Episode 97 - Capturing Exoplanet Transits w/Jorik

  ✨ Agena Astro | 🔭 High Point Scientific | 📦 Amazon | 🌌 First Light Optics

Welcome BAAAACK to The Astrocast! This week, Roo recaps some of the preparations he is taking before setting off on a 4,000 mile round trip adventure to the darkest skies he has ever seen. Afterwards, he sits down with a new friend to talk about a VERY fascinating field, capturing exoplanet transits! Roo is extremely excited at the thought of capturing his own transit, and will definitely keep you posted on how his progress goes, as he makes it! If there's enough interest in this, I would consider doing a video episode going through all the steps!

Join the Astrocast Family! - Gain access to our members only Patreon, access to Astropeak Remote Observatory in the wide open Bortle 1 skies of Utah, and become friends with some of the best astronomers in the world!

Buy me a coffee if you enjoy the show!

A big shoutout to our newest 3 members of the Astrocast family, Jesse, Sean, and Dr. Dave! Thank you guys for joining the Patreon and the Discord, you've been a breath of fresh air!

Also, a big thank you to everyone who continues to use the affiliate links at the top of the post, if you use them when making any purchase through these vendors, you'll get the same great prices as always, but a small portion of the profits goes to benefit the Astrocast. Thanks so much for your support!

LINKS from this week's episode! 

The Swarthmore Transit Finder - Find a transit happening in a solar system "near" you tonight! 

How to observe exoplanets (part of the NASA Exoplanet Watch programme) - The how! Read this first, to get a better understanding! 

Information about EXOTIC (EXOplanet Transit Interpretation Code) - Definitely check this out.

The google form for EXOTIC advanced - You'll definitely need this!

Joriks Astrobin - WOW!!! I'm glad you did this, Jorik! Amazing images!

And here's Roo's Astrobin - though it definitely needs some more photos! That'll be coming this summer, for sure. 

As a reminder, I'll be ON THE ROAD from June 12-22nd, so episodes will be flakey during this period...but stay tuned, cause it's gonna be worth it when we get back!

Cover photo this week - credit to Acererak! Great image!

Transcript

00;00;29;03 - 00;00;36;15
Captain Cumulus
Eight.

00;00;36;18 - 00;00;50;06
Captain Cumulus
Two.

00;00;50;09 - 00;00;57;13
Roo
Welcome back to the Astrocast.

00;00;57;16 - 00;01;11;07
Roo
I'm your host, Roo. Today is Wednesday, May 27th 2026.

00;01;11;09 - 00;01;37;25
Roo
We have this waxing gibbous moon almost full. She's a 88% to be official today. I hope you've all been well. It's been a little weird these last few weeks, hasn't it? We've been going back and forth from video to audio to interviewed and Eve to back the fourth, and feels good to just sit down and say hello to everybody.

00;01;37;25 - 00;02;03;12
Roo
I hope you've been doing great in your lives. Whatever it is you've been up to here in the United States. We just finished up with Memorial Day weekend, which is it's a holiday to honor veterans that had passed away in war or otherwise, but it's oftentimes just used as an excuse for people to drink. So and it also is a three day weekend.

00;02;03;15 - 00;02;45;25
Roo
So that's nice. But thank you to all of those who have served both past and present. So I'm your host, Roo. Thank you for tuning in this week to the Astrocast. Got something really cool and special for you this week, I teased a couple of weeks ago. Or was it last week now I can't remember. I teased on the the promo for the episode that I was going to be talking with somebody soon who is going to tell you about an entirely new field of astronomy slash astrophotography that you can partake in with pretty much what you would call standard astrophotography tools.

00;02;45;25 - 00;03;16;04
Roo
So, you know, we'll get into all of the specifics on that when I sit down and talk with my guest today. But before we get there, I wanted to just catch you up on a few things that I have been working on. Long time listeners in the show probably know that I have been relentlessly preparing my remote rig for its trip to Utah next month, so next month is coming very, very soon.

00;03;16;04 - 00;03;43;00
Roo
I'm actually only three weeks away now from my trip out to Utah, and I found out the observatory is not actually going to be open yet when I arrived. That's unfortunate, but already have the time off, so I'm going to take advantage of it. I'm going to go out, I'm going to see those dark skies, and we'll hook up with Nathan while we're there, and I'll drop off my scope and hopefully everything will go off without a hitch.

00;03;43;00 - 00;04;12;00
Roo
Regardless, even if it takes a little bit longer to wrap things up. That's how it is with construction, unfortunately. You surely hope everything will go as planned, but without a doubt, at some point an inspector is going to say sorry, but you got to fix this, this, this net. Ask me how I know I got a housing unit built on to my home just a couple of years ago from my mother who retired and came to live with us.

00;04;12;01 - 00;04;38;06
Roo
And man, that was that was something else, man. It took us like two years to get a, you know, 500 square foot apartment added onto my house. And it was expensive and it took a lot of time. So I can't imagine with a commercial building that it's much easier. So. But that being said, I wanted to fill you guys in on some of the pretty cool stuff that I've been doing with my remote rig.

00;04;38;06 - 00;05;20;20
Roo
So hopefully you watched the episode where I sat down with Justin and Parrish, and we went over how to program Nina to basically be automated entirely by using the Advanced sequencer and the target scheduler plugin. And that's kind of what I've been working towards these past few weeks, is just making sure that that is running flawlessly, because ideally, after I get my scope up and running in Utah, I'd like to just plug in ten targets and say, send me my data, which is exactly what we've been working on.

00;05;20;26 - 00;05;59;16
Roo
But I also added a little bit of new hardware to the rig. So I think last time we spoke, I had the filter wheel installed. And let me tell you, when you when you go to put your filter wheel on, write down which filter you're putting in each of the bays. I know that sounds super obvious, like the course roo I'm going to write down which is which, but I didn't think about it whenever I went to go plug them into Nina, and I basically put the wrong filters in the wrong bays in Nina and I ended up.

00;05;59;18 - 00;06;28;12
Roo
I don't want to tell you how many hours I took with with the wrong filter. At least it wasn't the dark filter. So I do have usable data nonetheless. But anyway, pay attention. When you're doing things with your filter wheel. It will make life easier for you. So actually I have to take my filter wheel off, sometime this week and get my Leviathan Spectral Pro off of there, because that baby will be of no use where this telescope is going.

00;06;28;14 - 00;06;56;06
Roo
Luckily, we don't have any, well, very little light pollution to contend with out in Utah. There's going to be light pollution everywhere, but this is about as good as it gets in America. So I definitely will not be sending out the Spectral Pro. What I have been doing, though, is rebuilding my 135 rig, and I am planning to use the Spectral Pro specifically with that rig in the backyard.

00;06;56;11 - 00;07;28;19
Roo
But getting back to the remote rig, one of the other items that I added on, I actually added a couple of things since we last talked, I believe. So, you know, a few months back I recommended SP Boni sold a very good power box for about 50 bucks. You could pick it up on Amazon and everything. I found out they actually have a pro model of that too, which is a lot smarter in that it actually works with Nina.

00;07;28;22 - 00;07;53;24
Roo
It has more ports on it. They are addressable ports, which is hugely important, meaning you can turn them on and off remotely, including do heater ports so specific like CA jack plugs for your Do heaters and then a USB hub if you need extra USB ports. Luckily, my mini PC has like seven USB ports on it, so I think I'm good on that.

00;07;53;27 - 00;08;19;22
Roo
But nonetheless, I wanted to have something. Or I could address each power port, and it's kind of funny the way that it ended up working out because the Mount, the AM3, it's it won't be powered off the SV two for one Pro, the SP bony power box slash switch. I guess switch is what it actually is. That's what they call it a Nina.

00;08;19;25 - 00;08;38;18
Roo
And after talking it over with the discord, if you'd like to join the discord, by the way, you can go to Patreon.com for the Astro cats. We'd love to have you. Everybody seemed to agree that, like, the best bet was just to power the mount on its own. And then I started reading even more about it.

00;08;38;18 - 00;09;09;01
Roo
And a lot of folks power their many PC on its own. Now, I will say I've been running my mini PC off of the SV two for one Pro for a few weeks now with zero problems, so I don't think that I'm going to switch that up now because it seems to be working perfectly fine. And one thing I have learned about building remote rigs is when something is working perfectly fine, just leave it alone.

