TiffsAndAstro

at a slight tangent, svbony have a rotator that should work in theory though id need m63 down to m54 adapter between focus tube adapter and flattener, then the filter drawer between the flattener and their uncooled 585 camera. whether that all fits im currently trying to work out, plus, my focus tube is at focus about an inch our of the ota which doesn't leave much leeway. there's probably more to it than that but im new to all this so many adapters and sizes and lengths and threads its a bit annoying. luckily im in a good mood as i took 15 x 60 sec subs last night lol. before the clouds came in my guiding was my best ever at 0.82". its annoying seeing it hover under 0.50" for a while before jumping up, but i think that means it has potential, but i won't be sweating over it again if next few sessions it still around 0.8 or 1.0. tilt might be slightly improved but, as i hope to get a cheap astro cam im not gonna sweat that either. i can sweat about any tilt i get once i upgrade camera.

i put the bestest pics of my non premium flattener a few posts above. there is a lighter grey ring of threads in there which i think the filter would go into but i really don't fancy trying to do that in the dark without my sausauge fingers touching the filter glass etc. filter draw and maybe even two filter trays (luxury) seems a better idea for not too much extra cash. if its even possible wiith my gear.

i appreciate what you're saying but i don't trust it all hanging off two screws and i wouldn't even if it was a compression ring type. i have a feeling im also not going to be able to fit a rotator and filter draw into my setup, but im trying to work it out if i can. i 'need' a filter drawer to make reasonably easy access to filter changing, i'd 'like' a rotator. once i can reposition my guider on top of the ota rings (its dew heater band currently gets in the way of the locking bolt for the telescope's dovetail which is annoying) i can rotate the ota in the rings a bit if needed i guess.

Will have a look Ty so much. I'm hoping it's fairly image agnostic so it might do job. I'm thinking two or three panel mosaic on m31 if I get a small sensor, and I bet that's tricky to stick/match

This is great stuff. Sadly the only similar gear I have compared to the gent with his dob is a matching purple top Good luck with your business.

really really nice and love the non red Ha. id love info on a workflow in free software for mosaics, but i'm guessing you use pixinsight?

too small for me to go for but ive seen some really nice images of it.

the weather is terrible. in fact its worse than terrible, its ok enough at times to look promising, only for that promise to disappear as soon as i've set up and polar aligned multiple times. im a master of unlucky imaging ;( with your gear m51 would be my first choice of target. if an image of one galaxy eating another isn't cool, i dunno what is.

sorry for any confusion. i meant in the m57 i took a little while back. i didn't get any of the outer detail, or really even the coloured rings the op did. the pic you showed is the OPs lovely image, not mine. i was just wondering if the OP used starnet++ during his processing, it might be responsible for not being able to see the central star?

Friend is thinking of a s50 for him and his daughters after I've sent him my own (not s50) terrible images over last few months. If after seeing your image he doesn't buy one he's an idiot. He's in bortale9 though,.....

I managed the central star and some central wisps but not galaxy or outer features. I found starnet++ via siril put m57 in the star mask not the starless. Not sure if that relates to bottlestopburley losing the central star?

Wow. Impressive image. Would love to see a Barlow in there. Would also love to see a galaxy or other DSO with this setup

this can't be possible from earth surely? seems it is, somehow

i think they'd have to be, its so specialised. 500kg maximum load! im currently bidding on Hubble for when its finally decommissioned on ebay. now i know what i can put it on to move it around the garden.

looks really good to me. i read the cluster itself is very hard to resolve, but your star colour is as nice as ive seen anywhere. i would love stars like that in my data/processing.

no i have no use for that but who knows in the future? i just think its a neat idea and at 500kg load will be just about able to handle the telescope i'll get one day

I spent 15 minutes last night trying to work out why my usb hub wasn't working. It's extension cable wasn't fully pushed in. Makes me a tad concerned about getting more complicated gear

ah yeah fair enough. sadly, im crap at photography, never could get good at composition and stuff, even though i've had some talented colleagues try in the past at least in astrophotograhy not too much changes in a scene so i can just move my fov etc. ill never be good at that, but should be ok enough for me at some point. and i do agree with you about doing it manually, but im still 'semi manual' at the moment - i run a script in sirirl to stack then use the pp_lights to redo it all and take advantage of the plot and stuff. that alone make a big difference from purely using a script.

wow they're pretty reasonably priced. im quite amazed. hand delivered too by the looks of it. i love people who make this sort of stuff, especially in the uk. they should look at offering a variant with metal rollers/railway spindle type wheels that could run along a rail and lock at a pre fixed point near the end. could use a simple shed with doors and roll it out on the rails into exact place every night

which other walks of life? can't see me re-using any skills i might pick up elsewhere. and i sort of just discovered unpurple in gmic. its not perfect, but i've hardly used it much. hopefully i'll find other useful addons like unpurple, but still need to learn gimp more first. masks and folding high pass info back into starless looks powerful, for example.

cheers both, its just i see quite of lot of m13 images taken and i struggle to see the appeal unless it was some sort of standardised test type thing.

honestly (and this is just my opinion as i don't even have the skills to know "data from professional or scientific instruments" when im looking at it) you probably have more than enough procesing skills if you came to that opinion. if that makes any sense? the triffid/lagoon data from astrobin user im practicing with is clearly so far in advance of the data i generate myself, but the end result is remarkably similar to when i process my own data, i think it means im not being limited by my own data (relatively bad as it is) but all my other skills. maybe my opensource/free tools, too, but i'm loathed to criticise those free tools because they're incredible and invaluable to noobs like myself. there is literally no chance of me paying £500 for pixinsight and some addons instead of using it to get a better camera, nano pc or other stuff. doesn't mean i won't go down the pi route in the future. im also certain that is probably naive but im newish so that gives me a slight excuse

not keen on adding stuff, even though i did just that (badly) to hide a dust mote. was just after some decent nebula data to practice my workflow on and compare results. after a quick play with someone's triffid/lagoon nebula, i think i have my own 'style' of result. which i got three times each on redoing my own ngc7000 and nelly the elephant trunk nebula. while i'd like to think that makes me a maverick free spirit with no bounds artist, i think it more likely a limit on my skills and free tools. probably 99% the former ;( still, what else could i be doing apart from destroying a broken old tripod for its m6 looking bolts and then maybe breaking my scope with them

just want to do it for some practice. its either that or redo the few of my own i have that i've already stretched on a rack, flogged, drawn and quartered too many times