Day 2 - BAS Astrophotography workshop - Updates

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Day 2 of BAS Astrophotography is started.

An awesome start for day 2 with, fun filled talk by Sankaranarayanan on the topic "mysterious comet seen from coorg" the same story he emailed to BAS group in FEB 2013.

The strength of the participants remain close to yesterday, lots of discussions among participants.

Dr. Suresh has arrived and ready to deliver his talk.



Thanks,
Naveen Nanjundappa

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Over 80+ eyes looking at Dr.Suresh without blinking..

If this were a fashion show, he could be titled "show stopper" ;)

Dr Suresh's Polar alignment for dummies formula, DLUR - Down Left - Up Right. 

If the star moves down in eyepiece - move the mount Left. if the star moves up in the eyepiece then move the mount right.

Thanks,
Naveen 

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Dr.Suresh quotes "if the mount has more than 30 arcsec periodic error, then don't buy the mount"

And his mount has 0.8 arcsec perodic error after correction ! "wow"

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Dr. Suresh recommends PEMPRO Software for periodic error correction @ astrophotography workshop BAS. 

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Dr. Suresh talking about Seeing and atmosphere.. Participants ask isn't there any correction for seeing. and Dr Suresh smile and reply "that's where I am coming to next, you can't buy any telescope or camera as you wish" 

 Sample video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=1KysTRuXaaE

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Dr.Suresh talks about Nyquist Sampling Theorem, and claims he doesn't know physics @ BAS Astrophotography workshop :) lol

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Astrophotography workshop, Day 2. 

Dr. Suresh talking about "guider scopes" and working with it. Shares lot of tips.

Seeing and min motion setting.. 

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Dr. Suresh says - He checks alignments and offset of secondary using a Flat image, and then based on the position of the circle, he takes the decision :)

amazing tips by Suresh and I can notice many people making note of all these points. 

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Flat - multiplicative errors  

Dark & Bias are additive errors.  

So Subtract Dark and Bias, while dividing Flats :) 

The energy of Dr. Suresh still high and speaking without mic :) 

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Sragdhara starts her talk on Astrophotography with Astrotrac.. She quotes "these big equipment isn't for me, so I use simple light weight device"

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Sragdhara explaining the Astrotrac parts and steps to setup for astrophotography.

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Sragdhara concludes her talk showing a 7 min exposed image taken with Astrotrac, Dr.Suresh responds "great image" :)

Stage setting up for second session from Dr.Suresh.

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Dr.Suresh Mohan Starts his 2nd session with Image processing. 

3 raw images were distributed to participants with laptops to have hands on processing experience. 

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

If you want to know what an amateur astrophotographers carry in the car.. Subhankar sharing his experience with participants... 

Btw, did you know, if you ask "Subhankar, can I get a drop in your car?" he will smile and reply, if you can find a place for yourself without moving the equipment inside the car.. you can" and obviously there will be no space.. his car is jam packed..  If only his car was auto driving he would use the driver seat as well .. lol :)

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Sample Video of Subhankar's talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=lOcGYL3PPXU

He quotes "my telescope's counter weights are always in my car, they come to office with me, every single day" 

[N.Vipin]

Yes! Sankar did a good start today! I was able get lot of knowledge in the field of Astrophotography and it was really interesting presentation by all with lot of  fun. Dr. explained every Technics and Logics in simple and understanding way. Also, the sessions by Sragdhara and Subhankar was very informative, especially it helps  while preparing for astrophotography session.

-Vipin

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[Ashok]

To the entire team that organised the 2 day workshop as well as all the speakers,

Thanks for the wonderful workshop; it was a really great experience for me and my son to participate and start gaining some understanding of the fun subject that is astrophotography.

I look forward to more such sessions to enhance learning as well as gain from the experience of others.

Thanks again.

Ashok Rao/ Rohit Rao

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

Fantastic workshop !! Learnt so much as well as met so many people who so much experience/knowledge to share. Hats off to the organizers !!

Regards

Ramesh

Sent from my iPad 

[Venkat P]

Hi

It was exciting to follow the updates last two days...

I would like to say congratulations to everyone involved in organizing this event of sharing priceless knowledge with great success.

Regards,

Venkat

[Hemant Hariyani]

Congratulations guys!!!! I missed out on it but it was really great following it remotely.

Regards

Hemant

[Suresh Mohan Neelmegh]

I wish to inform that the organisational capacity of BAS is par excellence, in terms of logistics,planning and execution, outstanding hospitality to speakers and attendees alike,extraordinary enthusiasm and sense of appreciation to speakers.BAS is the numero uno group of the country in terms of intellect and quality. My best wishes to the youngest group of astro intellects in India.

