeous 85 inch TV, which I always love to do. And, it just it runs really well on switch too, as well.

00;58;24;18 - 00;58;46;05
Roo
So I don't need to worry about, you know, missing out on frame rates or anything like that. So you haven't checked out Silksong? I can definitely recommend it. So give that a try if you haven't already. And guys, I think that is, just about going to do it for this week. I, greatly appreciate you waiting it out for me.

00;58;46;05 - 00;59;04;01
Roo
I know that, last week was a little bit of a bust for us, and I do apologize for that. I do my absolute best to get this shot every week. But you know how it is. Life happens, and it happens to the best of us. But, thank you so much, for taking some time to listen to the astro cast this week.

00;59;04;04 - 00;59;21;22
Roo
I am your host, Roo. We will be back next week with another new episode. Until then, I hope that you have a great weather. And I hope that you're able to enjoy at least a little bit of this new moon. I've been quite lucky and had, several clear nights, and it looks like tonight might be clear to.

00;59;21;23 - 00;59;45;13
Roo
So I'll be, pulling out that AM3 and getting some more data on the heart and soul. So wish me luck with that. I will be back next week. Thank you so much for tuning into the Astro cast. And as always, clear Sky.

00;59;45;15 - 00;59;49;19
Roo
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