00;09;09;06 - 00;09;37;07
Roo
There's no need to overcomplicate it by buying more complicated things or changing things up at the last minute, because you think it might be a more clever way to connect. If it works, let it be. That's one thing that I have definitely learned. The other thing that I was able to add is a rotator. So I did end up going with this rotator just because mainly it was the most affordable one.

00;09;37;10 - 00;10;09;02
Roo
I strongly considered getting the Wander Astro model rotator. I understand it's even a little bit thinner, and it's profile than the Zwolle model is, but after finding a couple videos on YouTube where somebody was using the rotator with the skua 55 telescope without any issues, I was like, okay, this is the rotator for me, and it was at a price that I could afford.

00;10;09;02 - 00;10;47;27
Roo
So that pretty much sealed the deal on that. Now, in doing that, I kind of just broke my previous cardinal rule, which is if something works, don't mess with it. And adding a rotator, let me tell you, it definitely complicates things a bit because it gives you a lot more to think about in terms of calibration frames. For one thing, taking flat frames at the right angle is very important, particularly if you switch targets throughout the night, which with target scheduler being a thing, I will definitely be switching targets throughout the night here and there.

00;10;47;29 - 00;11;15;11
Roo
But what the reason I wanted to bring it up was because I initially had a lot of confusion in a really hard time just getting the basics for this rotator and Nina, because there wasn't a very good set of instructions that came with it. For Anita, they expect you to use it with the Acir, and that's understandable because that's what they make.

00;11;15;14 - 00;11;38;06
Roo
But it does have everything that you need as far as like Askham drivers and what have you to work in. Nina, I just didn't have clear instructions for how to like set the zero on it, for example. So I knew exactly where I was going. So every time it would rotate, it would go this way and that way, and sometimes it would finish spin a full circle, and sometimes it would go in the opposite direction.

00;11;38;06 - 00;12;13;06
Roo
And I just, I couldn't make sense of it because I'm like, this doesn't make sense. So after searching for a while, I finally found a YouTube video where somebody perfectly explains how the rotator works and how to set it up. Long story short, there's a configure button that you need to press in Nina on the rotator page, and from there, there is a button inside that menu that allows you to reset to default, and that essentially takes it to its zero position wherever it currently is.

00;12;13;06 - 00;12;43;18
Roo
So you basically line it up in the position that you want it to be in while it's at its resting place, if you will. You hit reset. That sets it to zero, and then you can set like 180 degrees of motion like I did, for example, and then test it out. So I'll if there is anyone out there who has had that struggle similar to me, I will post a link for that video in the show notes so you can check it out, because it was really frustrating for me to deal with.

00;12;43;18 - 00;13;05;20
Roo
And I, you know, I hate when I don't understand something. It drives me nuts. Speaking of not understanding things, I was listening a little bit to the interview that you're about to hear. I said at one point that I thought Nina might be on Mac. I was very wrong about that. I was thinking of pix insight because I know you can run Pix insight on Mac, but Nina is a windows only program now.

00;13;05;20 - 00;13;23;09
Roo
I don't know if you can use like a wine or something, or like a VM perhaps to run it within a mac. But natively speaking, Nina is a windows only program, and the reason I mentioned that is because one of the questions that came up was around whether or not this is something that can be done on a mac.

00;13;23;10 - 00;13;43;08
Roo
Now, I will tell you, I definitely think it is something that can be done on a mac, and I hope that you will look through all of the links that I'm going to post in the show notes for this week, because they are going to include all of the information that you need to know to get started in this particular field of study, if you will.

00;13;43;11 - 00;14;15;07
Roo
I have not had a chance to actually try it myself yet. I'm planning to a very soon, but like I said, I am going to be leaving for Utah in about under three weeks, so that's going to be crazy. At the same time, while that's going on, my buddy Mark, who's also been on the show a couple of times, is going to be going over to Europe and meeting up with several of our listeners over there and members of our discord family.

00;14;15;09 - 00;14;36;12
Roo
And it's going to be really cool, because we're kind of going to be on opposite sides of the globe at dark Sky locations, and he's going to see if he can pick up a little bit of audio while he is out there as well. So a lot to look forward to. I will ask for a little bit of grace in the coming weeks, because I will be traveling a good bit.

00;14;36;18 - 00;15;05;18
Roo
I do expect that we're going to record some really awesome stuff, because guys, I am going to like some ridiculously dark skies where zodiac light should be like annoyingly bright per clear dark sky. By the way, I remember mentioned in a couple of weeks ago how the light pollution map had become just like a disgusting giant board of ads, and that's 100% correct.

00;15;05;18 - 00;15;29;28
Roo
Still to be clear, I just want to say I've been using clear dark sky for several weeks in a row now, and I've gotten so used to it I actually prefer it over how light pollution map used to work. There's a couple key differences, but with Rick and Jeff at the helm, I'm sure they'll update it wherever they feel as necessary to make sure that it is competitive in today's industry, if you will.

00;15;30;01 - 00;15;55;18
Roo
But but it's a great website is what I'm getting at. And I was very, very happy to see that nice big dark area that I'm going to be in. This drive is going to be nutsy. Also originally, me in parish, we're going to meet in Minneapolis. I was going to fly up there and then me and him were going to drive all the way out to Utah together about three days drive.

00;15;55;18 - 00;16;16;10
Roo
But I didn't want to buy a flight because I wasn't really sure of if we'd be able to go, because I wasn't sure when the building would be done yet. Anyway, long story short, we had both decided to drive, and just a couple days ago, Parrish asked if he'd like to meet up partway through the drive and then ride together the rest of the way.

00;16;16;10 - 00;16;38;12
Roo
So of course I said yes. That's going to make the trip so much more fun. Having another astro geek there to to talk with the whole time. And we're going to meet up with Nathan from Astro Peak, and after that, we're going to probably head out to the Canyonlands in Utah. That's where I'm hoping to go anyway.

00;16;38;13 - 00;16;58;05
Roo
I mean, I'm going to be open to everything. I know we're going to be in a really incredible place with a lot of incredible national parks. I'm going to be going wide field on this trip. Big surprise. You guys know I love wide field stuff. That's what I was talking about earlier when I said I was rebuilding my 135 rig.

00;16;58;05 - 00;17;21;10
Roo
So I got my Astro denim mount kit out today. I actually went on their website because I was missing a couple of screws from it from last time when I took it apart, and I saw that they were up to like version six now, and it had these like crazy connectors. So good job for them. I'm glad that they're still making new iterations of it and that it's doing better and better.

00;17;21;12 - 00;17;48;09
Roo
But anyway, I got that together. I found the screws that I needed. Why do I have such a hard time getting the back focus right on that darn lens? It's 44mm because it's the canon EF version and the 2.94 MC Pro, which is the camera that I like to run on. That rig has 6.5mm by default.

00;17;48;10 - 00;18;15;07
Roo
It comes with an 11 millimeter ring if you want to have a female connector on the end. But then the filter drawer is 21mm. So look, I'm already busting out my calculator here because this has been driving me crazy all week. That brings us to 38.5, I believe. So it's still like six short, five and a half short of perfect 44mm.

00;18;15;07 - 00;18;43;13
Roo
Now I think I found a spacer that will work, but if any of you guys have this exact same setup, it's basically I replaced the flange on the back of the lens so I didn't have to use the the kind that kind of clips on because I was getting really bad tilt with that. So I put a proper M48 thread on the back of the lens, and I screw my filter wheel on to that, which is 21mm.

00;18;43;13 - 00;19;10;13
Roo
And then, you know, I guess I just need 16.5mm to get it perfectly to 44, I believe. But there's none that are female to female. And that's what I need because the 294, if you take off the 11 millimeter ring that it comes with from Zwolle, it has a male connection on the end, it has like a male M42 threading I believe might be 48.

00;19;10;13 - 00;19;31;18
Roo
I'm pretty sure it's 42 though. Anyway, if you've got a similar setup where you've replaced the planes with a proper M48 flange to screw on an M48 adapter and you use a filter draw, let me know what your solution was, because I've obviously shamed my way to making it work before, and that's probably what I'll end up doing again.

00;19;31;20 - 00;20;04;23
Roo
Honestly, part of me considered just putting a my canon R5 on the back, because when you take the 135 and you put a full frame camera behind it, it frames up ro and the blue Horsehead Nebula perfectly. And I'm telling you, from a really dark sky location, like a ball one type site that's going to be absolutely incredible.

00;20;04;23 - 00;20;29;28
Roo
So I'm definitely a really looking forward to this trip. I haven't had a dark sky trip and a couple of years now because I wasn't able to go last summer and then the prior summer before that was the last time we did our coastal trip. So definitely, definitely looking forward to this. This is a big one. We're coming up to the 100th episode of the Astro cast.

