iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 17/04/2026

A work in progress... M106. I need more data on this target. This is only an hour per channel, LRGB. 🔭 The weather has been awful, along with everything else that's kept me away from my hobby. Oh well, at least I got something! Lots of little fuzzies along with the main target. 😁

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Reposted by Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦

Astropotamus 🔭🦛 @astropotamus.com · 29/10/2025

Life Hack: Tracking the phases of the Moon or following planetary transits encourages discipline and focus on long-term goals. It also drives home how little time we have in this life so make the most of it!

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 28/10/2025

Wow! I was able to work on my 🔭 tonight, and get it all back together. My OnStep board is working great! On top of that, after a quick collimation, I now have ROUND STARS in the corners of my images. No more bats! 🤣 I have a couple more things to do before I can image again, but this is great! 1/3

This is the star Mirfak, and the surrounding star-field.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 26/10/2025

I'm trying to get some astro stuff 🔭 done tonight. I haven't been able to do anything for over a month now. As the days get shorter, I need this hobby to keep my sanity and keep the seasonal depression at bay. 🧵

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 30/09/2025

I haven't been able to do very much astro stuff because of work. However I was able to attend a couple of days at the Black Forest Star Party at Cherry Springs State Park earlier this month. I did some #astrophotography but haven't had time to process. Here are some pictures from my phone. 🙂

A long exposure of people and telescope equipment at night dimly illuminated by red light

Milky Way shot. The Andromeda galaxy is visible on the right side vertical center.

Milky Way shot. I took this picture pointed straight up.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 13/08/2025

I've finally processed & published my image of #M16 the #Eagle #Nebula! This was my summer project, plagued by rain, clouds, bugs, & malfunctions. I had to toss much of the data, but what was left made this. Not too shabby! 🔭 More info and high quality on my AstroBin Page: app.astrobin.com/i/bf9nmg

M16 - Eagle Nebula [In SHO]
by BensAstroStuff

Published: Aug 13, 2025

Total integration: 8h 18m

Integration per filter:
- Hα: 2h 32m (76 × 120")
- SII: 2h 44m (82 × 120")
- OIII: 3h 2m (91 × 120")

Equipment:
- Telescope: Sky-Watcher Quattro 200P
- Camera: ZWO ASI294MM Pro
- Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
- Filters: Optolong H-Alpha 7nm 2", Optolong OIII 6.5nm 2", Optolong SII 6.5nm 2"
- Accessories: Sky-Watcher Quattro Coma Corrector, ZWO EAF, ZWO EFW 7 x 2″, ZWO OAG (Off-Axis Guider)
- Software: GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), INDI Library Ekos, KDEdu KStars, Nikita Misiura StarNet, Open PHD Guiding Project PHD2, SetiAstro CosmicClarity, Siril Team Siril, Steffen Hirtle GraXpert

For more information, visit AstroBin:
https://app.astrobin.com/i/bf9nmg

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 15/07/2025

@siril.org released 1.4-beta3 a few days ago! siril.org/download/202... I helped by reporting on and testing the fix for bug \#1562, which caused a crash when trying to compose an image from RGB channels. :) It's a great tool for #astrophotography 🔭

siril.org

Siril 1.4.0 Beta 3

Introduction Bugs fixed in beta 3 Stability and robustness Python scripts and programming interface Alignment User interface and display Other fixes ...

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 25/06/2025

This past weekend I was at the Cherry Springs Start Party. There was a single night that was good for astrophotography, and I acquired enough data to create this image of the Crescent Nebula. 🔭 Full resolution and acquisition details on my Astrobin page: app.astrobin.com/i/kejtxh

An Astrophoto of the Crescent Nebula, taken by Ben's Astro Stuff.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 28/05/2025

Absolutely fascinating. I've explained to people the size and scale of things in the images that I take, but Seven Machina does the math. Space is mind-bogglingly huge.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 26/05/2025

This is the beginning of my next major project. I expect it's going to take a few months. 🔭 The Eagle Nebula. This is only 90 minutes of luminance. My previous image of this target was three years ago, and can be found here: app.astrobin.com/i/ob5rlv

An astrophoto of the eagle nebula. Monochrome.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 11/05/2025

New image! I finally found enough free time over the past couple of weeks to process my images of M31, the Whirlpool Galaxy. 🔭 Full Resolution and capture information: app.astrobin.com/i/g7if5a

An astrophoto of M31, the Whirlpool Galaxy

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 02/05/2025

I have a lot of data on M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy) but unfortunately work has blown up and I haven't had time to process anything. I hope that next week I'll have some time to do so. 🔭 Also, would anybody be interested in watching me stream either acquisition or processing sessions? I'm curious.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 29/04/2025

Hopefully the last of these thin clouds are gone before I start imaging tonight. 🔭

