MartinB

Just to reiterate, under advanced settings you can try reducing the target SNR in the camera settings and or increasing the star mass detection tolerance under guiding. This should work but it is worth reverting to more stringent settings when the guide star and the seeing allow to ensure optimum guiding.

I have a pair of bespoke wollen mittens made to my own design and knitted by my lovely wife. The end of the mitts have flaps for when you need to fiddle with stuff, and, crucially the thumbs have their own separate flaps. Blummin marvellous!

No problem with unmounted 31mm filters though. They are a similar price to mounted 1.25 mounted. Only problem is if you need to keep moving them in and out of the wheel which would be a bit more time consuming.

Interesting, I will check my own setup. I guess this makes sense since the stars don't move in 1 hour jumps! So the the true celestial time based on your coordinates will differ from the time on your watch.

I have the asi 1600 pro which I rate very highly. I think the extra for the pro is worth it especially if using USB, there is hardly any amp glow. I have also just purchased an asi 294. This is a bit more money, marginally bigger chip, larger pixels, 11mp vs 16mp, 14 bit, very high QE, higher read noise at lower gain setting, better dynamic range. If you are imaging above 500mm f/l the 294 might be a good bet, at shorter f/l you could save a bit of money with the 1600. Obviously you have the qhy cameras to consider as well but I'm not as familiar with these.

Well done the winners. Really liked x6gas's process

Fabulous. Brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed. It must have been hard work keeping track of such a complicated project.

Been away out of internet reach for the past few days so a bit of a last minute entry. Great to see the range of different processes and like many I have found this one tricky to say the least. I've gone for a simple bicolour Ha and OIII process in the end mapping the OIII to blue and green with more weight on the blue. This was all processed in PS other than use of Starnet via PI. I did try deconvolution in PI but wasn't happy with the appearance of the nebula afterwards, especially those pesky bright Ha regions.

I have finally managed to get out with my EQM 35 Pro for a guided imaging session. I have previously done some observing and have tweaked the backlash. I was unfamiliar with EQmod. I was using a zwo mini guide scope with a 120mm f/l and a Lodestar camera to guide an asi 1600 cam with a Canon 200mm lens. I chose a star near the celestial equator to calibrate and did a North nudge with eqmod prior to starting calibration. Also I turned off Dec backlash compensation in eqmod since phd sorts out backlash. The calibration went OK with phd doing a nudge at the end of the dec calibration to bring the star back into position exactly as expected. After sorting out a couple of gremlins (a severe saw tooth pattern as phd oscillated between guide star and a rogue hot pixel, and undercorrecton in ra owing to too low guide correction rate set in eqmod, things ran pretty smoothly. I have now done a bad pixel map and next time will run guide assistant to help optimise settings. However I am happy with the way the mount performed. It did have a lot of dec backlash when I first got it but I reduced this without too much trouble. For some reason guide logging was turned off. I have corrected this and have downloaded Andy Galasso's log inspector program. I will report back with more objective info after another session, hopefully soon!

Welcome to SGL Jonny. You have made the perfect start to your imaging journey with a simple but highly effective set up. A wide field set up like this can produce amazing results. Are you able image away from home? The next step is probably to run an image sequence - several shots in sucession along with a non tracked shot (if you have any foreground in your fov). Then download the free Sequator stacking software which can combine your photos to greatly improve the image. Immediately after you have taken your sequence put the lens cap on and take about 10 shots of the same exposure. These can be used by sequator as "dark frames" to further reduce noise. Get yourself a decent pair of binoculars 7 or 10x50 are ideal, a comfy picnic chair, a sky chart and start familiarising yourself with the night sky. Steve Tonkin does a great binocular tour every month in the Sky at Night magazine. Good luck and keep asking questions, it's what SGL is all about!

I gave up on planetary imaging a few years ago when Saturn and Jupiter started refusing to get up to a decent height above the horizon. Now it's looking good for Mars and I fancy starting up again. I have an old mono Imaging Source camera and a manual filter wheel. I will mainly be using my 10" meade SCT but my also try my ED120 with various barlow options. So I need help with the following:- 1) Best USB3 camera for planetary/lunar (not planning on doing any solar). Happy to manage the faff of mono if this is of benefit. 2)I have some simple baader RGB absorption filters, a UV/IR block filter along with an IR pass. Do the RGB need the blocking filter, in which case this can be screwed into the nose piece or can it just be used for the luminence in which case I can mount it on the wheel. 3) I have Sharp Cap. I have used Registax in the past. IS there much to choose between this and Astrostackert? Anything else I need to be aware of?

I think wide field night time photography is a very different genre to telescopic deep sky with a completely different set of "rules". Less pixel peeping, more latitude for use of colour and saturation to the point of being psychedelic. Much more "anything goes". Most images are best viewed from a bit of a distance!

I have a Tokina 11-16mm lens. It is for APS cropped sensors rather than full frame. I didn't know there was a ff version. Your stars look pretty similar to mine and really aren't too bad for an ultra wide angle lens of this kind. Anyone reporting stars tack sharp all the way to the edge at f2.8 hasn't looked very closely! Even my Sigma 14mm f1.8 lens isn't "tack sharp" to the corners at f2.8. The key thing to look for is off centre optics where you will see much more marked distortion over to one side of the image. This doesn't appear to be the case here. I think your lens is OK.

Well done Spongey, good call bythe judges, and well done everyone who submitted. A really enjoyable exercise. Big thanks to FLO. Looking forward to more!

Your camera has a CMOS chip which has much lower read noise than traditional CCD astro cameras. This means that you can use shorter exposures. This is further helped by the fact that you have a fast scope. On the downside, the bayer matrix will bump up the required sub exposure time somewhat. You should definitely aim to avoid star trails since this level of movement will affect your entire image, not just the stars. For broad band imaging you should be able to manage 2 minute exposures unguided if you develop a good polar alignment routine and use PEC training on your mount. Given that you have a colour camera you don't really need filters. If you have the orange glow type light pollution a traditional light pollution filter will help but if your LP is of the milky white LED type then these LP filteres wont help. There is an IIDAs led LP filter but it is expensive and only reduces LP by a relatively small amount. As has been mentioned, your camera in it's current form will not be great for narrow band imaging which is based around hydrogen alpha. Your camera needs modding to work at it's best for this type of imaging, ie removal of the IR blocking filter. You will also need longer exposures of at least 5 minutes and getting to grips with guiding will then become important.