October APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG gang! Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, October 7th from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting. There is a lot going on this month, so be sure to attend. We will discuss all of the subjects below at the meeting. First, I have asked Frank Castanho to take over as chairperson for the APSIG and he has accepted. Frank is an experienced deep sky imager in both narrow-band and RGB imaging. He has offered many suggestions for APSIG direction and topics. Please come and welcome Frank as our new chairperson. I am very grateful to Frank for accepting this responsibility. Second, Phillip Easton offered to coordinate an APSIG dark site imaging event. Phillip has been polling members and planning the timing and activities for this event. In case you missed his post on the APSIG forum on this topic, here are the plans that Phillip has put forward for the October 18th event. <QUOTE> If we can find a portable projector I think George and I will each do a short presentation (~45 mins). Max, would you be willing to hold a show and tell at your POD after? My thought is for an hour after the last presentation people could drop by, ask questions, etc. Might be really beneficial to any new imagers that come out. 3-4 Imaging Jupiter (working title) - George Hall 4-5 Cooling DLSR cameras - Phillip Easton 5-6 Show and Tell at Max's - Max Corneau Dave, would you be willing to set up and take down one of the club scopes with GOTO? I would like to make it available for the imagers visually view targets of interest or even maybe the target they are imaging. <UNQUOTE> Third, Frank Castanho suggested at our last meeting that we hold a series of "workshop" like meetings where we work as a group. We will be viewing image processing video tutorials and work as a group to develop hands-on experience implementing the image processing techniques covered in the tutorial. This first meeting will lay the ground work for the following meeting by assessing the image processing tutorial material available, assessing the software available in the group and interest in specific processing techniques and tools.   Frank has taken the initiative to contact Adam Block and get permission to use his video Tutorials and image data at our group meetings. I my opinion, these are the best image processing tutorials available and will be very informative to go through as a group. Below is a quote from Frank's e-mail to me on the subject: <QUOTE> I have obtained Adam Blocks Permission to use his Data and present some of his video Tutorials at the APSIG meeting. Adam Block has graciously agreed to allow APSIG to use his processing tutorials videos and image data for limited use during our meeting. The format of the meetings would consist of a multi-meeting sessions to process a selected image thought entire image processing flow. The Videos are broken down into 5-7 segments per image. Each meeting we would view a segment, about 45 minutes of video. Following the viewing of each video segment we will have a short group discussion about the techniques and method presented. Following the discussion wee would have a hands on group processing of the supplied image data. Feel free to bring your laptop and video processing software. While each participant may not have the software packages used in the tutorials, it would still be interesting to see the results members produce using different software packages using the concepts presented in the videos.  We will try to reserve about 15-20 minutes for show and tell so don't forget your images for Show & Tell. <UNQUOTE> Don't forget your images for show-n-tell! See you there! -George

September APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG gang!

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, September 2nd from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting.

Last month I offered to discuss one of the topics listed below. It was the group consensus that the topic at that meeting should be "Long Focal Length Imaging with a 12" LX200GPS". The remaining topics were covered at meetings last year. I would offer to re-visit one of these topics this month. We can decide on one of these topics at the meeting or select another way to spend our time together. 

Planetary Imaging and Processing

Exoplanet Light Curve observing

Long Focal Length Imaging with a 12" LX200GPS

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

See you there!

-George

August APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG gang!

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, August 5th from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting.

This month we will have a smorgasbord of topics to select from. We can spend time on one, two or three topics depending on the interest of the group. The topics include two topics discussed last year and one with new material. The topics are:

Planetary Imaging and Processing
Exoplanet Light Curve observing
Long Focal Length Imaging with a 12" LX200GPS

The Long FL imaging topic will give an account of the modifications/adjustments and equipment that I have found useful to be able to make long exposure images with a 12" LX200GPS at 3000 mm FL.

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

See you there!

-George

apsig.blogspot.com

July APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG gang!

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, July 1st from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting.