00;20;29;29 - 00;20;53;24
Roo
I don't know if that will end up coinciding with it. I certainly hope that we're able to to make that happen. But yeah, man, a lot of cool stuff is going on for sure. Speaking of cool stuff, let me take a moment to thank two of our new members on the Patreon. That would be Jesse and Sean. Thank you guys both so much for supporting the show.

00;20;53;27 - 00;21;15;26
Roo
Glad to have you in the discord and just super glad to have you as part of the family. It's super cool to have you here and the group continues to grow. You know what can we say? It gets better and better every week. David, I wanted to send you a thank you as well. I don't know if I yeah, I did hear back from you.

00;21;15;27 - 00;21;39;06
Roo
That's right. You're in the chat already. My bad. I was thinking of the other David anyway. Welcome to the group, doctor. Dave, Sean and Jesse. You're all very, very welcome to be part of the Astro family. Certainly happy to have you here. Also wanted to send a big thank you to anyone and everyone who has used the affiliate links over the last 12 months.

00;21;39;06 - 00;22;05;07
Roo
I put them at the top of every episode, and if you ever need to make any sort of astronomy purchase, you can click on one of those affiliate links and you'll get the the same pricing you otherwise would, but a small percentage of the profit will end up going to the Astro cast. And that helps me do things like take the forthcoming dark Sky trip and go to Neith and all the cool things that I'm starting to be able to do because of you guys.

00;22;05;07 - 00;22;29;01
Roo
Awesome support. I just had one come in through a Gina that was pretty significant, and I just want to say thank you so much for thinking about me when you place your order. So with all that being said, I think I'm going to go ahead and toss it over to pass through. I'm going to introduce my guest. I'll just say his name is Yorick.

00;22;29;04 - 00;22;50;20
Roo
He is from the Netherlands. He actually emailed me kind of out of the blue one day and hit the topic that he brought up just completely gripped me and I was instantly fascinated. I hope you will be too, because I seriously think this is so, so cool and I cannot wait to have one of my own charts, but I'll leave it at that for now.

00;22;50;21 - 00;23;02;06
Roo
I hope you enjoy this week's episode and we'll be back soon. I am your host, drew. Thanks so much for tuning in this week to the Astro cast.

00;23;02;08 - 00;23;31;14
Roo
We tend to keep it pretty loose on the interviews, obviously. What's great, I'm glad. I'm glad that you're on the same page with that. So when when you emailed me, yeah, I was. You immediately piqued my interest because what you said is something that has always fascinated me, and I've always wondered because I've heard about people doing this, but I've never actually met somebody who's actually done it.

00;23;31;16 - 00;23;38;04
Roo
So first, why don't you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your background?

00;23;38;06 - 00;23;40;11
Jorik
You mean my background and astrophotography, I presume?

00;23;40;15 - 00;23;41;29
Roo
Yeah, yeah.

00;23;42;00 - 00;24;16;11
Jorik
Okay. So my name is York. I'm from the Netherlands, as you can probably tell from the accent, but I got into astrophotography in around 2019 just before the the pandemic hit. So I got in with buying my first telescope just before the prices went up. And after that I first I got into visual astronomy. So I was just looking at it and dialing in the I got an equatorial mount with the telescope, so I dialed in the RA and Dec axis just by hand and just fiddling with the knobs.

00;24;16;12 - 00;24;43;28
Jorik
And that got old really quick. So I upgraded the mount and then I sold them out and got another mount. And yeah, a few setups later I'm at a primary telescope, a secondary telescope. Sometimes I mount them separately, sometimes amount them on the same rig. But right now I'm often just imaging imaging more so than doing visual. I've got two small children, ones almost four ones, almost six, so that I don't get as much, thank you.

00;24;43;28 - 00;25;04;12
Jorik
But I don't get as much time as I did before to get into astronomy. So in that case. So photography is easier and that you just put the rig outside, hit a couple of buttons and let it image all night so I don't have to babysit it all the time. So nowadays it's mostly as photography and still most of the time doing that.

00;25;04;14 - 00;25;18;14
Jorik
I'm producing pictures, but sometimes I like to step out of the usual and get into either, doing measurements or capturing exoplanet transits. So that's what we're talking about tonight.

00;25;18;19 - 00;25;44;12
Roo
Exoplanet transits. And that that is very, very cool. So exoplanets obviously are planets that are in different solar systems other than our own, which exactly till recently we hadn't really discovered more than a handful of throughout the entire history of astronomy. Isn't that correct?

00;25;44;14 - 00;26;15;15
Jorik
Yeah. So with the use of larger systems, bigger telescopes, more funding, going to astronomy, it's really skyrocketed. And then there's all these insanely expensive and intricate gear that just constantly sweeps the sky looking for these things. So yes, we can still image it with our amateur gear at home. But then there's these huge, huge projects funded by governments that just watch the whole sky looking for these things.

00;26;15;16 - 00;26;22;14
Roo
That's so cool. So what? What kind of OTA what kind of telescope do you actually have?

00;26;22;17 - 00;26;49;03
Jorik
So I've got two at the moment. My bigger telescope is a 140mm. So 5.5in I think aperture and then 980mm focal length. So natively it works at F7. And then with the optional point a producer, it comes around at 5.6 with a 784mm for climb. Very nice. Then the secondary rig I have is a smaller one. It's the space Cat 51.

00;26;49;05 - 00;27;13;10
Jorik
So a brother to the famous Redcat 51. Just a great version and I got one, I think, when it first came out. So right now you have the, the, the newer adapted focuser which is a side mounts focus like the usually gotten these telescopes. But back when I got it it still had the helical focuser. So it looks a bit like a camera lens where you just twist the whole barrel to focus in and out.

00;27;13;11 - 00;27;21;14
Jorik
So I got that one, which makes it insanely more difficult. Well, not and makes it a bit more difficult to mount and all the focus on something else.

00;27;21;14 - 00;27;32;16
Roo
To tell me about it. I've got the I haven't with that 55 and it also has that type of focuser. So when I mounted my autofocus or on it, I dealt with the same issues.

00;27;32;17 - 00;27;34;19
Jorik
So you got to mount the belt and everything.

00;27;34;24 - 00;27;43;24
Roo
But but I guess what I'm getting at though is you've got basically I mean, very nice but standard amateur astrophotographer gear, right?

00;27;44;00 - 00;28;05;29
Jorik
Definitely. And at least the, the, the bigger telescope I have is not the entry model that you would need to capture, like planets orbiting different suns or different stars turn. It's really it's possible up from, I think 60 to 80mm aperture. So a very standard very modest backyard telescope can actually capture these things. No problem.

00;28;06;00 - 00;28;12;28
Roo
So with just like a 80 millimeter refractor, you can actually capture an exoplanet.

00;28;13;01 - 00;28;24;20
Jorik
Definitely. You'd have to be on the lookout for what types of host stars, how large the plan is and how close to orbits the the other star. But it's definitely possible with smaller gear. Yeah.

00;28;24;24 - 00;28;48;21
Roo
That's incredible. So let me ask you this. First of all, congratulations on being like the first person I've ever talked to that got into astrophotography and astronomy right before the pandemic instead of after it, because like all of us dived in right after Covid. So that's that's really cool. You're you're one of the few there. What was it that got you into this?

00;28;48;21 - 00;28;57;14
Roo
Because it's such a fascinating topic. Was it? Were you just like looking around on the internet? You stumbled across it or like how did you get into this specifically?

00;28;57;15 - 00;29;02;23
Jorik
So spawning transits specifically? Yeah, I saw.

00;29;02;24 - 00;29;04;10
Roo
A post.

00;29;04;12 - 00;29;21;21
Jorik
I think I saw post on Reddit, first of someone doing it, and I saw in between all of the nice shots and the the deep sky objects, I saw this weird graph of someone that had a little dip in the middle and I thought, okay, what's that? What's it got to do with astrophotography? So I went around and looked at what it is that they did.

00;29;21;22 - 00;29;44;13
Jorik
So they captured what we know is an exoplanet transit. And I was wondering, okay, I've got a telescope. Why don't I try this? Because I'm always on the lookout for new ways to use my telescope. And I like fiddling around with gear and and putting it to new use. And this is just what I think is an amazing way to put your gear to other use, just besides capturing fancy images.

