kirkster501

AP can indeed be very frustrating and very bespoke to the individual and their setup and their PC's foibles. There are general things to check for that forums like this help with but much of it is tinkering, experimentation and eliminating things. All made so much more frustrating in the UK by the fact we get so few clear nights that we do not want to waste half of them getting the rig to work.

Nicely done with lovely colour and detail in the nebula. Super. If I may say, it would be A1 if you could correct the star colours. It is often worth shooting 8 x 2 mins in each of RGB and using the stars from that to replace the ones in the image from the narrowband filters. There are techniques to do that in PI or Photoshop.

I've looked into doing something in this area too guys. I find taking flats with a flat panel on the Obs wall a right royal faff TBH and would like something on the scope like the astrodad thingy Problem is I use FSQ and TEC and so would need TWO of these widgets. Also how does your dew heater tape connect around the objective if these flat machines are in the way? Never happy unless we are spending money are we?😂

And here is 46 x 300s on M109. 16 x 1x1 in luminance and 10 x 2x2 in each of R,G,B. TEC140 and Atik 460 with Astrodon filters. Will get more data on it as and when to try and reduce noise a bit. I am very averse to overly denoising images. It is a crop since the galaxy is small - 130 million light years.

Processed this yesterday, 24 x 300s in each RGB channel binned 1x1 to give six hours in total. No separate Ha or Luminance. TEC 140 and Atik 460. Grabbed the Blue the other morning and R and G November last year. It was a total cloud out from November to March and I never got the chance to finish it (along with many other works in progress).

Yes John, absolutely. Some people, lost in aperture fever, do not seem to realise how *hugely* the telescope increases in physical size for an extra few inches worth of aperture, that depending on the skies may not actually make that much difference. I'm not intending to dampen Alan's spirt, just making him aware how big these 12" scopes are and be aware that it may no longer pass a spouse's acceptance! An 8" can be hidden in the broom cupboard. A 12" may not. And the 14" and 16" are colossal.

A 12" Dob is a big scope. Please be mindful of this.

A nice image of M16 - well done. I think you have slight field rotation?

Lovely mate! A sight to behold.

Slight changes in focus make no difference at all, I can 100% confirm that from experience. You do not need separate flats for minute focus changes over imaging runs. There *can* be difference between the filters though and so you should take flats with each filter. However, you can reuse those flats over many sessions if you have a permanent set up and you can be 100% confident that you do not move the camera. I reuse flats up to a month or so.

Another data set from April that I just processed. This time M64, The Black Eye Galaxy, in Ursa Major with TEC140 and Atik 460. About four hours in this one. It could use some more data. It is not as colourful as many other galaxies and the spiral arms show very little in the way of HII regions.

You can't please all of the people all of the time to quote Bob Marley 😁

A mighty fine result with great colours and lovely framing on an annual favourite for all of us. Well done mate.

Better? Whaddayareckon? Controlling the star at the top is stumping me...... I used star reduce in PI and then blended 50:50 with the none star reduced.

One of the best M27 images I have ever seen. Well done.

Lol, I know Olly, I have tried to disguise the fact that when I did a reduce star size routine it left me with some holes where the haloes had been so I tried to disguise them with the spikes. I know it is a cludge and need to revisit later.

114 x 300s exposures in total. L = 42 and R,G,B = 24 each - everything binned 1x1). TEC140 and Atik 460CCD camera with Astrodon 1.25 Gen2 E series. Just got round to processing after regaining my astro mojo again. I lost interest in DSO after the shocking winter last year but getting it back.

The focus and alignment between channels has to be spot-on with GC's. There are no hiding places. You have to be ruthless with your subs and their quality.

Another processing job this morning from a three month old data set. 20x5 mins in each of RGB with TEC140 and Atik 460 with Astrodon RGB 1.25 filters.

I could tell it was from that sensor before I even read the image details. It is very distinctive and highly sensitive. I have the QHY version. Great image though. I never tire of looking at the NAN and Pelican.

Not done a DSO for a while. Data set is from May but lost my processing mojo for a wee bit so got round to doing it this afternoon. Here is about eight hours LRGB on M63 with TEC140 and Atik 460 with Astrodon filters. Slightly lost the star to the upper left so will look at fixing that.

A campsite I use a lot is Kelynack near St just in Cornwall. Bortle 2. Even my daughter remarked on how black the sky is there. I have glimpsed the North American nebula and The Dumbell Nebula from there before with my eyes alone, so dark are the skies.

Limitless what you can spend in astrophotography. I thought cycling and regular photography was bad 🙈

I'll give this a go too if the permacloud ever clears.

Great minds think alike . I am imaging some stars as well, not just doubles. I've done a few of them. 30-60s exposures and 8 - 10 or so in RGB. Interesting thought from Vlaiv about just using two filters and synthesising the third. However, with such short exposures and number of subs it's as easy to just take all of the RGB.