chubster1302

Evening all. Looking for suggestions for the above. I want a dedicated, cooled, one shot at the best price possible. I can't afford £1000+ plus unfortunately. It will be paired with a WO Zs73iii and will be used under Bortle 3 skies. I'm thinking maybe a ASI 533MC Pro bit are there any better alternatives for the same sort of money?

Anyone come across red solar lights for the garden that they can personally recommend?

At our home in Southern Spain and forgot to bring main camera so thought id try the phone. Just a 7min exp in Astro mode.

Would that even work? Let's say, loads of us got together, agreed a target and stacked everything as one 🤔

Looking at the plot in siril I don't think the data was that good, but it was all I've be able to get from my location in weeks. Still need to add more subs. To be honest I didn't even realise IC 1396 was a broadband target, It just happened to be in the right place....but, I like a challenge and if i can nail that as good as poss then the "easier" targets should be a breeze. Hmm 🫣 I do get the whole walk away philosophy, even if I have been sitting here at 3am still looking at data, when I have to be up at 6am 🙈😀

Some amazing advice in here, thanks everyone. @wimvb I didnt know about the data repository, many thanks I will check that out. I am currently using Siril + PS CC and I dont have any plans to change yet, I do have some experience in PS, Camera Raw and LR so at least im not starting from stracth. "Luckily" for me, my "brain" is as such, that it needs to know exactly how one thing works before moving onto the next, the frustrating bit is not really knowing what effect early editing decisions may have down the line, if at all, and there is always the, just because of the lack of knowledge...."what if I did that first" scenario. Yeah, I know this isnt life and death but it just bugs me 😀 I have the book you mention and that has helped me get to where I am currently, a good read 👍 Yep, whilst reading many posts and watching many vids that is one thing I knew from the start....lots of subs. Im currently only working on two targets

Which would be the "better" mount to take and leave at Spain. Im assuming, maybe incorrectly, that the EQ5 would give me a better guiding experience overall. But then the seeing in Spain, is going to be better than at home so perhaps that doesnt matter? Would the AZ-GTi fit the bill as a smaller mount ?

....cant really afford it right now. Dilemma...We have a place in Southern Spain, 360 degree views, under Bortle 3 skies, currently we go over there about 4 times a year. I have a EQ5 pro, WO ZS73iii, D5300, guide cam and scope. Should I just take everything over there and leave it there, or just haul everything back and forth each time. 🤔. Im considering the Sky-Watcher AZ-GTiX, as a second mount, that should be able to handle the equipment I have, no? That would just mean taking the scope and bits and pieces back and forth, which would easily go on as hand luggage. Then "if" i go down that route which mount would you keep where? Id still like to practice in the UK, when and if I can. I have no PC in Spain, so would probably get something like the Asiair Plus for control. Decisions, decisions.....what would you do 🤔

I have a rough understanding of what the "sliders" do, but the problem with following tutorials is that 9 times 10 whatever they are doing will not work, or give widly different results on your image. Interpretating how to apply the correct tools is the hard bit. I used to have a fine art pet photography business so have spent a fair bit of time in LR and PS, but with those "targets" I knew the dog was black, the grass was green etc.... The only saving grace is everything is digital, so if you "get it wrong" you can either undo, or start again

Ah, yes, found the binning option, many thanks ill give that a go. And yeah, I had like the whole background with samples on and just removed the ones around the obvious nebula in the middle. 🙈

That looks awesome, well, to my untrained eye anyways. Interesting to read your comment regarding the background extraction samplers, this is where i think I might be going wrong early on, watching a few tutorials on it and I know you have to take the samples off the nebula but this whole image seems to be nebula so I am probably leaving way too many on. And when you say "Bin x2", where is that option in Siril ?

Yep...im sure i will get it modded at some time, and then obviously the next step (I hate this hobby 🙈) a dedicated astro cam but in the meantime, considering the first nights rubbish subs Im quite impressed by the results you have all achieved on this post. Gives me something to aim for

D5300 unmodded on a William Optics ZS 73iii, no filters. Guiding with PHD2. 3min subs at 800iso. I "thought" the sky conditions were OK but as this graph shows, that really wasn't the case. 🙈

Cheers everyone for the advice and showing me what is there, I still cant get anywhere near the examples above but ill keep experimenting. The data for this was taken over two nights, the first session be really bad, just waiting for another clear night to add some better subs.

Interesting watch, thanks. I did dither every 3rd frame when acquiring the subs via NINA, is that the same thing ? 🤔

That's amazing, I have no idea how you managed to bring out so much of the nebula... I'm using siril to do the initial stacking and stretching, I can see you removed some of the stars, can I ask at what point in the process would you do this. I have starnet++ for Siril

Many thanks Onikkinen, really appreciate the reply. I realise from the graph that basically anything above the green line might be considered no good and I had come to the conclusion that the first night was carp. So thanks for confirming. Where does the green line come from, how is it generated?

I've been watching loads of processing tutorials but I'm now at the stage where I'm just moving sliders and not really having a clue what I'm doing or trying to actually achieve. Does anyone want to have a play with this and show me what can, if anything, be brought out from this image. At least then I will have a benchmark to try and aim for r_pp_light_stacked.fit

It was two separate imaging sessions which is why "I think" the result looks the way it does, which sort of makes sense but yeah, its a lot of "guessing" for a newbie to understand. Im not even sure exactly what the green line indicates. What would be an acceptable FWHM for instance 🤔

Has anyone come across any good explanations of how to evaluate the results from the plot tab and its various outputs? I "sort" of get the basics but im not fully understanding it. For instance what exactly is this telling me. Should i be binning all the images on the left hand side of this plot ?

I've obviously found loads of tutorials online but none of them say "why" to do something or "what to use" in this situation. They are more just watching them do their processing. So any really good tutorials you've stumbled across ?

Anyone done it on this particular scope? Is it an "out of the box" fit or do I need extras ?

What obs do you have

Ok, thanks, it was set to 16 so Ive changed that. So will that make the Histogram "look" the same as the Camera Raw one, or does NINAs histogram work completely differently to every other histogram? CR tells me im well over exposed NNA's says Im well under exposed (when looking at the histograms) 😖

Not had much luck with it to be honest but that s mainly because I don't really understand it. Will give it some more of my time