00;29;44;16 - 00;30;22;22
Roo
Man, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more, so I think so. One thing that I did, and one thing that I'm trying to do more of as we do more interviews on the show, is I've been trying to post in our discord, an area where people can ask questions for upcoming interviews. And a couple of them are things that are, I think, things that are going to naturally come up during our conversation.

00;30;22;24 - 00;30;49;03
Roo
But one of the things, I guess, kind of the biggest question that you would have around exoplanets that John actually asked is how do you correctly identify and verify? And me and you kind of got into this a little bit over email, but I would love to hear just a general explanation of how it is that you verify this.

00;30;49;03 - 00;30;58;03
Roo
So like take me through the process from beginning to end, what it takes and how you go about actually doing this.

00;30;58;05 - 00;31;20;20
Jorik
Okay. So first of all, what I do and this may differ from how other people go about it. But what I do is first of all, I would like to find a window of a known axial planet transit that I can actually image. So yes, you can point your telescope at any random star in the universe and see whether the the flux variates.

00;31;20;20 - 00;32;00;04
Jorik
So whether it gets brighter and dimmer and infer from that whether it's an exoplanet transiting it. But I don't have the time to image all these stars and get around to doing everything. So I use a Swarthmore Transit finder. So it's a website dedicated to this, and it tells you, okay, from data that actual professional astronomers have gathered what are within a window of, say, the next three nights, what our upcoming transits that you could image, and then it gives you a whole table with timestamps with whether they occur during your local nighttime, which is beneficial, of course.

00;32;00;05 - 00;32;27;04
Jorik
And then so I cherry pick from that one that fits my gear and how it does we'll get into. But something that I could image if I wanted to. Okay. So I have a target and then use go to like with imaging to point my telescope at the target. And then different from the deep sky imaging, I don't use long exposures because the longer we expose.

00;32;27;05 - 00;32;50;21
Jorik
See, for a deep sky object, you want long exposure times because you want to get the face to face detail and you want to gather integration time. But for exoplanets, you just want to see the variance and brightness of a star. So you do not want the star to saturate. So whenever pixels within the Stargate clipped, it just becomes all white, and there's no way to tell whether it's got a little bit brighter or darker, so it's useless.

00;32;50;22 - 00;33;01;25
Jorik
So what you do is you image just a just below saturation of a star. So no pixels within the stock at clipped. And then you defocus a bit.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;03;18
Roo
That's real quick.

00;33;03;20 - 00;33;04;12
Jorik
Sorry.

00;33;04;16 - 00;33;16;04
Roo
How do you determine when a star is at saturation. Does it I mean I would imagine it varies from star to star, right. Depending on how bright that star is.

00;33;16;07 - 00;33;43;24
Jorik
Yeah. So with a Nina, I use Nina to run my gear. I don't use ASI, but I'm sure that ASI has other options to to do something similar. But with a Nina, I look at my my statistics for every sub that comes in. So I see the mean value for pixels. I see the maximum value for pixels, and if I see that no pixels are clipped or like two pixels are clipped, I know, okay, my star's unsaturated yet, so I dial it in with gain and exposure time.

00;33;43;24 - 00;33;48;11
Jorik
So a handful of pixels if at all. I clicked within an image.

00;33;48;17 - 00;33;52;29
Roo
Gotcha. Okay, sorry. Go right ahead.

00;33;53;01 - 00;34;15;21
Jorik
So when I have the settings dialed in, I then image, and I image from about half the duration of a transit before and half a duration of a transit after. So I have a baseline what this stars brightness should be. And then obviously I image during the whole transit period. And then okay. So in your data you see the star dipping in brightness.

00;34;15;23 - 00;34;34;28
Jorik
It's not that you visually see it because if I would look to the suburbs and even if I would blink the subs within pix inside, I wouldn't see the star brightness change because it's a tiny, tiny amount that it gets that it weakens. So the last transit I captured it was a 1.6% decrease in brightness. So tiny, teeny tiny amount.

00;34;34;29 - 00;34;43;04
Jorik
I can see it visually, but the software can. And that's where you take the measurements for, Now what was I talking about?

00;34;43;05 - 00;35;09;12
Roo
There's a comparison that gets made though, because exactly. You have this 1.6% variance, obviously, and you can't see what that is. Obviously, software can tell that it's dimmer, but you still have to have that known variable that's nearby. And this was the part that I found so fascinating. That is that is really the key to verifying that you've actually nailed it.

00;35;09;13 - 00;35;10;17
Roo
Right.

00;35;10;19 - 00;35;33;21
Jorik
Exactly. Because if you would only measure that one star, then you would get variance for every single star that you capture. Because you have local seeing variation, you have local transparency variation. But the nice thing is all the stars in your image do the same thing. So if it's locally that stars get brighter or dimmer, then every star in the image would do so.

00;35;33;21 - 00;35;53;13
Jorik
So we take stars that we know are not variable and we compare to those. So if we pick a star within the field of which we know it shouldn't change in brightness, and then every time it does, we correct for that. So if the image gets dimmer overall with the non variable stars then we crank up the brightness.

00;35;53;13 - 00;36;17;27
Jorik
And if it gets brighter then we crank down the brightness. So the non variable stars stay the same. Then we know if a star switches or changes in magnitude inviting us. Then we know something's happening there. It's not local. It's the start doing something. And that could either be a star being variable or an exoplanet transiting. And like doing a partial eclipse light years away.

00;36;17;29 - 00;36;32;29
Roo
That is so cool. So just the fact that we have a non variable star in that same field of view, we can basically use math to calculate for that difference and is.

00;36;33;01 - 00;36;34;03
Jorik
Also if you will.

00;36;34;08 - 00;36;35;24
Roo
Say again.

00;36;35;26 - 00;36;38;15
Jorik
To calculate an offset, if you will.

00;36;38;18 - 00;36;51;12
Roo
Calculate the offset and does is Nina able to to do that for you automatically? Essentially is there like a plugin that you can use, or do you have to work out the math yourself or like how do you go about doing doing that?

00;36;51;15 - 00;36;53;29
Jorik
Well, luckily I don't have to do it myself.

00;36;54;02 - 00;36;55;08
Roo
Yeah, I mean that.

00;36;55;10 - 00;37;12;04
Jorik
As far as I. Yeah, as far as I know, Nina doesn't do it either. But there's a website that you can use and maybe we can share the link to it that you can just it's a Google Forms and it just asks you step by step, okay. Please supply me with your light frames. Please supply me with your flat frames.

00;37;12;04 - 00;37;24;15
Jorik
And you just give it all the data and the times and location and the dates for everything. And it calculates for you the offsets and it process the data to a certain extent.

00;37;24;16 - 00;37;25;05
Roo
Yeah..

00;37;25;12 - 00;37;36;03
Roo
Man, that is so cool. That is incredible. So when was the last time that you were able to to image an exoplanet transit?

00;37;36;06 - 00;37;47;07
Jorik
Well, the last one I think was the one we talked about. So it was Wasp 14 V and I took that image. Just let me check real quick. Yeah. That was April 14th.

00;37;47;12 - 00;37;56;26
Roo
April 14th is so cool. Yeah. And do you keep a record of all the ones that you have been able to confirm over time?

00;37;56;27 - 00;38;08;23
Jorik
Exactly. Yeah. So next to my images, my deep sky astrophotography, I keep a folder, for example, I just log all the data and I gather all the graphs that I did that I took.

00;38;08;25 - 00;38;33;27
Roo
I mean, this seems like, like an entire another layer that we as amateur astronomers can, can dig into that a lot of people probably haven't even thought about or considered, but seems like incredibly fascinating. And is there a citizen science aspect to this, if you will, or we can actually contribute as well?

00;38;33;29 - 00;38;50;28
Jorik
Yeah, definitely. So first of all, I was really thrilled that I captured it at all. So I was sharing it with friends and family, like, look what I did. And then you show people along with a single dip in it and they're like, what's that? Usually you come up with these photos of of planets and nebulae and stars, but what's this?

00;38;51;00 - 00;39;17;19
Jorik
This just a graph? And I was like, no, I captured an actual exoplanet orbiting another star. And yeah, really, really amazed at it. But yeah, just besides that, sharing it with with laypeople and people that don't know as much about it, you can also contribute to science. So there's a citizen science project within NASA called Exoplanet Watch that you can upload your data to.

00;39;17;19 - 00;39;44;24
Jorik
And there's a there's an automated way in doing this. So it tells you what data it needs for the project. And then they use that data from US amateurs to refine the data they have from professional observatories. So how do they do that? They use our data to better locate time, like dedicated expensive time on optics like Hubble Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope so they can more easily know.

