Spikey

Well done to the winners !

I'm personally learning a bit more about the various imaging packages and trying techniques I wouldn't normally do; such as trying and purchasing StarTools.

Having such good data, far better than I could ever collect issuch a bonus for doing this. Thanks IKO & SGL ! 

Star Tools 1.8 Beta, NB accents as SII, set orientation and played around with colour and saturation.

Not seen the moon framed in this way before Peter, very impressive image.

Well deserved winners, a very difficult image to process. IKI has been a bit of a Mojo saver for me after years of weather, time and kit restrictions.

2nd go, this time I added the Ha. First time with Startools and quite impressed with it, especially for the price.

First go with Star tools and the start of a new learning curve ! Couldn't figure out how I could add the Ha prior to 1.8 so left it out.

Congratulations, John ! 50k amazing ! 

I think SGL is also glad that you found them, your knowledge is second to none and you are a patient, helpful person (even when outside lights are left on!)

Hope to see you again at another star party in the near future.

A truly fascinating image Peter and well worth the enormous amount of effort you've clearly gone to.

You can't go wrong with 'Making Every Photon Count' by Steve Richards.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

Then if you want to process your images nicely;

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/dark-art-or-magic-bullet-steve-richards.html

Here's my effort. Pixinsight and Photoshop hybrid.

Histogram equalistion of B & G to R channel then RGB combination. ArcSin then Masked stretch and RGB as a tiff for photoshop.

Lum just a tiny histogram and then a masked stretch saved as tiff.

RGB saturation boost and gaussian blur then lum added as luminosity.

Noels smaller stars and increase star colour then local contrast enhance.

Back to PI for dark enhance.

Saved as a PNG for faster loading on site.

Great sky for 1 image ! 30 seconds by me is just an orange mess 🤣

I used a HEQ5 portably succesfully for a few years. I've owned 2 of them and I would go as far to say its the best mount you can buy for the price point.

It was significantly easier to manage, break down and setup than my NEQ6.  

I'd have been ecstatic to get 11 images a year ! More like 3 or 4 when I've got the time and am not knackered enough to show an interest.

The IKI stuff has really got me interested again in processing so the mojo iss just about there still.

I would have liked some decent pics of the comet but c'est la vie.

A few firsts here !

M33 has always been my absolute nemesis and I'm pleased to have been able to use some excellent data to play with.

Secondly, this is my first go at using PixInsight and I haven't really got a clue what I'm doing. Anyway, I did so much that I've forgotten what I did but I am very pleased with the result !

I wanted to do something a little bit different as it's been a while since I processed any images. So I made life easier for myself and processed all 3 channels in mono and then combined them. I removed the stars in starnet to make it more ghost like, in fact , quite like a dementor !

15 hours ago, Coriorda said:

Thanks, I’ve wondered about this, but don’t they need to be plugged into a laptop also ?

Unfortunately yes for this particular solution you do need some local computing power.

Have a look at polemaster, no more neck craning.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/qhy-polemaster/qhy-polemaster-with-adapter-for-heq5-sirius-eq-g-eqm-35-mounts.html

1 minute ago, AlanP_ said:

This is what it returned: 

Ok it's not one of those then. 

6 minutes ago, AlanP_ said:

That software just seems to be creating a virtual usb port or am I missing something?

Run the PL2303 chip check program off that page to see if its actually a Prolific chipset.

It will be a prolific chipset or clone.

Try

http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=225&pcid=41

31 minutes ago, AlanP_ said:

I had a look around but I couldnt find anything. Do you know where I can download those serial drivers just incase they do work?

Yeah, I have those settings I should in my previous reply. Im not sure if they're right or not.. but either way the COM port isnt showing up.

It should be a Prolific USB to serial driver. Which version I do not know. Try the latest.

Does it need any USB to serial drivers to work properly?  I know some don't need it, but some do and I couldn't make out which chip type it was from the website.

Looking forward to the entries on this one.

A slightly softer rendition; HaSHO but processed via FITS with Liberator and then the RGB combined made starless with starnet and slightly stretched. Selective colour, then Ha as Luminance. A bit of contrast &  sharpening layers plus some vibrance & saturation for good measure.

It makes such a change to be able to work with decent data !

I've also gone for a HOO as I didn't think the minimal SII added anything, although I do intend to do a version with SII as well.

Basically this is an RGB made from the Ha, O3, O3 as the channels. A bit of tweaking in levels and curves. It's also had Ha added as luminance and O3 added as luminance and blended in. An unsharp mask + dodge/burn layer blended and finally another saturation uplift and blended as a colour layer.  Only done a couple of HOO images in the past, quite a few years ago so this is nice to be able to have a go without having to collect the data myself.