Gina

Put all my OIII subs through Blink to reject any poor ones and dump those after Orion went out of sight leaving "888 items, totalling 29.1 GB". Took matching flats today or at least I thought I did but PI says they're Ha! Just have to hope it doesn't make much difference. Now feeding the first 300 or so OIII lights plus flats and master bias and dark, through BPP. I am hoping to repeat the operation with a slightly wider FOV though with shorter FL lens so that I can get M78 in the frame. Hoping the 105mm lens will do it - next lens is 55mm or 45mm which is a big difference. The 55mm is f1.8 at full aperture and this doesn't seem to work very well, maybe because the Astrodon filters only work well down to around f3. Stopping down will give diffraction spikes from the iris.

Seem to have about 900 subs before the object dropped below the horizon (or trees).

Have now downloaded 670 subs and looked at the last one and it's fine Still continuing but I can now divide these up into manageable lots and look at them with Blink but lunch calls first

Just applied a wodge of updates to PI. I don't play Minesweeper or other games but surfing - yes. I wouldn't have thought surfing eg. here, would use much in the way of system resources. Or is it that PI takes over and stops other processes from working? The stacking process could certainly do with speeding up. I have already found that PI (or my Linux machine) can't handle too many hundreds of images at a time and I have to split the data up into lumps of 200 subs for Blink, for example. Processing time seems mainly dependent on CPU speed or memory size and HD speed doesn't seem to affect it - SSD doesn't seem any better than HD. Happy New Year to you too

Sure will!!

Now imaging Orion's sword in OIII. 10s gain 440 -30C and set up for about 3 hours imaging - 900 subs.

Warmed up the laptop with a fan heater and taken it back out. Now working again so hoping it will keep going for an hour or two. I've ordered an electric pet blanket from Amazon due to arrive Friday.

Laptop has stopped working properly again so I'm going out to bring it indoors to warm up - I'm going to have to arrange a heater for it.

Imaging tonight. Firstly linking IC405/410 to Simeis 147 in Ha. 60s sub with gain of 600. Simeis 147 can just be made out in the top LH corner in this screenshot of a well histogram stretched image in PixInsight. I plan to change over to a 105mm f2.8 lens to give a slightly wider FOV than the current 135mm f2.5 lens for the next time we get a clear night sky.

Yesterday's flats were overexposed so re-doing them. Here's a screenshot of APT. Shows how little vignetting there is with 1.25" filters on the ASI1600MM-Cool.

Checked well over a thousand subs in Blink and now processing a pile with BPP in PixInsight

Just completed darks and flats Darks needed for exposure of 10s and gain of 440 and flats needed as I have had the rig apart and put back together.

Good idea Hugh My whole observatory runs off an ELCB supply. My overnight imaging run seems successful Currently downloading the data. Having warmed up the laptop and then keeping it warm with a blanket (a nice thick bath towel actually) seems to have done the trick but not sure if it will be enough when it gets colder. I want to replace the laptop though with a headless computer at the pier-head or mount.

After meridian flip and realignment. I have a feeling that M78 is just outside the frame but I didn't want to lose any M42.

Still working I have a nice thick towel draped over the laptop to keep it warm Now imaging the Orion area from M42 to M78 including the Flame Nebula and Horse's Head. Taking 10s Ha subs with a gain of 440. Here is a screenshot of PixInsight showing a single frame histogram stretched to bring out some of the fainter stuff at the expense of M42. I'm hoping to capture several hundred subs to give a reasonable dynamic range. Unfortunately Orion is due so disappear in the SW before the night is out.

Here's a couple of screenshots of the obsy laptop - Heart and Soul in SharpCap and focussing on a star with 400% zoom with my remote focussing system. Good clarity and seeing tonight - stars only a couple of pixels wide.

Well I'm blowed - that's it! With the laptop warm SharpCap is working fine

I have the laptop indoors now in case I could think of something to try to fix it but I haven't thought of anything. But if it is temperature I could try running SharpCap on a spare camera and see if it works. If it does I could take the warm laptop outdoors and connect the imaging rig and see if it works - I might get an hour or two of imaging - it's still clear.

I wonder if it's temperature - getting too cold...

Well it works fine during daytime - why should it go wrong at night?

Clear sky tonight and everything set up and apparently working until it got dark then neither SharpCap nor APT would work!! I had SharpCap running before it got dark and the rig aimed at the tree on far hill that I use to set up focus. Remote focus working fine and no problem getting an image in SharpCap. Then later when it was almost dark and SharpCap still imaging the tree and nearby road with traffic, I slewed to the Heart and Soul in Cassiopeia and thought I saw the Heart shape. Then I tried to move the Heart into the frame better but in spite of moving the mount, the image didn't change. Found SharpCap wasn't actually working so that was the image from a little earlier when I first slewed to the Heart Nebula. Tried rebooting the laptop but then SharpCap just showed a black image whatever exposure I chose and the exposure didn't match what I had set Restarting SharpCap made no difference. Then I tried APT with nothing else running and it just stopped at the end of the exposure saying "busy". I don't think this is either software - I think it's my laptop and this is the only laptop I have that has Windows on it. In most respects the laptop runs fine - no problem with any other software - I've been using it to run a 3D printer with no problem whatsoever. So why won't it run my astro stuff??!! I've been waiting weeks for a clear night and now the software won't work!! Depressed of Devon!

Yes, all built from scratch.

I'll be watching that with great interest - thank you very much I'm using KStars/Ekos/INDI for my all sky camera with RPi 3 as server at the masthead and WiFi - just power cable up the mast. Working well I shall be converting my main imaging rig in due course.

I've only used stepper motors.

This screenshot shows the coverage of the Orion area with the same lens and orientation.