00;39;44;25 - 00;40;07;03
Jorik
Okay, this is the transit window. Or we should aim this professional telescope at that store for this time because of the data that we amateurs captured. So it finds the data we already have from professional observatories. And then we use that to better predict next transits. Or maybe it could serve as an indication that it's not just one planet, but it's multiple.

00;40;07;04 - 00;40;14;18
Jorik
It's a multiple planet system around another star. So they actually use our data to.

00;40;14;21 - 00;40;16;25
Jorik
To refine their professional work. Yeah.

00;40;16;27 - 00;40;41;16
Roo
Wow. Now, I know this is going to vary greatly, but I'm curious, like how long are these transits that are taking place? I mean, obviously it's going to vary quite a bit depending on the size of the star, the size of the planet, etc. but like I'm trying to picture in my head, are we talking minutes? Hours?

00;40;41;19 - 00;41;05;22
Jorik
Okay, so it varies. As you say, it varies. If I and I clicked open the web page that I used to find my transits, it varies from eight minutes, two hours, 2.5 hour, 50 minutes an hour. So it's definitely doable within a single night. You don't have to image from from nightfall to early morning. You can definitely do it within the time that you would stay up for yourself as well.

00;41;05;24 - 00;41;17;00
Roo
Yeah, man, that is so cool. I definitely have to try this and I already have the gear, as I would imagine a lot of the listeners of the show, people do as well.

00;41;17;05 - 00;41;34;20
Jorik
Yeah. If you talk to people about this, they always assume, okay, you need this big gear, you need this huge telescope, a heavy mount. You need to go in the thousands of dollars to be able to finance this. But you don't. You could use a simple star tracker and a small amateur telescope to get into this.

00;41;34;23 - 00;41;55;24
Roo
That's so awesome. And it's just an entire another layer that I've I've honestly never even considered, because I just assumed that was way beyond the reach of mere mortals. And it's so funny, man. Astrophotography was something, you know, just, you know, six years ago that I assumed was way beyond the reach of mere mortals until one day.

00;41;55;29 - 00;42;12;16
Jorik
And that feels like a similar step somehow. So when you first see the images online, you say, okay, maybe I could do that myself. And you buy a telescope and you buy a camera first and a small Star Trek, okay, I can see stars and they're not trailing. Wow, that's a big win. And then you move up from that.

00;42;12;16 - 00;42;17;17
Jorik
And this just feels like a whole leap forward again in developing your hobby.

00;42;17;23 - 00;42;36;17
Roo
It really does. So tell me a little bit about your astrophotography journey that you have been on. Have you gotten to do anything in particular that you really have enjoyed? Have you gone on any dark sky trips? What's it like to image in the Netherlands, for example?

00;42;36;18 - 00;43;02;29
Jorik
So I, I don't image with other people often, so I haven't been to star parties that much. But the night before last I went with two friends and just observed visually for a while. But I haven't been to like this huge what I hear about in the US, these huge star parties where you have hundreds or even thousands of people gathering together and just imaging or observing together, I haven't done that per se.

00;43;03;02 - 00;43;22;16
Jorik
Most of the time. Imogen, I spend, I spend on my own in the backyard or the roof terrace that I have. I just pick up my mount with the whole telescope, walk 60 and put it down again and just image for night. And I don't have a permanent setup either. I don't have an observatory. I don't have a pier installed.

00;43;22;16 - 00;43;30;22
Jorik
I don't have a dome. I don't have anything fancy like that. It's just a tripod amount, a telescope. And I look it out, I put it down and I image, yeah.

00;43;30;23 - 00;44;10;05
Roo
I love it. And that just goes to show, like, you don't need all of this other. There's so many people that make excuses for themselves. And I'm not saying this to be insulting to anyone. That's not what I mean. But what I mean is, like, we build up these walls inside of ourselves that really hold us back from doing the things that we love because we tell ourselves like, oh, I can't, you know, image three nights a week because I don't have a pier or because I don't have an observatory, like, you know, build yourself a rig that you can carry yourself like.

00;44;10;11 - 00;44;38;29
Roo
Like I've got one just like you. Just for the record, I've never been to one of those giant star parties, either. I'd. I'd like to go to one one day, but I'm more of a solo imager to, I think the biggest one that I've been to probably had, I don't know, maybe 20 or 30 people down at the Charlotte club that I'm a member of, but I prefer to go in smaller groups just because it's more intimate and quiet.

00;44;38;29 - 00;45;09;08
Roo
And I prefer the, I don't know, the peace and quiet of nature. There's something more intimate about that, in my opinion, but everybody's different, and I would like to go to one of the giant like Oki Tech star parties out in Texas one day and check that out. But yeah, there's something to be said for being able to do, like actual scientific work by just carrying your mount outside and setting up on your roof terrace like that's incredible.

00;45;09;10 - 00;45;31;10
Jorik
Yeah. And I suppose it, it, it does qualify as scientific work, but as soon as you tell people it is science or it sounds like science, especially amateur images, my images might get scared off. I can't do that. I'm just an amateur. I have a small telescope and a simple camera. I can't do this. But you can. You can actually do this.

00;45;31;10 - 00;45;46;23
Jorik
It is possible and I would urge people to hear this and would like to try it for themselves, just to go to the URL that we will share and have a go at it. Just try it and you will be amazed at what you can just do with your backyard telescope, because it is possible.

00;45;46;26 - 00;46;17;24
Roo
I got to tell you, I cannot wait to try it out myself. I'm dying to be able to share that dip. I want to see if I can actually do it and capture a transit I when when you when you first started talking to me about this, I was like, I wonder if this is even possible for someone like me to do because like, you know, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love astrophotography, but there is a part of me that recognizes, like as soon as we stretch that image, it loses all of its scientific value.

00;46;17;25 - 00;46;32;20
Roo
You know what I mean? As far as, you know, clipping, like we were just talking about a minute ago, you know, you're stretching it. You're making making art at that point. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's beautiful. You still see the structure in the form and the nebulosity, you know, in the environment.

00;46;32;22 - 00;46;34;05
Jorik
It's a different goal entirely.

00;46;34;07 - 00;46;59;09
Roo
Yeah, exactly. But, you know, if there is an entire different arena that we can get into with the equipment that we already have, then why wouldn't we give it a go? Right. And it sounds like it's it's eminently doable and not for nothing, guys. But like this is another instance in which Nina like, give it a try.

00;46;59;13 - 00;47;19;09
Roo
Like, because it sounds like a lot of these tools are available within Nina that like you said, you I'm sure you could do this with an asset by taking shorter exposures and finding out where the saturation point is, but probably a lot easier to do within Nina at the end of the day.

00;47;19;10 - 00;47;39;18
Jorik
Well, as I said, I have no experience in ASI. I'm sure that they tell you this is about every sub that comes in as well. And if Asier doesn't do it, then you can download the image from your asset to your device and just check out the properties or within pixels, import it and look at it there. So I'm sure that you can do it within ACA or other software as well.

00;47;39;20 - 00;48;07;18
Roo
I've been so impressed with Nina lately. I've been getting more and more into it. And did you happen to watch any of the video with me and Justin and Parrish talking about Nina that we put up a few weeks ago? You may not have. Okay, so he was basically automating Parrish's workflow for his telescope that's going out to the observatory, the remote observatory at Astro Peak.

00;48;07;18 - 00;48;28;08
Roo
And I was basically just along for the ride on that episode. But afterwards, like a few nights later, I was like, all right, let me sit down and actually do mine now. And I couldn't remember everything, obviously, because there was a lot to it. But I downloaded the the actual sequencer file, and then I set up Target Scheduler, and I started poking around in there.

00;48;28;08 - 00;48;59;04
Roo
And long story short, like two weeks later, I've got pretty much everything dialed in now, and I've added a rotator to my telescope. I've got a switch now, which is just awesome because it adds so much more that I can do. And I've basically got it now where I can just press the play button and that's it.

00;48;59;05 - 00;49;27;20
Roo
I mean, I pick, I pick which targets I want, I set the priority for those targets. I can even indicate, you know, moon. I can indicate what, which filters I want to use. And I can say I want to get a thousand images of this. I want 1000 images of that. And then every morning when I wake up, I have a text message waiting on my phone that says, here's your nightly summary, here's how many images you got, here's how far along you are in the project.

00;49;27;20 - 00;49;29;16
Roo
I mean, it's just incredible and like.

00;49;29;17 - 00;49;31;20
Jorik
It's amazing how far that goes.

