kirkster501

Yep large refractor territory gets very expensive for the scope, mount, observatory etc. There are people who buy them though. Yuri at TEC makes ten or so of these per year.

There is a reason that large refractors are still made. For those that can afford them of course! A TEC 250 refractor costs $56000 or say £44000 + import taxes and VAT so this scope were you to buy it would run you the thick end of £60000. The same aperture as a Skywatcher Dob 250 for £539. 120 times more expensive. There is a reason for that. Views through such a refractor would be sublime, all else being equal.

^^^^Fabulous

A lot of it comes down to the stretching process and overly aggressive background extraction. People go way too aggressively and end up cutting out much of the data they spent so long in collecting.

Astro imaging is a complex field in both hardware and software. There are plenty of books on the subject. You cannot distill such a complex topic into an easily digestible set of steps any more than you can learning to play the piano or guitar or learning a language. You need experience and need to feel your way a bit. Ask questions in the beginners imaging section and people here will gladly assist you.

The Heart Nebula is an object worth imaging in its own right. It does not always need to be with The Soul Nebula. Your image is super but there is a lot more faint nebulosity around the Heart (and Soul for that matter) that I can tell your data contains but you haven't quite pulled out as yet.

..as stated elsewhere, weather been diabolical in recent months so opportunities to use the new Samyang/QHY268C setup and its massive wide field have been almost none-existant for months.

Here are two images I have done with my Samyang 135mm and two different cameras. Not contributed to this thread so sharing for first time. An amazing lens. I have to stop my example down a few stops though or else I lose my stars in the corners but that's fine and easily corrected by upping the exposures a bit. It is the widefield I am after with this lens. Sadr Region with Samyang 135mm lens and Moravian G2-8300 | SK Astro North American Nebula in a wide field with Samyang 135mm and QHY268C camera | SK Astro

Simon, are you in the UK? My 2 penneth with the weather being what it is in the UK - hopeless for astrophotography. I am afraid in the UK this has to be taken into consideration since the weather is so poorly orientated to astronomy. It is a great pity but that isn't going to change and if anything is going to get even worse with global warming. If I were to get into this again with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight, for AP I would go the route of wide-field with premium lenses/scopes such as a 200mm Askar, a Redcat 51mm and a quality CMOS camera such as QHY268C or the mono version. or even a full frame! All on top of a portable, light weight mount. This rig can be up and running quickly and will produce spectacular results. For visual I would go for a large pair of quality binoculars of 100mm+ aperture with a premium parallelogram mount and a 200mm Dob with Baader Hyperion EP's.

I agree. I have had some spectacular views of Jupiter through my TEC140. As I have through my C925 too - perfectly collimated. The refractor image seems somehow brighter and "cleaner", if that makes sense, and can compensate to some extent for the fact that the surface area is nigh on four times less.

Wow, so many stars. Lovely colours. I love it

Nice nebula colour and detail but the stars are kinda weird with little dark rings around them. Not sure if it's my monitor.

Great, thanks Vlaiv, I will look into it

Hi Vlaiv, how do you do take flats on the planets though?

Not answering your question but I am likewise losing the will to continue with astronomy imaging now. It is absolutely hopeless in the UK bar ten or so nights per year. Visual astronomy is not much better but at least you can cloud dodge. When I was in Spain I had 8 out of 10 nights clear.

Been playing with Jupiter imaging with C925/Powermate X2/ADC and then ASi224MC. When I have the Powermate in this totem pole I have a dust bunny slap bang in the middle of the live view image that ruins the videos I take. Move Jupiter slightly to one side and it goes away (and loses focus). I have cleaned the Powermate to within an inch of its life but the bunny remains. Is there anything I can do please regarding this? Any suggestions? Thanks, Steve

I don't think humans will ever land on Mars, not in the next 50 years at any rate and possibly never; it would cost trillions of dollars. I don't think the general population or a US president with an eight year focus will tolerate such profligacy in a time of austerity and environmental concerns here on earth that such an expenditure could partly address.

As I said in the weather section, I've just come back from Spain with glorious views of multiple objects and even the moon was spectacular in the clear sky with crystal clear seeing. I get back here and cloud, cloud and more cloud. Endlessly. It is grey, cold and depressing 😩

Remember that when you use a dew shield you should also leave the shield exactly as is for the flats as well.

Lovely! Well done. Would love to be able to do this too from my OBS but needs better than Bortle 4/5 what I have to contend with. When I tried before there's nothing there.

Fabulous guys, many thanks. First ever run out with the ADC. It definitely looked better on the live view in Firecapture with the small ADC tweaks I had made - it removed a lot of the red and blue fringing. I need to practise more.

Thanks Iainev, it looks better! I'll try that focus method with a bhat mask. Or even on one of the Jovian moons.

Beautiful lunar image.

That's my thoughts too. You have got to start somewhere. I think there is a lot more data in there than I am able to get out with my skill level. The .ser videos look much better than the output from AS3! There is something suboptimal I am doing in processing.

Nice image Forget mosaics in the UK is my advice. I was on a multi-year, deep image of M31 with 16 panes to create a huge work that would be 15000 pixels wide, but I have now abandoned it as unfeasible in the UK after four panes and three years. Don't throw good time after bad. Get a quality lens and go that route is my counsel to you - from personal experience.