Best Wishes

Dr.Suresh

[Arun Venkataswamy]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Suresh Mohan Neelmegh <drsure...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wish to inform that the organisational capacity of BAS is par excellence, in terms of logistics,planning and execution, outstanding hospitality to speakers and attendees alike,extraordinary enthusiasm and sense of appreciation to speakers.BAS is the numero uno group of the country in terms of intellect and quality. My best wishes to the youngest group of astro intellects in India.

+1

I could not make it to this event, but experienced first hand the organizational capacity of BAS in the Yelagiri star party. Congratulations!

Chennai wake up :) We badly need an organization here!

Regards,

Arun

[Suresh Mohan Neelmegh]

lets call it CAS at least it will sound like BAS, Weber Feschner law !

[Suresh Mohan Neelmegh]

Believe me there will be more members from Bangalore than Chennai

[Sankaranarayanan K V]

My comments as a participant/trainee who benefited from the workshop:

In any training or workshop the participants will have a wide range of knowledge, skills, and experience. The challenge for the organizers and speakers is to meet most of the needs of most participants. In this aspect, I think BAS nailed it pretty well. 

• The selection of topics was comprehensive - it covered variances in each aspect of astrophotography through all speakers:
• equipment and technique (Sathya and other speakers)
• tripod, AstroTrac, and mount based (Keerthi, Sragdhara, Dilip and Doc)
• variations in the capture devices and optics (Sathya)
• planets, wide field, deep space, or events (Keerthi)
• day and night (Keerthi)
• photographing and post processing (all speakers)
• manual and "auto" guided (Mr Dilip Kumar and Doc)
• All the speakers were hands-on folks, very knowledgeable, experienced, passionate about what they are doing, and good communicators and trainers too. 
  
• The sessions by Doctor Suresh and Mr Dilip Kumar inspired me the most.
• I benefited the most from the two sessions by Dr Suresh:
• In the first session the logical progression of topics where one builds upon the previous was very useful.
• The videos and animations helped me understand the concepts well.
• A core set of ingredients affecting the image quality was given which one needs to tackle. This is something I have not found anywhere in this form. This comes from Doctor's experience and is as valuable as the amritam churned out from the ocean. I think this was the best take away from the first session. (I have to do the home work of doing the calculations myself and internalizing the principles.)
• I didn't have a clue about post processing and was lost earlier. Doctor's session has taught me the essential techniques which I can go back and try.
• I liked the idea that some TIFF images were distributed which we could work on during the session. Though I got lost during the session I know what I need to try out.
• The college hall was pretty nice. Temperature controlled; no outside noise as well. 

I have some suggestions for the future sessions in astro-photography. I know it would be difficult since all BAS organizers are volunteering their precious time. But wanted to share some ideas anyways:

• It might be a good idea to have distinct tutorial sessions / tracks on the techniques. If the facility allows it, basic and advanced tutorial sessions can be run in parallel so that attendees can choose to attend a specific session based on their need.
• If live sessions are difficult/impossible, video tutorials could be made and shown.
• A list of suggested resources can be mailed out earlier. (Though Google searches are a good substitute, nothing can beat a canned list from experienced practitioners.)
• This hobby is huge money pit. Perhaps a session on what could be achieved with limited resources would help many such as students or those who haven't saved enough dough for this hobby yet.
• The session on equipment was good - but IMHO it would benefit if it focused a bit more on aspects related to astrophotography compared to visual observations. For instance, an extended session covering expanded content from the sessions by Sathya and Subhankar together would be ideal.
• Many of the posts in this forum ask for where something can be purchased from. A short guide in purchasing stuff whether in India or from abroad, getting it shipped, etc. would help. I came across BorderLinx through this forum.
• Now, from a personal PoV, I would like to have longer/deeper sessions in post processing as well as a session covering software tools used in the setup-camera control-focusing-tracking-guiding- chain.

Finally, I thank BAS for giving an opportunity to beginners like me to share their experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Overall, the workshop was awesome and I would recommend this to anybody interested.

Regards

Sankar

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Suresh Mohan Neelmegh <drsure...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Naveen Nanjundappa]

Dr Suresh,

Now that i am relocated to Chennai, we will have "BAS - chennai chapter/branch" ;) hee hee 

Thanks,
Naveen Nanjundappa

http://www.agilemetaphors.com

Understanding Agile with Metaphors

[Suresh Mohan]

Super -)

Sent from my iPhone