TiffsAndAstro

This looks great. A minor, minor criticism is that in my mind, it should be red in colour but that's probably convention rather than anything else. Some amazing detail here, I can't wait for it to be visible for me and my improved gear

Really nice detail. Maybe a bit green noise though? My 2 hours of data are on my list to reprocess as I did it badly above

I like her already

Very helpful Ty. Seen a clamp for £30 ish on fleabay so could be worse. Of course, with hindsight I've realised I've rotated my scope in it's rings because i don't have a rotator. Which means attaching a dovetail on top of the OTA rings is pretty much my only option I think. I have a spare dovetail so I should just need a second screw for it and a clamp and screws for it, then plonk my guidescope on the new dovetail and space velcro on my usb hub to it, too. What fun ill have.

Looking on fleabay now I like Nina too much to go asiair now. Can maybe get a mele quieter for just over £100 at some point nearer the heat death of the universe.

Yeah that's my understanding too, but (I probably wrong) if your mounting point isn't top center of your OTA, some rotation left or right would actually be across both Ra and Dec? Which might be bad? Not sure I'm explaining that too well. Also my fl is like 420mm so probably wouldn't matter to my set up too much.

I don't like the idea of trying to line this up with my main scope at least using my finder clamp thing it seems close enough. Going to look at top mounting a spare vixen dovetail on top, and then something with two screws to attach my guidescope and cam I think, but I'll probably give your solution a try first and it's cheaper Ty for the suggestion and pic

I don't think so but will check. Not keen on this though because your setup looks prone to rotation around the single screw ? I should be well under payload capacity so will try some counter weight and velcro

Not keen on buying any filters before I can get a proper camera also I think my flatteners filter hold is inside nose piece which I don't use, so I'd need a clip in or a filter drawer. I'd rather put that cash towards a camera. even so I quite like my result from 2 hours and will try and add more time if I ever see a star ever again.

I did the veil nebula only 2 hours but I was really impressed. I have three post processed versions This is the least over processed

No filter wheels etc so I'm hoping some weight to counter the guide scope and cam will help. It's not like I'm that far away. Need to ask flo what kind of screw it is. I think I have to get two guide scope lamp things to mont it on a top vixen, or maybe I can buy a clamp with two screws. Will have a look around ty

I'm very noob, but I see some similarity between some of my images when I messed up my own flats, mostly the background. Might be worth a go taking some and seeing the result? Bit of white t-shirt over the end of your scope and put a tablet on top. You might need a big tablet for that monster though. Those horizontal striations. I assumed mine were walking noise, but using better flats fixed it for me.

Hmm a dummy weight opposite the finder is a possibility. Also, I have two spare dovetails, one of which might stretch between the two screws on the top of the tube rings. I only have one such screw right now, and also not sure how I'd mount the finder scope on that dovetail and keep it parallel to main scope, but it's food for though Ty again

Yeah i've love a strainwave. just plonk my stuff on it any old how and away i go.... i think my balance might change my guiding from poor (1.4") to bad (as much as 2.5") and my image scale is 2.02" next chance i get i am going to reset phd2 try again from scratch. i also have some other settings for my mount from a video i've seen on youtube, but im not convinced the youtuber is that wise also some from an astrobin forum post. i can set them back also going to try changing my guiding exposures from default 1.0 sec to 2 sec. my stars don't look great in phd2, sort of a nice little dot but surrounded by much larger circularish glow. in the target view they seem blobby and nebulous, but i've seen youtubers with similar or worse in the target view. cheers for the help

So I would say the balance of my scope+other attached bits is "good" but I don't have much context as to how good it needs to be. In turn, with one of the two clutches off, balance on both axis individually seem perfect. but when I loosen both axis' clutches at the same time and flip Ra fully east/left it is a tiny bit camera end heavy. When if flip Ra fully west/right it is a tiny bit lens hood side heavy. Two not very enlightening pics attached. The one in darkness purely to show my counter weight setup in case it helps. There is a guidescope and cam on other side of the usb hub out of sight. I balance with lens caps off cos it does seem to help.

yeah my previous s8+ had an oled screen and images looked great on it budget lcd on a budget phone, i should be happy its in colour

are you taking flats at all?

My own very limited images look ok on my desktop monitor (not calibrated but not a million miles away) but look overstretched and pretty nasty on this mobile phone screen. They look ok on my tablet. Monitor calibration is usually a good thing but I CBA on my 6yo desktop gaming monitor.

My backgrounds are not great, or my foregrounds, for many reasons

I current have 3 versions of my 2 hours on witches broom: massively over stretched, barely any stretch and one roughly in the middle. I don't like any of them

Wish my backgrounds were a touch to smooth like this