Neo_uk

Hi budgie , I used a gain of 120 not sure of the offset as this I belive is set by the asi air . I didn't have a problem with any gradient... I was told to make sure the flats with the 294 are about 4 second exposures (4.2 in this image and matching dark flats) giving a adu of around 23k to 25k... I stacked them in pixinsight wbpp I hope this helps .

Thought i would share my first light image of the Heart Nebula with the 294mc pro and l xtreme filter , equipment : sky-watcher star adventurer GTI Williams optics Redcat 51 mk2 zwo 294mc pro 2" L xtreme 10 and a half hours of data collected over three nights processed in Pixinsight ... Had a few s at processing that went horribly wrong so ended up following a foraxx video from paulyman astro on youtube (still learning pixinsight). now i'm quite happy with the results

Thank you all for your insight and information... I think I've settled on this ... A fellow ive found on ebay £950 ... think all i would need to do is add a 2 or 4 TB hdd for extra storage ?

Thanks 👍 I just saw the i7 processer in the one I posted thinking they where all equal .. but looking closer I see there not ... I did look at dell pc's and as you say with a little bit of a upgrade the one you linked would be better . I was just looking for guidance... someone to say ... this will do the trick 😉 Cheers Chris.

Thanks elp , For the info .. as I say I'm lost now days with specs etc as I never kept up with them .. So I've been browsing and found this refurbished pc bundle on ebay would this be adequate ? ... just want to make sure I'm putting my money in the right place ... Many thanks Chris.

I did see this on ebay any good for the purpose ? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115725131813?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=BCGUU3iTTsq&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=NfWiflYERCu&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Thanks for the replies . Budget would be in the region of £1000 To include monitor but could possibly stretch the budget slightly... Really only going to use it for processing as i game on a ps5 . Size of case not really a issue as I've yet to decide where to keep it ... All the numbers on processors and graphics cards loose me now days ... Was just a pentium 1 , 2 , 3 back in the day and the higher the nuber the better lol ... non of this quad core business. Many thanks Chris.

Hi , I know this is a very big and probably subjective question but .... I'm looking at building / buying a pc for image processing using pixinsight and rc astro X tools ... My little laptop takes an age to do some of the processes and I'm looking to speed things up . I know gpu can be important if you can get cuda working and also ram ..but its been about 20yrs since i last built a pc and im looking for a bit of advice on the following... Mac or pc ? Processor ,Graphics card , ram etc Many thanks Chris.

Nice job like the colours you got in the stars .. I've never had a colour cam before always shot mono with the sx h694 and asi 1600mm pro wich are both cooled ... so abit of a learning curve on the processing side for me with added noise of the 183mc I've got not being the cooled version.

Yep makes so much difference.. What camera do you use with your redcat ?

Thanks kat .. Yes the rig is a joy to use so easy compared with the heq5 and eq6 ..of course can't carry the same payload as above but I can see me using it alot more .

Hi, First light with my new lightweight rig Redcat 51 v2 Star adventurer gti Zwo 183mc (non pro) Asi air plus for control and guiding. After years of lugging out the heq5 pro or eq6 pro I decided to put together a lightweight rig for ease of set up. Something I could leave setup all the time and just lift in and out of the house and be imaging in 10 mins. Processed in pixinsight wich I have fotgot how to use been so long since I did any imaging (such a learning curve anyway 😆) X 94 .. 2 min subs with darks and flats Just a quick 10 min process following astro journey uk video Maybe a bit over cooked and not too happy with stars maybe a stacking artifact ?

Thanks Lee... Yep I'm sure there's lots more detail lurking in there somewhere 😆.. Yes I like the sxvr-h694 gives me two different fields of view with the 1600mm pro aswell ...all with the same scope too ! .

Thanks Peter... Yes it is ....just got the 45day trial at the moment ...but I can see the capability of the software is immense. Just trying to develop a work flow at the moment....some great tutorials on YouTube and I suppose its like anything the more you use it the more familiar it all becomes and the more sense it all makes 😆. I went for the 1600mm pro in the end .. so getting to grips with that as well .... Still going to keep the sx 694 though as you say they have a superb sensor.

Just started getting my head around pixinsight and not the best of data to start with if I'm honest and not alot of it either ... But thought I'd have go. 60 x 60s L 60 x 30s rgb 8 x 300s ha Asi 1600mm pro 102mm starwave triplet with .8 reducer.

Hi here is my latest image of NGC7000. Still learning the ropes of narrow band imaging and getting to grips with new equipment and processing skills . image details are : Altair 102mm Triplet at f7 and asi 1600mm pro , Heq5 pro baader ha , oiii , sii filters x 12 300s of each filter processed in pixinsight , photoshop and starnet++ for my first starless image . a couple of halos left behind by two large stars but not sure how to remove them but all in all I'm pretty pleased with it.

Good idea Lee.... This time next year Rodney....we will be millionaires ! 😆🤣😂

I do it about once a year to to make sure but always seems about the same.

Yes must have a go next year ....I'll put it on my to do list 😆 ... And as you say so many different ways of shooting it .

Yep you sure can get something to calibrate your monitor .. You hang it on the screen and run the software it has a sensor that reads the values been shown on the monitor and corrects them . The one have is a older one now days but it's called a spider 3 pro. As for the hubble pallet Peter jenkins has a YouTube video on how to make a action for photoshop for that ...produces really nice results too. Chris.

Great image ...love the detail you've captured.

Lovely image Lee... Always meant to have a crack at this one but have never got around to it . So much going on in this part of the sky . Great job !.

well i think i might have found my problem ....i looked at the master flat file but couldn't see the patterns but it did seem too bright in the centre ... so i restacked the luminance channel 1 with the flats id taken and one with out and opened the both in pixinsight and performed the screen transfer function on each file ....ill let you be the judge ! ... ps... david-taurus83 what you suggested above worked a treat ... just got to nail these flat files now me thinks !. I've included the master flat stretched and unstretched. many thanks for the help and advise everyone ...much appreciated .. Chris.

Hi David... That is so helpful ...and much appreciated!. Thank you for taking the time to explain and including the screen shots. Just got to sort out what's causing the weird reflections / artifacts in my images ...looks even worse than the image I posted above when you apply the screen transfer function in pixinsight . Many thanks again Chris.

Yeah not sure what it is ...I have the correct spacing of 57mm as per the altair data from sensor to the back of the reducer flange ... So like you have advised I'll try a few shots without it .. Just a process of elimination I guess. Many thanks Chris.