TerryD

It's a great tool. Glad it worked for you.

Give GraXpert a try. It can work miracles and it's free.

I have always found that the auto exposure for flats with an ASIAIR are far too bright. I manually adjust exposure to get an average brightness reading of between 26000 and 28000. If the flats are good they will remove color gradients caused by filters. I also agree with others that a laptop screen isn't a good choice for a light source. I've never seen one that has an even illumination. I use an inexpensive light panel meant for making tracings and it works great. Following is a link to the one I use. https://www.amazon.com/16-6×12-6inchs-Stepless-Dimming-Tracing-Painting/dp/B08MVSR7H5/ref=sxin_14_pa_sp_search_thematic?content-id=amzn1.sym.cd4900ae-382e-4968-8cca-26c773a2a0f3%3Aamzn1.sym.cd4900ae-382e-4968-8cca-26c773a2a0f3&crid=XLL159YC8J2V&cv_ct_cx=led%2Btracing%2Bpanel&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4Zyoocl0s_Q6gg3Wi0rci6qZ14XaXkLCXwOyAhDmqEm5fo0Ply4I-z8vXvypnh02VcgAhJZO6Kj53v3ldtXvHg.H2RprCZ9c1vBT93AZSivWq8yxJRv_8xhmmYATo3Nvzg&dib_tag=se&keywords=led%2Btracing%2Bpanel&pd_rd_i=B08MVSR7H5&pd_rd_r=83c2fe93-2c01-41dd-a655-4f884d5ac9e0&pd_rd_w=3XHkl&pd_rd_wg=hYPj3&pf_rd_p=cd4900ae-382e-4968-8cca-26c773a2a0f3&pf_rd_r=QZ5PV8P7KN0ADX7VWBGH&qid=1709051598&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=tracing%2Bpan%2Caps%2C117&sr=1-2-3f7eb011-4703-48ad-8058-43dbff1e6b87-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9zZWFyY2hfdGhlbWF0aWM&th=1

I'm not familiar with Siril. Does it have any type of background extraction tools? Your data looks good but getting rid of the gradients would really improve things and make further processing easier.

I use light pollution maps to locate parks and campgrounds with darker skies than my Bortle 6 back yard. I'm retired and will be moving to Virginia later this year and I'm using the scale to determine areas I want to look for houses. So yes, the Bortle scale is very beneficial to me.

If you're like me and recently acquired one of the GSO made 6 or 8 inch RC scopes and have been waiting for the collimation rings to come back in stock for a loooonnnggg time, I feel your frustration. I finally contacted GSO and asked them when these things will ship to US dealers. They responded within a day telling me they are in stock at Global Optics which is in Taiwan. Tired of the wait I ordered one from them expecting it to take weeks to arrive and amazingly it's arriving today, three days after ordering it! Amazing service. The tracking info says it's coming from GSO so this must be a retail store of there's. Here is the link, https://www.globaloptics.com.tw/categories/collimation-tools

Thanks for the write up. I just ordered an AM5 and your shared experience will hopefully help me out while getting started with this mount.

I've been working on this DSO but haven't gotten enough integration time on it yet. Weather has been crap. Nice job here though!

I just ordered this camera and I'm a newb. I'm curious to learn what kind of light pollution some of you are getting these images through. My backyard is B6.