00;49;31;22 - 00;49;33;16
Roo
What's that? Yeah.

00;49;33;18 - 00;49;37;23
Jorik
I said it's amazing how far technology has come that we can just do this.

00;49;37;25 - 00;49;38;13
Roo
Truly.

00;49;38;18 - 00;50;03;07
Jorik
Even just in itself. And then it's a step up to science and it's a step up. I'm eager to see what direction amateur astrophotography is going to take next, because yeah, there's so many people involved and it just keeps on adding even the plugin and the plugins. And Nina just keep adding the options that you have with your backup telescope just pile up.

00;50;03;09 - 00;50;07;19
Jorik
There's so much stuff that I would like to do that I haven't tried yet.

00;50;07;21 - 00;50;26;28
Roo
There's just that long time. That's the only issue that I always run into. It's like there's so much more that I would love to do and try, but there's just never enough time to do it. All. This, this hobby is just so endlessly fascinating, but we just never seem to have enough time to try all the things that we want to.

00;50;27;00 - 00;50;53;27
Roo
I was just checking over the discord here to see if there's a any other questions on here. I know we touched on a couple of them. Let me see. So Andy actually asked if this is a good question. Actually, have any amateurs actually discovered an exoplanet? I don't know how likely that is, because that kind of points to what you said earlier.

00;50;53;27 - 00;51;02;08
Roo
Just pointing at a random star and hoping for the best. But do you know if anyone has ever discovered one?

00;51;02;11 - 00;51;25;13
Jorik
Not that I've heard of. I'm sure that it happens because there's so many different stars, and there's just so little that we know so far. And even just the fact that us amateurs collecting data helps the professional observatories move on to the next step. Yeah, that fact alone tells me there's so much left to find out there, so it's bound to happen sooner or later.

00;51;25;15 - 00;51;26;07
Jorik
And the more.

00;51;26;07 - 00;51;27;04
Roo
People that.

00;51;27;05 - 00;51;33;10
Jorik
Hear this and get triggered to try it themselves. The more eyes we have pointing at the new stars. We don't know.

00;51;33;14 - 00;51;34;13
Roo
So it's it's.

00;51;34;19 - 00;51;36;08
Jorik
Definitely possible.

00;51;36;11 - 00;52;05;23
Roo
All the remote observatories that are out there now, like, consider how many thousands of telescopes that are set up in remote observatories, like if all of them started doing this for a few hours a week, they would definitely be discovering them then. I have no doubt. About that. Let's see, we definitely talked about citizen science and transit, so thank you for asking about that and the affiliation with NASA.

00;52;05;23 - 00;52;23;11
Roo
We definitely talked about that. Let's see another thought. Is this something Mac users can do or is it a windows only club? I think Nina is available for Mac, isn't it? Pretty sure it is.

00;52;23;14 - 00;52;24;12
Jorik
Think it is.

00;52;24;14 - 00;52;50;09
Roo
Yeah. And then the Google doc is obviously available for Mac. So yeah, you could absolutely do it on Mac. So good question. So what's what's next for you in this journey? What are you hoping to accomplish over the coming Milky Way season? Do you have any goals in mind or are you hoping to? Do you have any particular exoplanets that you're hoping to capture a transit of?

00;52;50;12 - 00;53;13;07
Jorik
Not particular ones, but particular types of systems. So I've I've I wouldn't say I've done I've done it. I've finished it. I've definitely haven't I don't think there is a something like finishing it, but a dream of mine is capturing like a multiple planet system. So within a transit you just see one planet moving in front of the disk of its host star.

00;53;13;07 - 00;53;28;23
Jorik
So if you were able to see like multiple dips or a dip that gets even deeper within its transit, then that would point to different like compare it to what you see in Jupiter. So a lot image.

00;53;28;23 - 00;53;29;21
Roo
Or looked at Jupiter.

00;53;29;21 - 00;53;42;27
Jorik
And you see double shadow transits all the time so that but further away and just multiple stars occluding their host, multiple planets occluding the host star at the same time. That's something that's still on a bucket list, for example.

00;53;42;29 - 00;53;44;16
Roo
That's that's so cool. What about.

00;53;44;16 - 00;53;45;02
Roo
Like, a bike?

00;53;45;04 - 00;53;48;17
Jorik
As you can imagine, that's even rarer than just finding a transit.

00;53;48;18 - 00;53;50;07
Roo
So and it does.

00;53;50;07 - 00;53;51;27
Roo
Have a binary system.

00;53;52;00 - 00;54;14;23
Jorik
Like you can capture binary. If you if you mean binary stars like occluding each other, then yeah, it works the same way. So instead of a planet occluding a star disk behind it, it's two stars which have a shared magnitude. So together they have a certain magnitude of brightness. And then if one passes in front of the other, if the larger star alludes, the smaller you get a tiny dip.

00;54;14;23 - 00;54;17;15
Jorik
And if the smaller star clues the light, you get a deeper dip.

00;54;17;15 - 00;54;19;19
Roo
So it's cool.

00;54;19;21 - 00;54;48;23
Jorik
That works the same way. It's just anything that alludes a star or part of a stop for a duration of time you could theoretically capture. It's just whether we have the equipment to do so. So maybe coming back to that, if you look at what our amateur equipment is able to do, if you have like a general 60 to 80 millimeter aperture refractor, you could detect a 1 to 3% decrease in brightness in magnitude.

00;54;48;23 - 00;55;01;01
Jorik
So that's definitely doable with a small amateur refractor if you go up to 80 to 100mm. So a bit more serious, you can get 0.7 to 2% roughly.

00;55;01;02 - 00;55;02;28
Roo
Wow.

00;55;03;01 - 00;55;39;20
Jorik
100 to 140. You get 0.3 to 1% in transit depth. And then up to 140 up to 200mm. It's 1.0. 1 to 0.5% roughly. And then beyond that it doesn't really lowers anymore. And that's due to like local conditions. So seeing transparency yeah noise. So those factors come into play. And adding more aperture doesn't magically solve seeing. So seeing is always something we deal with even in astrophotography and deep sky astrophotography.

00;55;39;20 - 00;55;47;27
Jorik
And in this it's the same thing. So having a 14 or 16 inch mega telescope doesn't help you detect smaller like Earth like planets.

00;55;47;27 - 00;55;49;03
Roo
That does not.

00;55;49;05 - 00;55;55;28
Roo
There's still going to be limits and physics is still physics, no matter what you're dealing with, I suppose.

00;55;56;00 - 00;56;20;29
Jorik
So up to 140, 150. So five and a half, six inch about aperture up to that. You can definitely see improvements. And then you can see like Jupiter type planets and then Neptune type planets. So the plants get relatively smaller that you can detect. But we're never going to find an Earth sized planet from the ground. Then you will need space telescopes to do that.

00;56;21;00 - 00;56;21;08
Roo
Yeah.

00;56;21;09 - 00;56;44;14
Roo
So I mean that that makes sense. And, you know, not for nothing. But when you look at the cost of refractors, like large refractors, they have come down so much in recent years. I think about like the giant Asger refractors and like how affordable they are when you consider, you know, how much glass you're getting for the cost, it's unreal.

00;56;44;14 - 00;56;46;16
Jorik
That's exactly the reason I ended up with my ass car.

00;56;46;17 - 00;56;50;10
Roo
I got one for that way, I bought that.

00;56;50;12 - 00;56;51;03
Jorik
Yeah.

00;56;51;10 - 00;56;54;03
Roo
That's awesome. How do you like it?

00;56;54;05 - 00;57;20;20
Jorik
I think it's amazing. It does have a caveat in that if you tighten the the ring that sets the Jew shield, the stars tend to spike on one end. So I have to slightly. Yeah. So it pushes on the tube and the lens cell. If I, if I loosen the screw a tiny bit then that goes away. So I don't have problem with I fix my do shield most of the time with a.

00;57;20;22 - 00;57;24;11
Jorik
What's the name like a new ring or a juice trap.

00;57;24;12 - 00;57;25;16
Roo
Yeah. Oh yeah.

00;57;25;17 - 00;57;28;04
Roo
Okay, that makes sense. Just tighten that down evenly all the way.

00;57;28;04 - 00;57;28;28
Roo
Around.

00;57;29;00 - 00;57;41;21
Jorik
And then I don't need to tighten the screw as much and then it goes away. So it's nothing I can deal with. But in small things like that you can see where they I wouldn't say cut corners, but where they saved on money to be able to put out a telescope that cheap.

