Gina

I have a serious problem! The SX filter wheel is 15mm thicker than the Atik EFW2! I could save 11mm by buying an extra female SX adaptor plate and dispense with the ASI1600MM gender changer but that would still mean I need an extra 4mm travel on the lens focus and it just isn't there. I think the same would apply to the field flattener for the Esprit scope and it's adapter

The SX mini filter wheel with OAG has arrived and looks very nice Since I'm waiting for the Astrodon 3nm SII filter from Ian King (getting more in) and not yet managed to capture RGB M31 subs, I think I'll set it up with Ha, OIII, R, G, B as the five filters. OTOH I could do the RGB before changing filter wheels - I'll see how I feel this afternoon. I think I'd really like to get the new wheel installed and tested I'm thinking of adding Ha to the RGB image of M31 so to be able to add longer Ha subs would be useful.

That's interesting - thanks Wim

Processed the Cygnus Loop with the new master bias and dark plus the Ha flat with CPP then had a play in Ps - rotating and cropping and saving full size image as PNG.

Took some more bias and dark frames tonight but at -24°C to -25°C rather than -30°C as a compromise in the hope of improving on no calibration at all. It has worked to a large extent. Not removed all the noise of course as it doesn't really fit but it's certainly an improvement and shows that the data has promise. This is the result of running the CPP script. This is all the image, full size, histogram stretched and saved as PNG.

Thought I'd just rotate it and crop it and upload that.

Well, here's IC1396. Clearly the noise calibration hasn't worked!

The run came up with some errors - like no correlation between light and master dark or something like that. Yet I carefully checked that I had the right darks. I don't understand this - what is there to correlate between the master dark and the lights? No stars in a dark... I think I tried to do too much last night Trouble is we only get one good clear night in a week or two - maybe more. Forecast is warm again tonight so I don't think I shall be able to repeat the darks.

Hopefully I've got things sorted out now!! I'm now using what I think are the correct sets of bias and dark frames, the master flat for Ha and IC1396 lights. Batch PreProcessing is now running...

Just been checking up on the FITS info and find I got the biases and darks mixed up - I used the ones for the RGB data with a gain of 148 and 10s exposures for the darks instead of g600 and 30s I'll now do IC 1396 with the right bias and dark sets. Considering that I used the wrong bias and dark sets, the Crescent looks remarkably noise free That doesn't explain the horrible stars though.

Not sure what the star problem is but there was a very heavy dew last night - might have been one side of the lens dewing up. I shall have to have another go at that. The "full size" image here is actually half the captured image size. That looks awful!! I was hoping for better results from last night as the temperature was lower and I got the camera sensor down to -30°C. The noise was very noticeably reduced even compared with -25°C. I shall now try the other DSOs I captured last night. To capture the Soap Bubble I shall need a much narrower FOV. Probably try with the SW Esprit 80ED Pro. The FL is 400mm whereas the lens is 135mm. I shall need longer exposures with the scope at f5 compared with the lens at f2.5. 120s with the scope would match the 30s with the lens. The little SX FW+OAG is due to arrive tomorrow and then I can use guiding.

Here is the processed image histogram adjusted and resized in Ps.

All done - saved file as TIFF ready to transfer to Win7 desktop and resize in Ps.

Stacking now - also taking a couple of seconds a frame.

Calibration part finished and now registering images - taking about a couple of seconds per frame.

Created new folders on SSD and copied over the bias and dark frames for my Ha sets of subs. Also folders for lights and "Calibrate". I have copied the Crescent Nebula lights to the SSD as well as I shall probably read these again when I improve my processing. I am now running BPP on the Crescent lights with bias, dark subs and master flat. I certainly seems quicker than when I did similar on HD

Thanks Wim I had a good look at one or two single subs of the Crescent Nebula area where the Soap Bubble is supposed to be (going by a post in the DSO Imaging section) but couldn't see it. Not surprising with only 30s of data! 3,000s = 50m of calibrated and stacked subs might "Which bubble?" - the very faint one.

APT point blank refused to do the green subs for M31 in spite of rebooting etc. so I put the cap on the lens and tried -30°C biases and darks and that worked. Very strange. I'll have to get the G & B M31 subs another night. Anyway, I got a goodly collection of Ha sets on several DSOs so a pretty good night altogether I expect to process tonight's several hundred subs tomorrow (or rather, later today).

Thank you both

Onto IC 1396 and this is the first sub of 100. Again no processing except resize and 30s, g600, t-29°C, 3nm Ha.

After 100 Ha subs on the Cygnus Loop I decided to go for the area around the Crescent Nebula. Here is one frame unprocessed except for resizing. 30s with gain of 600, temperature -29°C, 3nm Ha.

M31 is still too low down so I'm grabbing some 3nm Ha Cygnus loop subs ATM. I might go on to another DSO such as IC 1396 in Ha next if M31 still isn't out of the trees. I think I've already got OIII for the Cygnus Loop and I'm waiting for the 3nm SII before doing more in that wavelength. There's a lot of stuff in the Cygnus area that would benefit from Ha mono images. The SX FW with OAG should arrive Monday. Then I can go on to longer exposures for dimmer DSOs.

Outside temperature is dropping nicely and now down to 14°C. Camera temperature is now down to -19°C. I think I may settle on -20°C for my set-point temperature tonight. That should be reasonable for the low gain RGB imaging.

That isn't a powered hub!

Decided to try controlling the mount from KStars on the laptop but it came up with a permissions error suggesting adding user to dialup group but I'd already done that and to make sure I tried it again only to be told I was already in the dialup group. So it's something else. INDI project now on hold - been setting up the Win7 laptop ready for imaging tonight - if the sky clears. Thinking of starting with M31 since that will be using shorter exposures and lower gain than NB. That will help with the high ambient temperature. 12°C forecast for tonight so might be able to get down to -23°C, currently running at -18°C with full cooling.