MartinB

Haha!! Don't you dare!!!!

The analemma is the figure of eight track of the sun at a specific point in time each day over the course of the year. It can be captured photographically but requires, time, patience, attention to detail and committment. Are you up for it? Well executed analemma pictures are few and far between. Here is an excellent article which explains how to achieve a successful result https://www.instructables.com/Capture-the-Analemma-of-the-Sun/ Having captured the analemma you can travel to a stunning location for your foreground. This isn't cheating, in fact it is essential since any

Yes, DaveW won the widefield challenge, I believe, with a fabluous wintery picture of Orion reflected in a some still water. Reflections might be a bit restrictive but something around "different perspectives" might be interesting. Someone posted a wonderful image in the deep sky section recently which showed a large emission nebula against a rocky terrestial foreground. I will ponder this one a little but think it has legs!

The Earth spins on it's axis whilst it orbits the Sun and is in turn orbited by the moon. Planets wander, comets appear and disappear, one body occludes another. This challenge is to visually show this motion. It could be, for instance, with star trails, time lapse animation, a sequence of images taken over several nights . As always, data must be gathered between 1st March and 31st May. Good luck! Please post entries directly into this thread

A text book description of how to properly get to grips with PHD2, excellent!

Well I have finally sorted it. Upadated PI, Went to resources and selected updates. After several failted attempts to upload the scripts PI decided to shut down and then installed the scripts. Sometimes you just get the feeling that PI could be a bit more intuitive!

This is driving me barmy!!! I like the PI WBPP script but it has been recommended that final integration might be better done with the standard integration tool. Now I hear a V2 has been released which improves functionality. I am very keen to give this a try but can't for the life of me find the file I need to add to my scripts folder. I can't find it in the repository. I have downloaded the latest version of PI and uploaded all updates but I am still presented with the original script. Can anyone help please?

That is a nice link. Worth saying that the youtube link I gave is not a random video but is Andy Galasso, one of the key PHD2 developers, giving an in depth talk on all the features of PHD2 and how to fully optimize guiding. Some people will find this easier to work through than the written documentation.

That dust is just phenomenal Richard! Beautifully processed. What are your sky conditions like? I've just got a 2600mc and think 0 gain makes a lot of sense. The file sizes are big so being able to use longer exposures are an advantage. Higher gain doesn't get you more photons after all

The EQM-35pro is an excellent little mount and will work very well provided it's limitations are respected. Obviously it shouldn't be overloaded. Make sure to turn off any dec backlash corrections in Eqmod! Mine doesn't track quite as well as my CGEM but is much easier to lug around. I am using it for short, widefield imaging using a 200mm lens and a ZWO mini guider scope. It behaves very well in this undersampled situation. I wouldn't put my 10" SCT on it! Short focal length refractors are perfect. A picture paints a thousand words so here is IC1396 taken with this set up. The m

I'm fairly new to PHD2 myself having used the excellent guide tool incorporated in Maxim for years. With my widefield imaging outside the observatory I am using SGP with links with PHD2. Far and away the best guide I found was this video on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXFGRta98rs It is long but well worth watching, all the way through and taking a few notes. There are no "magic settings" so it is difficult to advise on optimal guide rate settings and such like. Generally the default settings will do the job but if you have a more demanding situation e.g. long focal length, or

Yep, that was pretty much what I did. This took out the slop in the system and PHD was easily able to take up the backlash after doing this. It is important not to over do things because the gears can bind. Best fully slew to check everything still runs smoothly.

I did a full process in PI and then another process in PS and came up with with very similar results!!! In the end I blended a PI and a PS process together. Used Starnet from within PI during the PS process but could have managed without PI by using the command line interface. I find the hardest bit, by a long way, is making the choices - how much saturation, colour options especially when it comes to leaving in a bit of green, how much contrast, bright and vibrant or soft and wispy. Shove the stars out of the way for drama, leave the in or attenuate by a certain amount. In the end I ask

Very nicely framed and perfect for. I always prefer HOO on this target and the wispy oiii looks lovely. I always find halos much harder to process out than simple flaring. You can kind of do it with layers or with colour range selection but difficult to do without leaving unnatural artefacts. Some form of pixel math in PI I guess.

Worth the wait I would say. You must be very excited by these results.