00;57;41;23 - 00;57;42;01
Roo
Yeah.

00;57;42;02 - 00;57;43;19
Roo
That makes sense. Well.

00;57;43;20 - 00;57;44;10
Roo
I mean.

00;57;44;13 - 00;57;45;14
Jorik
It's amazing.

00;57;45;21 - 00;58;11;08
Roo
Yeah, yeah, that that is what I've heard, I believe. I'm pretty sure Parrish has one of the large ask our scopes. He's a good friend of mine, and he's been on the show several times as well. It might be a 140. In fact, you guys might have the same scope. But, yeah, they're very, very cool. And I think, honestly, the next scope that I end up getting will probably be a larger refractor.

00;58;11;10 - 00;58;27;29
Roo
And that's definitely where I'm leaning, especially after how much I love my skua 55. I just I love that scope. It's I cannot wait to get it out to Bordeaux ones guys. Man, you know, it's so funny. Everybody is like man, you got to put them on camera on there. You got to put them on camera on there.

00;58;27;29 - 00;58;43;19
Roo
I'm so happy to have a one shot color camera going out to Bordeaux. Ones guys. It's going to be a dark nebula machine out there. It's just going to be sucking those things down night after night. I think it's going to be cool, and I think it's going to be a little bit different than what a lot of people have.

00;58;43;19 - 00;58;46;19
Roo
So I like something unique, you know?

00;58;46;21 - 00;58;47;12
Roo
Yeah.

00;58;47;18 - 00;59;11;03
Jorik
And I'm sure that using a mono camera will will add that, that final bit of extra sharpness. But in astrophotography, the last image I took was M51. I don't know if I've sent you the photo, the finished, the finished thing, but I got, I used my 140 telescope at native, so at seven that's 980 almost a meter focal length.

00;59;11;06 - 00;59;15;11
Jorik
I use a tiny pixel camera, the 585.

00;59;15;12 - 00;59;18;09
Roo
Five five. I think you've got that one.

00;59;18;12 - 00;59;42;18
Jorik
Yeah. So and then even that data I drizzled three times to get to the final luminance image. And I don't see mono getting any closer than that. So I'm imaging at 0.3 arcseconds per pixel. So for me that's plenty sharp. If I if I blow out my photos like a meter by a meter on the wall, that that's more than enough detail that I have a need.

00;59;42;22 - 00;59;45;24
Roo
Yeah. So I and then OSCE is just.

00;59;45;24 - 01;00;00;20
Jorik
A lot cheaper, a lot easier to work with. It doesn't way up for me. And I'm sure that some people say, okay, I need that extra level of detail, that extra level of fidelity. But for me, it's easy enough to go and going one shot color.

01;00;00;21 - 01;00;01;16
Roo
Yeah.

01;00;01;18 - 01;00;13;16
Roo
That's me to in a nutshell. And maybe, maybe one day I will change my opinion on it. But for now, it's just that's where I am. I 100% agree with you. So figures were in the same.

01;00;13;16 - 01;00;14;14
Roo
Boat and you will need.

01;00;14;16 - 01;00;23;05
Jorik
New filters. You will need a if you haven't already an electronic folks you will need a filter wheel electronic if.

01;00;23;07 - 01;00;26;17
Roo
There's so much. Yeah.

01;00;26;19 - 01;00;58;24
Roo
You know it's funny actually I did get a filter wheel for my scope because if you think about it with a one shot color, if it's a remote rig, you kind of got to have a filter wheel because you got to do darks. I want to have a UV IR filter for I know my 2600 has a built in UV ir, but I've heard I've read at cetera that if you run a, you know, standalone Uber cut filter, you can get higher image quality with it for your stars.

01;00;58;25 - 01;01;05;26
Roo
And then I also wanted to do a narrow band just because, you know, if I want to shoot doing their band and.

01;01;05;28 - 01;01;07;10
Jorik
Dual enrollment filters then.

01;01;07;18 - 01;01;08;04
Roo
What's that.

01;01;08;07 - 01;01;08;15
Jorik
Have you.

01;01;08;15 - 01;01;09;01
Roo
Got.

01;01;09;06 - 01;01;14;28
Jorik
Have you got different sets of dual narrowband filters. You've got the how three have you got.

01;01;15;01 - 01;01;15;14
Roo
No, it's.

01;01;15;14 - 01;01;15;27
Jorik
Just one.

01;01;15;27 - 01;01;16;05
Roo
As well.

01;01;16;07 - 01;01;18;16
Roo
Dual narrowband that has hired three.

01;01;18;22 - 01;01;19;29
Roo
They're not okay.

01;01;20;03 - 01;01;24;11
Roo
Yeah. They're not separate but one single golden air band filter. But.

01;01;24;12 - 01;01;25;22
Roo
I maybe next.

01;01;25;22 - 01;01;26;24
Roo
Time I'm considering it.

01;01;26;25 - 01;01;41;14
Jorik
So I use Jewel Narbonne as well because I haven't wanted to call a camera, but I use how three as one filter. But then yeah, I think it's s2 h beta as well. So I can get show using two filters rather than three.

01;01;41;17 - 01;01;45;13
Roo
Nice. So what brand is here.

01;01;45;15 - 01;01;46;00
Roo
Yeah.

01;01;46;03 - 01;01;46;24
Roo
Nice. Yeah.

01;01;46;25 - 01;01;47;19
Roo
I actually.

01;01;47;24 - 01;01;56;01
Roo
Saw those as in person when I was at a few weeks ago. And some of the images that they got in there, they're incredible filters. I've heard really good.

01;01;56;01 - 01;01;57;15
Roo
Things about.

01;01;57;17 - 01;01;59;00
Jorik
Halo as well on Bright Stars.

01;01;59;02 - 01;02;00;10
Roo
Yeah, yeah.

01;02;00;12 - 01;02;08;24
Roo
That's cool. Very, very, very cool. Any favorite targets in the summer season?

01;02;08;26 - 01;02;10;14
Jorik
Narrowband broadband.

01;02;10;16 - 01;02;12;06
Roo
Any any.

01;02;12;09 - 01;02;13;27
Roo
Wide open.

01;02;14;00 - 01;02;22;11
Jorik
So I've made a note and maybe that could be a recommendation as well. I've got an asteroid target list by month.

01;02;22;13 - 01;02;23;20
Roo
And any.

01;02;23;22 - 01;02;33;05
Jorik
And any time I see an image I like on Astro Bin, I find out, okay, is it high enough in the sky for me? Because sometimes you get the southern constellations. Then it's. I can.

01;02;33;05 - 01;02;33;20
Roo
Even do.

01;02;33;21 - 01;02;54;19
Jorik
But if I see a nice target that is available to me, I just added to the list where in the middle of the month it's available. So I go January 15th within solarium, I see. Okay, this is up. This is the best month to image it it in and I add just lists of targets each month. So January, February, every month I have a list of targets.

01;02;54;19 - 01;02;55;09
Roo
That I would like.

01;02;55;09 - 01;03;08;10
Jorik
To image in that month. So whenever I see in my weather app okay, next week there's a clear sky or there might be a clear a clear night. I just go into my list. Okay, what's the image list for this month? And I pick one.

01;03;08;12 - 01;03;32;23
Roo
That's awesome. I don't really like that idea. I don't know why I haven't done that yet. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've got kind of a list in my head, but it would make sense to actually write down a list because there's probably countless times where I'm like, okay, what do I want to shoot tonight? And it doesn't occur to me to think of the, you know, beautiful nebulae that I saw six months ago when I was on Astro Ben or, you know, what have you.

01;03;32;26 - 01;03;35;18
Roo
So that would probably be a good idea.

01;03;35;21 - 01;03;57;06
Jorik
What triggered me to set up the list was actually getting the new telescope. So beforehand I was imagining at a lower focal length. So the teeny tiny NGC galaxies and the smaller targets were out of range. But now that I've got a bigger telescope with a longer focal length, I can go after those small galaxies. So I want to know, okay, I don't know them off by heart.

01;03;57;06 - 01;04;13;22
Jorik
So I know I'm 16, I know I'm 17, I know the lagoon, the try fit, all the standard summer targets. But then there's loads of galaxies as well, and I don't know all of them off the top of my head. So I had to get a list going for okay, I don't know them by heart. Other people do.

01;04;13;23 - 01;04;22;23
Jorik
There's plenty of people on Astro Bin and on all the Facebook pages, so I just use what they should find out if it's available to me and add it to my list.

