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I may not bother to try and stack deep blue images of the moon, it always results in weirdness in the background... Thanks, it's very kind of you to say so... trying to get my head back in the game, been a long time since I did anything like this, but it's all coming back to me. As I recall, you always produced images that I used to aspire to...

To help try and pin this down...The flare passes through the rear of Leo, passing North to South (as best I can make it, based on camera image sequence). The full flare, no repairs, but quite heavy curves, and the first image of the two (of course it bridged two). I think, the flare passed right past Chertain

Lovely Ant

Thanks Ant, yeah, the eye is a very flexible optical instrument. I've just noticed something weird with the middle one.. no idea where that gradient has come from... I'm not seeing it in the original .tif... something weird in the conversion, upload and host I guess.

Shot at three different times through the evening... Each is a stack shot at 600mm Earliesy, very difficult lighting and low contrast Middle And ... later, therefore darker, and so much more contrast

206 images, 30s, f/5 ISO100 @23mm, Canon 60d, EFS17-55 f/2.8 IS I cannot find what the flaring satellite might be... looks like an Iridium flare... but I can't find any details for them, and it looks like they may have all been deorbited and replaced with IridiumNEXT which don't flare. Anyone have any clue, the image with the satellite was about 2308 last night from north West Sussex. I didn't see the flare, as I wasn't paying attention.

Well worth it, lovely.

Thanks guys... Just checked looks like she was about 7 to 8 degrees above the horizon. Ant 600mm tripod mounted remote shutter release, Vs 250mm handheld I guess. I've used the 55-250 to do this, and it's a pretty good lens, but image scale was always an issue for any detail. Birthday pressie year before last, looonng canon fit lens, makes focusing so much simpler for the moon then my ed80 😁

Let me adjust that slightly, having looked at sequator again... It's not stacking of tracked images... Per se... Stacking if static camera images MW for example but keeping any landscape unscathed by the star alignment process.

Good luck Sara. Never tried a GoPro though, so can't offer advice on that or processing it's output. With these, I just loaded the images into the various software, and apart from in the last one where I added the options for LP reduction and star colour... clicked Go/Process/Start. A tweak or two in LR/PS is normally in order (although I did nothing with these, as this was about how the different software performed. Interestingly, and I've not tried it, Sequator appears to have some form of processing mode which will allow you to shoot tracked images with landscape, and keep the landscape still... whilst still stacking the stars correctly. Needs looking into I guess.

Weather permitting, you know you want to... Love that last one you added

Wow, what a thin slice of moon was just about visible for about a minute between clouds... Was able to snatch a couple of shots before the moon vanished into cloud and the light in the sky fell away to nothing. 60d w Sigma 150-600 Really pleased, given how low the moon was, there is some (albeit difficult to see) detail

Thanks all, it seems we are all in agreement, and I'm going to use that process flow for the next one (if I remember). Nothing up close and personal Ron, that needs power, and I'm struggling to get that sorted (need to go shopping and everywhere I'd need to visit is shut). I've posted a few using my dSLR recently though (going to put another one up shortly)

Excellent, lovely sky gradient to offset it.

I don't have the SW, but the celestron version, same optics, with a canon aps-c. I was able to produce some, what I think, decent images. You will need an extension tube to reach focus though.

I have discovered and collected, over the years, several different programs for making star trails. I decided to recombine my source images from the other night using 3 different pieces of software, and an extra time in one with some additional options checked. I'm interested in your thoughts. None of the results have had any additional processing in anyway after the 'stack' was completed (just converted to jpg and posted to flickr). My previous post had been tweaked by me. 1) Startrails.de, the original post. 2) StarStax 3) Sequator 4) Sequater, with the options for remove light polution and increase stars (not sure what that does, but I think it's probably a saturation boost) I know which one I prefer and why... but please do let me know your thoughts on each.

I got a pair of bresser 10x50's from Lidl years ago.. I much prefer them to the Celestron 15x70's I have. I believe they are Bresser Hunters, and Amazon has those https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bresser-1151050-Binoculars-Hunter-10x50/dp/B00140G1I0/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=bresser+hunter&qid=1587731191&sr=8-3

What an excellent Build and such a great idea to use recycled materials as much as possible.

Decided to have a go at a star trails last night... been a long time since I did one of these. Fortuitously, a light came on somewhere for 6 of the 189 frames and lit the tree which I think certainly added to the result. 189 x 30 seconds, f/5, ISO400.

Your local DIY shop (our's is open) should sell them also. I bought several of the appropriate sized screws (philips head) with ease.

Thanks... Nope, no need for exposure bracketing. I juts maintained the same settings for all the shots.

Thanks Geoff... well... if you will open boxes with cloud warnings on the outside 🙂

Josh, I agree with Ragnar... don't get the camera modded yet. I've never modded my cameras, never felt the need. And, Keep it simple. Keeping the complexity (guiding) out of the equation to start with, whilst it will limit your exposure time, will allow you to learn your craft with this gear, get the steps right etc, and begin learning the art of processing, before making things more complex, and frustrating.

If you're mounting a lens with IS that doesn't have tripod detect features, then the IS will activate on long exposusres. The effect is, you'll hear what sounds like a quiet grinding sound, and you'll see small movements across the image as the IS operates. I do not know which lenses support tripod mounting, but anytime I stick a lens with IS on a tripod or fixed mounting, I turn off the IS. I leave it on for everything else.

Ant, I use LightRoom to convert the CR2 to 16 bit tif files, and load those into AS!3. (made easier by having the Adobe photographers subcription)... I use lightroom as my image library management tool as well. The canon tools should be able to handle the conversion, and I suspect there are freebies that would also do it. My process flow... 1) import raw to Lightroom 2) export full size (unedited) TIFs 3) Load TIF's to AS!3 4) Save result, load into Registax, apply quite gentle wavelets. 5) save result, open in photoshop, save again (registax produces a TIF that I have issues with for some reason. 6) Import EXIF information from original raw 7) Import back to Lightroom, a couple of minor tweaks (contrast, pull down highlights if needed etc, sometimes set whitebalance)