Phil Easton suggested that we have an equipment/hardware show-and-tell theme meeting with special emphasis on Do-It-Yourself AP projects. So, lets have that meeting next week. APSIG members are asked to bring one or two pieces of equipment that they find useful and believe that other APSIG members might find useful. We can either take turns describing the equipment and answering questions or do it all in parallel. When you decide the equipment you plan to bring, please post a message on this forum so that other APSIG members will know what they can expect to see.

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

See you there!

-George

apsig.blogspot.com

June APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG Gang!

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, June 3rd  from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting. This month Phillip Easton will discuss auto guiding.

Guide your way to happy round stars!

When imaging we all want to see nice tight, round stars.  One of the best ways to accomplish this is with auto guiding.  However, at times auto guiding can be a frustrating and problematic.  This presentation will cover methods for successful auto guiding to help you get them most out of your system.  First the focus will be on different types of hardware and the various attributes of each that contribute to an optimal setup.  Both off-axis guiders and separate guide scopes will be compared to help you decide the best configuration for your system.  Next the talk will highlight some of the free software used for auto guiding with a focus on PHD2.  We will do a walk through of the new features and discuss how to configure the settings to maximize results.  Through-out the talk we will present tips, discuss what good guiding looks like and  troubleshooting to help you get the most out of auto guiding during your imaging sessions.

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

-George

May APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG gang!

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, May 6  from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting.

This month David Raphael will do a presentation on data quality and processing.  Dave has collected data from various members of the group and he will present his techniques for analyzing and processing that data.  This will be a fairly interactive session - so make sure and be ready to ask lots of questions!

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

-George

April APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG gang!

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, April 1st from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting.

This month David Wilson will be our speaker. David will talk about successes and pitfalls he has encountered in the last 7 years pertaining to DSLR astrophotography.

Don't forget to bring your raw image data to pass to Dave Raphael for the image data quality analysis presentation. 

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

-George

March APSIG Meeting

Hey APSIG gang!

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, March 4th from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting.

This month Frank Castanho will be our speaker. Below is his description of topics he plans to cover.

CCDStack is a program designed specifically for image calibration ,

It has some nice features like
Data Rejection
DDP - Digital Development Processing,
De-convolution.
Automatic Image Registration

Data rejection features are useful for removing star blooms ,satellite trails, hot and cold pixels etc , it lets you keep frames that would normally be discarded.

DDP is useful for evaluating the image content by automatically doing automatic curves or dynamic range compression, useful for evaluating images before fully processed

De-convolution is useful for sharpening image features and reducing star size.

I plan on giving a brief power point presentation, followed by a demo of processing an image in CCDStack, and if time is available showing some video excepts from Adam Blocks CCDStack tutorial

Don't forget to bring your raw image data to pass to Dave Raphael for the image data quality analysis presentation.

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

I will be out of town for this meeting and David Pearson will coordinate the meeting.

March 4th. is voting day. There will be voting at the Library. I have contacted the Library an they have said that the voting will take place in the classroom across the hall from where our meeting normally takes place. Our meeting location is unchanged.

-George

February 2014 Meeting

Please join us at the Timberglen Library Tuesday, Feb. 4th from 6-8pm for our monthly APSIG meeting.

There were several request for an equipment/hardware show-and-tell theme meeting during our recent discussions. So, lets have that meeting next week. APSIG members are asked to bring one or two pieces of equipment that they find useful and believe that other APSIG members might find useful. We can either take turns describing the equipment and answering questions or do it all in parallel. When you decide the equipment you plan to bring, please post a message on this forum so that other APSIG members will know what they can expect to see.

At the start of the meeting there are a few issues left over from last meeting we might revisit to reach closure on.

Don't forget to bring your raw image data to pass to Dave Raphael for the image data quality analysis presentation.

Don't forget your images for show-n-tell!

I plan to arrive a little early and attempt to calibrate the projector. Anyone interested in helping with this activity is welcome.

See you there!