01;04;22;25 - 01;04;51;19
Roo
Oh man, that that that's smart. And yeah, absolutely. When you get the longer focal length. So I'm a little disappointed in myself because I was a gifted a Kate, which was just incredibly generous. One of our listeners, Chris, gave it to me. We talk about it on the show. His his father passed away and left him his Kate, and he gifted it to me because unfortunately, he had some medical issues that prevented him from using it.

01;04;51;22 - 01;05;11;10
Roo
And I've been working on getting it set up, and I was hoping to have it in time for Galaxy season, but I wasn't able to get all the wrinkles worked out in time. But I will definitely have it ready for next Galaxy season. But did you have fun this Galaxy season? With your longer focal length? Were you able to see quite, quite a few galaxies?

01;05;11;12 - 01;05;12;16
Roo
Yeah.

01;05;12;18 - 01;05;24;08
Jorik
Yeah, definitely I got so I got M51, I got the what's it called? Andy. See 5907. So the tiny galaxy had that had new supernova.

01;05;24;14 - 01;05;24;20
Roo
Yeah.

01;05;24;21 - 01;05;29;06
Jorik
Maybe you've seen it in the in the socials. So I imaged native as well.

01;05;29;08 - 01;05;31;04
Roo
Making a huge.

01;05;31;07 - 01;05;33;02
Roo
That's gorgeous.

01;05;33;04 - 01;05;44;05
Jorik
A huge image out of that. So and even if at lower focal lengths, if you have a camera that has a smaller sensor, you could definitely get those smaller targets up close.

01;05;44;06 - 01;05;45;26
Roo
Absolutely. Doesn't have to be a.

01;05;45;26 - 01;05;47;21
Jorik
Huge aperture. So huge.

01;05;47;21 - 01;05;50;12
Roo
Have to help you in using it.

01;05;50;15 - 01;06;08;16
Jorik
Yeah, exactly. So having a larger aperture telescope helps you in getting to use larger pixels at that focal length. But if you can deal with a lower signal from using smaller pixels, you can definitely use smaller telescopes to get further get further away.

01;06;08;17 - 01;06;08;29
Roo
Yeah.

01;06;09;01 - 01;06;28;11
Roo
This is a passionate argument that people will have. Actually. It's funny, I was on a where was I? It might have been. It was I just googled the Astro cast one day because I was curious. Let's let's see what happens when you Google the show. And there's a ton of results now. I was like, yeah, we're doing pretty good.

01;06;28;11 - 01;06;50;27
Roo
I'm getting results on Google. And I found some page where people were talking about the show and they were like, the host doesn't understand how imaging works, and he still talks about focal lengths. Wrong. And and I'm like, whatever, man. I just like. I put a five, eight, five on a smaller telescope and get a more zoomed in picture and I'm happy.

01;06;50;27 - 01;06;53;29
Roo
So call it what you will.

01;06;54;02 - 01;06;57;06
Jorik
If you're happy to deal with like a lower signal per pixel.

01;06;57;06 - 01;06;58;18
Roo
And you can easily tackle that.

01;06;58;18 - 01;06;59;06
Jorik
By adding more.

01;06;59;06 - 01;07;01;24
Roo
Integration, it's fine.

01;07;01;26 - 01;07;26;06
Roo
Not as high, but again, it's it is a more cropped in photo but in lower resolution per pixel. But yeah, exactly. And like for example, I'll take my 80mm doublet and I'll throw the five, eight, five on there. And then I can get the pillars. Like I can actually get in on the Eagle Nebula and capture the pillars.

01;07;26;06 - 01;07;30;07
Roo
And I've got a pretty cool picture of it actually, that I think.

01;07;30;09 - 01;07;31;00
Roo
Looks happy.

01;07;31;00 - 01;07;32;23
Jorik
With the result that you got. Are you.

01;07;32;23 - 01;07;38;05
Roo
Really doing exactly who's doing it right? Yeah.

01;07;38;07 - 01;07;46;27
Roo
Oh, man. Do you have anything that you'd like to plug or any socials that you want to share or anything like that?

01;07;47;00 - 01;07;55;14
Jorik
Not really. I'm active on a few Facebook pages. That's part of mostly post my data. I don't have a paid Astro Ben page.

01;07;55;16 - 01;08;21;25
Roo
Yeah, that's fine, but it's mostly either. I'll tell you what I would like to do, though, if you're active on Facebook. Yeah, I'll catch up with you on there because I do have an active Astro Facebook page and I can share one more post, maybe the day that we post this episode. So that way people can check out your work, and then we'll obviously post all of the links from the episode as well.

01;08;21;27 - 01;08;22;23
Jorik
That'd be lovely.

01;08;22;23 - 01;08;23;15
Roo
Thank you.

01;08;23;20 - 01;08;39;24
Roo
Awesome. Well, hey man, I really appreciate you coming on the show. There's actually another topic that we will probably cover another day, but thank you so much for coming on this week and talking with us. It was really cool getting to know you, man. Thanks so much.

01;08;39;26 - 01;08;44;17
Jorik
Yeah, thank you for having me. It was lovely talking to you. And maybe we'll talk another time on something else.

01;08;44;18 - 01;08;47;20
Roo
I'm sure we will. Thank you so much, York.

01;08;47;23 - 01;08;48;03
Jorik
Okay.

01;08;48;05 - 01;09;01;24
Roo
Thank you.

01;09;01;26 - 01;09;24;07
Roo
Big thank you to York for coming on the show. I do want to add he has started an Astro. Then since we talked, he actually emailed me a couple nights later and said, hey, Roo, you mentioned Astro. Ben, I got one, so I'm going to go ahead and I'll drop a link to that in the show notes and I will link mine as well, even though I don't have too much on there yet.

01;09;24;13 - 01;09;48;12
Roo
I'll go ahead and I'll put it up, because now that I'm going to have a remote scope very soon, I won't have light pollution to contend with 24 over seven, so I'll definitely be able to start adding a little bit more content to my astro bins. So I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. I hope it inspires you to go out there and kind of capture your own exoplanet.

01;09;48;16 - 01;10;08;14
Roo
Just knowing that the data is out there for you to compare it against, to verify that that was indeed an exoplanet that you captured. To me, that is like one of the coolest things I've ever heard. So thank you so much, York, for coming on the show and talking about that. I know we have another topic we'll talk about one of these days in the near future, so stay tuned for that.

01;10;08;14 - 01;10;34;03
Roo
And if you would like to support the show, you can always do that at Patreon.com for the cast. And you can also support by using any of the affiliate links posted in the show notes below. That is going to do it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Astro cast and as always, clear skies.

01;10;34;06 - 01;11;08;01
Captain Cumulus
Wednesday evening the feed goes live. Roos voice cuts through the dark like a 135 from backyard scopes to mountain peaks. We're all tuned in. No time to sleep. Red dot finders coma characters gain. He breaks it down like a simple, never pain comics rising planets in the frame. Every week we chase the sky by name. Pixels glowing hearts and lives dozens of miles.

01;11;08;01 - 01;11;41;06
Captain Cumulus
One state of mind. This is the astro cast. Where the dark brings us to the light. From Flora to the UK. Lights wide awake under the same sky. Escorting an ever quiet rose on the light. The whole world's invited. This is the astro cast. Yeah, this is the Astro can.

01;11;41;08 - 01;12;08;17
Captain Cumulus
One in Texas just nap? The horse had a guy in Chicago stacking flats till dawn. Belgium sharing deep sky gems while Switzerland sunning fainter bombs. Beginners asking which way is north? Old timers dropping wisdom back and forth. Real. You'll get it. Just wait and see. Welcome to the family 24 seven. The channel's never sleeps I'm gonna showcase. Blowing up the feed means a 3 a.m. coffee at noon.

01;12;08;17 - 01;12;38;29
Captain Cumulus
Someone's life streaming the rising mode where different flags, same obsession. What? I've been in talks. Guy says. So this is the astro cast where the talk brings us to the light. From New Zealand to the Canadian ice, we're wide awake under the same sky. No motors in the photon fight. Crews on the mic. The whole world united. This is the astro cast.

01;12;39;04 - 01;13;12;11
Captain Cumulus
Yeah, this is the astro cast. So here's the room to the crew, to the globe. Monitors burning where the wild stars grow. Wherever you are, whatever you shoot. You never alone under that cosmic roof. Turn it up louder than they just don't plane as well as they get on the waves.

01;13;12;13 - 01;13;19;09
Captain Cumulus
Full hearts destroy the astro. Cars never fade.