It's a picture of mostly sky. It's just after sunset and there are thin clouds in bands low on the horizon. There's an observatory with the shutter open in the lower left-hand corner.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 18/04/2025

So I'm imaging M51 tonight, and this just happened in one of my sub-frames. You can make out the tail of an airplane, lit up by it's own lights. 🔭

It's part of a single frame astrophoto. You can see the ghostly shape of an airplanes tail in between the streaks from it's lights.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 28/03/2025

Ok folks, this is a big one. The first fully integrated image from my new imaging setup. Over 13 hours of M101, LRGB. 🔭 It's not as perfect, but a great start! I also got some Hα data, but I didn't integrate that. I might make a Rev-B in the future to include it. app.astrobin.com/i/g3h77y

app.astrobin.com

M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy - AstroBin

My first fully integrated image from my new setup. The faint lines are not satilites, but rather difraction spikes from stars outside the field of view. I'm going to come up with a solution to fix th...

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 26/03/2025

It's cloudy, so I'm using the time to take calibration frames.

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Reposted by Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Whoa: The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft got a spectacular view of Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) as it passed close to the Sun. Look at that enormous, splintered tail! This comet won't be seen again for another 600,000 years. 🧪🔭 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 19/03/2025

The Horsehead & Flame nebula in Oiii. Trying to get as many subs as possible before the moon comes up and washes it out. This is a single 5min sub-frame.🔭

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 16/03/2025

Clouds and rain all weekend. I won't be able to do any imaging. 😢🔭 There may be some clear nights this coming week, but that means trading sleep for it. I've done that plenty of times. We'll see.

A fully overcast, cloudy, and rainy sky over my observatory.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 14/03/2025

Want to see something kinda cool? Here's my mount slewing from park to the horse-head (previous post), with the dome rotating to follow it. 🔭 The dome is an old 8ft ExploraDome, and the rotating motor is from NexDome, which I modified to work with it.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 13/03/2025

I'm so happy to have finally gotten to this point. First Light image from my new setup! I'll make another post with some details about what it took to get here when I get time. It's been a slog, but so worth it. Just look at it! 🔭 app.astrobin.com/i/h3x8r2

app.astrobin.com

Horsehead in Ha - First Light - AstroBin

This is my first real image with my new equipment. New: Telescope, Camera, Filter Wheel, Off-Axis Guider, and the Observatory Dome is working! :) This image is Hydrogen Alpha only, and 50 minutes of ...

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 06/03/2025

🔭 I've learned a lot about collimating this particular Newtonian in the past few days. It's quite a pill. I'm using an Ocal collimating camera, and an open source project called CollimationCircles. It had some issues. I ended up dismantling the CNC spider and realigning the focuser. 🧵1/4

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 03/03/2025

So... two things. First, in my last post I misremembered how bad my declination backlash was. I thought it was 2000ms... it was MUCH worse: almost 8000ms. Tonight I was able to test test again after the mount rebuild and it's 2130ms. That can be managed. Second: Here is the before/after graph. 🔭

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 02/03/2025

This was the sky tonight. The crescent moon and Venus. I did get my telescope and mount back together. I was able to guide at ~0.65" RMS. I was not able to do a lot of testing, but the dec backlash seems to be greatly reduced. Hopefully tomorrow night I'll be able to fully test it. 🔭

A picture taken just after sunset. The crescent moon and Venus are in the center. The horizon has silhouettes of trees.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 19/02/2025

I built this device a couple years ago, and it's still useful. It's a digital amp gauge that shows the current drawn through it. By watching it as the mount slews, you can find areas in the worm gear that are hanging up because the amp draw spikes. I built it with parts from Amazon. 🔭

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 19/02/2025

The weather is terrible. It's either cloudy and rainy or brutally cold and windy. Nothing in between for a while. The last testing I did showed that I had issues guiding. There is really bad backlash in the declination axis. It's time for a rebuild. 🔭

It's a picture of my Atlas EQ-G mount. It's mounted to an adapter plate and bolted down to my workbench.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 08/02/2025

I was able to get a new Coma Corrector, a Skywatcher Quattro model, which was made specifically for this telescope. It's a *vast* improvement over the Baader mkiii MPCC. The mushroom shaped stars are gone. I still have some minor tilt issue, causing some stars to be over-corrected. Next time...🔭

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 05/02/2025

Moving on to the next 🔭 problem, I have been unable to find the right coma corrector spacing to eliminate the coma, and not get mushroom shaped stars in the corners. Then I find reports that the CC I have (Baader mk3) is known for this on larger sensors... so I need a different CC.

