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below is the best i can do with graxpert, siril and astrosharp. my main issue is i can play with curves and bring out more detail in the galaxy, but i get a lot more red background noise. im guessing this gets better with more exposure time? apart from that, im pretty happy with this i feel like i could solve that a bit by doing a clone on one part of the starless starnet++ output to another and cover up the red noise?

Agree totally, my recent M51 here was three hours combined for LRGB, and an hour of Ha, and that was over two nights. Only my second image this year, I feel that every image is a salvage job

The bias can be re-used as well. I must confess I am a bit lazy and rarely clean my optics but then the filterwheel and camera are kept together and sealed even when not on the rig. I do take flats every time though................ Except for - I have a camera and filterwheel attached to a Samyang lens which I don't separate, and I have re-used flats upto 18 months later and they have been fine. But you are correct in saying nothing should be moved. My separate Camera and filter wheel that I do remove from the telescope now and then, I take new flats every time the camera is moved. HTH

Now of course I have to babysit the setup through a few meridian flips as by attempting to fix the goto I might have broken the flips.

Thanks for that, I dug out and installed a button battery and set the time and location. The location was already right, the Air must update this somehow as I never configured this and without a battery the handset would not remember anyway. Time zone was also right but time was out by an hour. DST setting was also wrong.

Thanks for the suggestions Geoff. I swapped the encoder and gears and the problem persisted. I didn't swap the motor but I noticed that the shaft of the azimuth motor has a lot of play, going back forwards when I press it. The alt one doesn't seem to have it. I also noticed the az makes a squeaky noise (even without gears) whereas the alt is quite, thus why I thought it is the motor. If the PCB has a fault I would expect the motor control to be dead? The wormwheel and brass turn extremely slowly but no transfer of movement to the large disc so the motor is engaging with the gears ok. I checked and tightened for slippage. I am running out of ideas what to check next.

Eat my shorts losers 🤣

Two great images of my favourite galaxy! 👍

Nice topic, I was looking for a place to share my love for astronomy, when I signed up for SGL I was afraid It would be a fad from which I would slowly withdraw from as I am a huge procrastinator and seldomly finish what I start lol. But once I was in I felt welcomed and engaged, you all were interested in what I had to say and It gave me a feeling of family. It was impossible to forget or become lazy about participating.

The air can mess up meridian flips if the time is not in UTC format on the hand controller. It's a common problem talked about within the ZWO forums.

A great resource for research is Astrobin. If you haven’t heard of it it's a community of photographers who post their images/have forum discussions. It is free to join. You can search by location, say New York, and view images posted by individuals near you. In the main they will list the equipment used and exposure times. You can also search by equipment such as your camera and view images and see what camera settings have been used. It’s a great way to see first hand what combination of equipment/exposure times will produce and to look for potential targets. Worth a look if you haven’t already.

Has anyone got any experience with the above eyepieces? (I have a gso 8" f 5.9) Someone on CN pointed me in the direction of Siebert Optics, specifically the Ultra range as I wear glasses and looking for a large fov. Seems like a nice small scale company but cannot find any user reports on those fl in that range. The spec of the 15mm seems spot on, 13mm may not have enough er for me. Longer focal lengths seem very well priced. I was also looking at the APM option, lots written about it and the main problem seems to be EOFB. With my experience I probably would not notice that although I do observe from a light pouted area, could that be a problem. Would be good to hear from someone that has used this Morpheus 12.5mm keeps coming up and I have used a 9mm but whilst amazing, it isn't my favourite. Due to lack of experience, I find eye placement a bit tricky which can lead to black outs and an off putting brown if observing the moon (CA?). Otherwise its great, would be happy to buy used... Other options in similar focal lengths then get even more expensive and heavy (TV, ES...) Your thoughts and/or alternative suggestions would be much appreciated

Using stand alone.

Wonderful image!

Resolved. Updated to build 1605.

Another thing to learn!

Thanks for that.....just installed it in PI. I am sure you have seen this....sent out today.....

M104 - the Sombrero Galaxy from Pier1 @Roboscopes in Spain (250mm F6.8 Dall-Kirkham, ASI 294MM Pro, 10 Micron GM1000 with integrated OAG) All subs 120 sec 50 x blue, 57 x green, 84 x red 6.4 hrs total integration time. Processed in Pixinsight. Two slightly different treatments cropped from the full frame.

Ha-ha! Less nerdy (at least no one is as nerdy as I am - 0% scored the same )

Works without errors for me on a Windows 11 pc, although gradient removal output seems noisier than previous version. Need to test on a few more images.

I knew I was a nerd but not how much, lol 😂

I believe all the electronic stuff for the mount is in the handset… therefore you have to plug the air into the handset. But I’m pretty sure the handset isn’t feeding the Air any info. For example, the Air handles meridian flips perfectly, so it clearly knows where the scope is pointing relative to the ground. I’ll test @vlaiv theory about skipped steps first. If that doesn’t work I will relent and set the handset. 😃

I am overcome with awe at your nerdyness @Nigella Bryant.

I had to do it, lol,

By PhotoShop, merge mode additive. A very solid connection comprised of several layers. They don’t??? 🫣