TiffsAndAstro

Btw m31 gets higher in the sky over the next month or two, so you're fighting a lot more horrible atmosphere to image right now. Also the moon and technically no proper darkness. I'm new, and desperate to image m31 with my new gear, but it's still too low for me right now. Having said that, it's probably ideal to practice and get data to practice with

Check out deeps space Astros siril tutorials on YouTube. Quite amazing

Try it and see. Take a 5 sec at a high iso then zoom in look for star trails/elongated stars. If none use 5 sec. If you do see trails etc drop to 4 sec, and look again. I'm very new to this but I think I saw trails at 50mm crop frame at about 5 seconds or more. You're at 200mm so if you don't see trails at 2 sec I say you're doing well I think. I think iso800 might be best when taking your subs

Your result is even better than the original. Not sure about the half swastika satellite galaxy in the top left? Actually 2/3rds Manx flag galaxy sounds more contemporary

I just tried to process the Manchester City Telescope data, expecting to find even better source to process. The website said plod are currently investigating 115 sub exposures for financial irregularities

Well I did a 3ppa from home ish and 20 degrees measure steps. Went very fast and easy, but then phd2 guiding assistant said my pa was 8 arc mins error and guiding was bad all night. If clear tonight I will reset phd2 start it again from scratch. My subs looked ok in Nina as far as I could tell. ***** doing some processing now on veil nebular with terrible guiding and dss has given most of my subs the highest score i've ever seen. Plus in a quick histogram i can clearly see the witches broom. So right now im happy but have no idea how. This is clearly no apod, but for less than 2 hours I'm quite chuffed

just for the curious bit less than an hour on m106 and almost 13 minutes on m94 (had issues finding veil nebula, i remember now but its high enough after 1230 so will try again tonight). i think the m106 is ok considering one hour, full moon, clouds and my gear. m94...well i at least i've proved it exists...

im a bit surprised, but it was my flats. not sure what happened, as i did them as i usually do. using a set of flats from a few days ago and the dew seems to not appear after a background extraction. ty again, again.

Didn't seem to be any dew last night my gear was bone dry. To be fair my dew heaters isn't directly around the primary, it's a little higher up the dew shield. But it was switched on. I'll have a look at my flats and lights a bit more. I can also test stack with less recent flats see if any difference. It's only an hour of subs, so not earth shatteringly vital. Would just like to figure it out to avoid repeating same mistake. But because you said it looks like dew, it does indeed look like dew Also they only appear after a background extraction

Ty I mentioned phd2 pa error because I thought it might be right due to my 10d measure step being less accurate. Next time I will try 20d starting at home/Polaris ish and my finger on stop button try and do as you do. I think you might be right about budget mounts, at least mine 1.4" to 1.8" for my 2" image scale is probably acceptable as my stars look ok.

I'll have a closer look at my flats, it's not impossible though I did then as usual.

Sorry didn't have time for more detail. The above is 60% best images stacked in dss to check my siril stacking. I did darks flats and biases and stacked in both siril and dss with those. My guiding was decent (for me) around 1.3" Hfd in phd2 was above 4 mostly, snr around 13

I actuality shot m106 and got 59 x 1min subs before clouds. Then decided on veil nebula all on my own as it was high enough. I used Vegas earlier position as a guide. My guiding changed from decent to the worst I've ever seen and gave you after maybe 20 x 1 mi. Subs. Quick auto stretch of my m106 below I hope is the result of thin cloud I couldn't see with my eyes or in my subs. Hopefully that's why my auto guiding went bad. Not bothered looking at my few veil subs. Maybe I'll do better tonight with same two targets if there is less cloud ? I appreciate the help though.

because there's none (i can see) i my subs the shady hollows only appear after background extraction and sky looked clear....

decided to go with m106 lol it was a bit further from the moon 1 hour ish until clouds. going to try veil nebula if clouds go away as i think its high enough

are you trying to make me cry? because i am quite prepared to.

Can't see me ever going mono and I don't want to buy filters before I get a osc. I guess best I can do is use this as practice try and tweak my guiding.

I guess I can play with my guiding if clear. Moon will be full but pretty low. Maybe I can find something in opposite side of sky to practice on.

Yeah I thought it would still be ok, but seems not if only for me practicing. Bodes it is if moon is far enough I guess.

I did see mention somewhere that it was a tricky target but didn't say why and as I noob I can't why it would be

I've been using Nina for 3ppa for a while and I get good results, easily less than 10". However, messing in phd2 with calibration assistant etc told me 1'3" pa error. Watching some videos online and looking at my 3ppa settings and looking at what happens is confusing me. I've attached a screenshot below but it doesn't show my settings, but may give clues? My start position was 53d and change. Measure distance 10d (I know 20 is more accurate, bare with my rambling) and east = off. Pressing play mount slews left west?) until almost 90 degrees/horizontal takes pics moves 10d takes pic moves 10d takes pics done. If I change it to 20 the last move makes the Ra hit a bump stop and plate solving fails. So...I changed start to 45d east still = off and 20d measure distance, but now the mount slews right/east until it hit that bump stop. Should I just set it to 20d measure distance and start from current position IE home? Or any other suggestions:( Could I set it to start at 320d so then 320-20 = 300 and 300-20 = 280 which is still above 270ish where bump stop is?

Which is the smarter choice tonight, even though I'm expecting rain? Moon looks close to trio, as it was when I tried two hours on it a week or two back (see below). Even with my meagre gear and skills I was disappointed even if my processing could be a bit better I just stopped. Bodes/cigar turned out pretty well (for me) and moon is much further away. Maybe I should just add time to that? I no filters or any other of that kind of stuff

This is really good looking cabling

Someone makes a canon EF adapter for zwo cameras that can control canon lenses. I wonder if the adapter might magically fix this? Maybe the lens needs a electric signal to keep iris in position or something? Cuiv lazy geek had a video on the adapter.

I totally agree, but I've watched a lot of (I think?) Christopher frosts tests on YouTube and a lot of lenses struggle with sharpness in the corners wide open, admittedly not astrophotography tests though.