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Superb Carole - fun indeed👌

I think it's Arcturus. I've overlain a CdC screen shot and matched the star patterns and your bright do lines up with Arcturus almost exactly.

Hi @JeffM , Although the extra weight took the SA to it's limits it also smoothed things down and with a careful PA I've found I can get 3 min subs quite easily. I've now sold the SA and moved to a CEM25P with the WO 73. The SA and ZS 73 (+flat73A) are a great little combo not just for grab and go stuff.

Sorry not what I meant. They sell Bob's knobs so they will know the thread size and form. Probably a UNC 3/16"

Try FLO they sell Bob's knobs - great bunch sure they'll help you out

After the trials of earlier this week I started by tweaking the PA with a drift alignment, running PHD's guide assistant and checking with 15 x 180s subs on M51. New set of flats too. Result. Processed in PI and touched up in PS.

I've used UPS and DPD to send musical instruments overseas and across the UK. Bit like glass most won't insure musical instruments. Something to think about is insuring the object(s) via a temp upgrade to your other (house) insurer.

Here's my attempt. Mainly working with Curves transform, Saturation, Histogram transform, SCNR, with and without a luminance mask...

We've all had them: a night were cables won't work, laptops have a mind of they're own, windows updates... That was me last night pure frustration, should have powered everything down and gone to bed. But after the second reboot just after 3.30 I tried one last time get to get something. The original aim of the night was to get a three panel mosaic across NGC7000 but I got the rotation of the camera wrong so ended up with a strange angle across what would have been the central panel but at 3.30 with the sky brightening I glad to get anything. To me the brightening blue sky has added to the image of ngc 7000. Hope you like

Afraid so. But don't tell anyone 🤫

I'll chip in my thoughts here. First look at the prices of these items new and add them up. An edge HD 8 OTA will set you back (FLO's pricing) £1274 Edge HD reducer f7 £349 Starizona Hyperstar $999 £825.07 ( plus postage and taxes) (just VAT 20%) £990 Total: £ 2613.00 (approx.) I have owned an Edge HD 8 and I have to say I liked it very much so no problem with the OTA and images were good across the FoV with APS C formats but suffered a little with FX formats. A set of Bob's knobs is an essential to ease collimation (occasional tweaks against a bright star). It needs a good mount (I have an iOptron CEM60 Standard - not EC) when using at it's f10 configuration, at f7 you'll get away with a smaller mount at f2 you'll need a mount to take the weight of the system as tracking requirements are reduced a little. I never bought an f7 reducer for mine so I'll leave any comments on those to other users. My interests have always been for wider FoV's so I seriously considered a Hyperstar unit for the Edge HD 8 and the more I researched the more I was put off in favour of getting the RASA 8. What put me off the Hyperstar was the fact that users were having to re-collimate when the Hyperstar was added to the Edge HD and again when it was removed and returned to an f10 or f7 configuration. I will bow to Hyperstar users here too as I have not had any personal experience with a Hyperstar. So I ended up selling the Edge HD 8 (because I wanted the wider FoV's much more than the f10 FoV). I bought an f7 115mm APO refractor and an 8 inch RASA and I'm now a very happy old man. Both scopes have been fitted with twin Losmandy dovetail bars and my guide scope (TS 80mm) has Losmandy rings on it so when I change the scopes over I simply swap over the guide scope too. My kit is observatory mounted. You have a lot of research to do and I've found that 'the complete package' can be a compromise. The Edge HD 8 is a very good OTA and I'm sure it's dedicated f7 reducer is good too, would be an easy configuration change from f10 to f7. The Hyperstar (to me) is probably a luxury you can do without to start with. Put the £1000 towards a better mount, a mount you can live with for a long time, what ever OTA's you put on it...

Thanks Alan. Yes really good night. I've saved all the sequences so I can go back at some stage to add more subs. Really would love to put a chain saw to neighbours tree.

Not telling so don't ask if I'm really 69 (oops). I've been wanting to get early light on M20/M8 pairing but with my reduced horizon it was getting light as I started to image so the rendition here is a single 5 min sub, I had shoot more but branches masked too much of M8 to use. Subsequently saturation has been pushed beyond it' normal limits. Sh2-1 and IC 4592 were both images whilst waiting for IC 4604/B42 to emerge from the trees but by then it was too bright and I conceded defeat for the night (03.57 final frame time anyway). Sh2-1 is a mix of 180 and 300 second subs ( 9 subs total), IC 4592 is another mix of subs (11 total 180, 300). Camera ASI 294MC Pro cooled (-20°C) gain 122 and offset 30. Scope Celestron RASA 8 with Baader UV/IR cut filter Mount iOptron CEM 60 standard. SGPro for capture, PI & PS CS3 for processing. No calibration frames used. Observatory mounted and run remotely via Team Viewer 15 from the conservatory. M20 and M8 IC4604 (part of) IC 4592

Yes remember Tasco well. I started in the mid 60's saving my paper round tips to buy a 4½ inch reflector. The tube was white then, black trim and the same eq mounting and tripod. Bought from a shop on Totemham Court Road. I saved 50% of the price and Dad matched it. Fine on low powers but the H 4mm eyepiece was (not good!)...

I've struggled processing this image. It's still need work but to get it here I've split the OSC original into it's RGB channels and balanced them as best I could before opening in PS CS3 to apply levels to each channel... A processing job in progress. Subs: 14x 300s plus 5x 180s. Darks and bias frames used in APP, Channel work in PI and finals in PS.

Forget the comet, I just went back to a couple of favourites. I really must try pulling together some of the other subs on these I taken over the years... One day perhaps...

Another night on the comet with an after attempt to see the core...

Love this galaxy. 115 EDT and asi 294MC Pro OSC cooled to -20° C 1 hr 40 mins of data

@Knight of Clear SkiesNoisy - yes. Probably me not taking enough subs and not applying any noise reduction to the subs during processing: Below I've taken the image through TGV-Denoise and a couple of other tweaks in PI. Still has noise but I can live with it until I have a longer session through less hazy skies.

Understand it's now breaking up 3-parts last night...

I used Regulus as a sync star last night and decided to try and get Leo-1 a dwarf galaxy hidden in it's glare. Mix of 180 and 300 second subs (12 total 7 and 5 respectively). Processed in PI Scope 115 EDT-APO camera asi294MC pro

While capturing the comet on the 10th April I watched each (well most!) images on screen zoomed well in and I noticed that the shape of the coma seemed to change even between the two minute subs and pretty well forgot about it until today so I randomly selected four subs from the 40 subs taken and zoomed in again. I inverted the images as that always seems to show more shape to a comet (or galaxy arms) and used the trace contour tool in Photoshop to outline the coma in each. All four have had exactly the same levels stretch before being combined on a single image. Nothing scientific about this - just my curiosity. The comet was imaged at 805mm focal length, longer would have given a better initial scale. Didn't see any detail in the tail.

I wish this one was around more. I have a small slot to the south and this one passes through far too quickly. Capture of 12x 300s, processed in PI and PS. Keep safe all

Captured last night (11-04-2020 and centred around 22:20 hrs) 37x 120 seconds, from 40 sub frames. Processed in PI and PS-CS3. Comet stacking and star stack registered in PI, opened in PS and combined. Taken back into PI for background gradient work. Captured with Altair 115 EDT-APO refractor, ASI294MC Pro cooled to -20°C mounted on an iOptron CEM60 standard mount. Hope you like

@bob-c Have you stacked many subs for this image? Looks more like comet movement against the starry backdrop. Should get a better idea if you do a comet alignment and let the stars drift. Just a thought