Mushroom shaped stars in the corners of the camera image due to incompatible coma corrector.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 05/02/2025

I'm trying to figure out where the tilt in my imaging train is coming from. Here are two frames in a loop. I rotated the entire imaging train in the focuser by ~180 degrees between them. That's not precise, looking at the diffraction spikes. Tilt seems to be following the imaging train. 🔭

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 02/02/2025

I got some tilt. I'm not sure how I'm going to solve this yet. I don't have much backfocus left to work with. I also have too much backfocus from the coma corrector, and will need to shorten it up a bit to get the stars round in the corners. In better news, I was able to get the OAG dialed in! 👍🔭

An image of a star field with a graph overlaid showing the apparent sensor tilt.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 30/01/2025

Too much work, not enough clear skies.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 27/01/2025

Here are the planets visible with the unaided eye from my house earlier tonight. 🔭 I don't know how to add captions yet. For those that can't hear, the first bright dot just above the trees is Mars, then Jupiter, then Venus (really bright), with Saturn just below it, much smaller.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 24/01/2025

I installed the Baader Click-Lock on my telescope. I should do a short review of this thing when I get some time. I was able to reach focus, and take a quick image. I *think* it's better... I still have some coma that I need to adjust for, but it looks much more uniform across the fov. Out of time🔭😴

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 22/01/2025

It came early! But it's cloudy... 🔭

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 21/01/2025

Friday.... Hopefully it's not delayed further.

Screenshot of USPS tracking on my telescope parts. Expected delivery on friday the 24th.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 21/01/2025

More telescope parts coming hopefully by Friday. Maybe there will be some clear skies and I can finish getting it up and running. 🔭🤞

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 18/01/2025

So ... fail. I couldn't quite reach focus with this telescope either. I'm very disappointed. Here's pictures of what I was trying to do. Even with the focuser completely bottomed out, it was donuts. So... I ordered a Baader 2" ClickLock instead. Hopefully that will resolve the tilt. 🔭

All the new parts, installed and labeled

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 17/01/2025

I received some new telescope parts, including a manual 360° rotator and an infinitely variable extension, both in m48 size. I already have an adapter that screws directly to the focus tube, and has m48 threads on it. I wasn't able to use it on my previous telescope, as I couldn't reach focus. 🔭🧵

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 14/01/2025

I ran out of time trying to figure out the perfect back-focus for my coma corrector. I think tilt issues as well, which makes it difficult to figure out. I have noticed that the diffraction on this Newtonian is very clean. It came with a CNC spider and a primary clip mask, and it shows.🔭 (unguided)

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 14/01/2025

First light! I might get to the OAG offset later... I need to get the backspace of my coma corrector fixed first. Not sure if I have too much or not enough... I think not enough. The horrible gradient is because the moon is big... Great time for testing, horrible time for imaging. :P

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 13/01/2025

If this forecast holds, I should be able to get the scope focused and the OAG properly offset tonight. 🔭 I'm currently cleaning up the wiring. This morning I was sick, so I'm glad that's over. ... At least I think it's over... 😅

A screenshot of the app 'Astrospheric' forecasting somewhat clear skies for the evening.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 12/01/2025

Continuing from my previous post, this is as far as I got with the collimation tonight. I couldn't get the secondary perfectly centered, but it's close. Everything else went pretty smooth. Hopefully it's good enough. This is my first F/4. I couldn't star test, since I don't have a cloud filter. ⭐☁️🔭

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 12/01/2025

It's Alive! 🔭 I have a lot more work to do, but the new control board is functional. I'm going to try to get it collimated tonight.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 11/01/2025

I'm freezing my butt off, but I'm working on it! I just installed the new control board in the mount. The (very) old one was giving me some strange issues during goto. Hopefully this fixes them. Otherwise I'll need to build an onstep controller for it. ... Paint doesn't match... 🤷🔭 First Light soon?

An image of an Orion Atlas EQ-G mount with a replacement SkyWatcher control board. The new control board's face plate is white, and doesn't match the black paint of the mount.

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Reposted by Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦

Jack Cousteau ⚓️ @angrywaterman.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

In space tonight: mini TED talk

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Reposted by Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦

Naztronomy @naztronomy.com · 09/01/2025

Looks like the Orion/Meade auction is over. Someone came in and bought everything, possibly an existing telescope company and I hope we'll find out soon.

Auction canceled message regarding the Optronic Asset Short Sale containing products from Orion, Meade, ETc.

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 07/01/2025

I haven't been able to work on the new gear as much as I'd like, but I did get most of it installed. I had to add a weight to the counter-balance. It's significantly heavier than the old one, but still far within the capacity of this boat-anchor of a mount. Here it is after balancing. 🔭 It's so 🥶

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Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦 @bensastrostuff.com · 03/01/2025

This is going to be a pretty epic 🔭 upgrade for me. From 150mm F/5 to 200mm F/4. And this new OTA has some nice upgrades, like a CNC secondary spider. I've got a lot of work to do to get everything together.

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