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rickstanners

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  1. Thanks Lee and yes - processing is something I've never really got into in any great depth until now. There seems to be many more good options out there than last time I looked into it (probably 10 years ago now!). Yes, you're right on the colour palette - tbh I just picked an option that showed the most detail in the data for now just to see what was in there! Thanks for the jog about the star artefacts, I'll have a search and see if that's what it is - thanks for your help!
  2. Hi everyone, finally back from lurking and enjoying getting back into the hobby, having been away from it for nearly 10 years :O. I started putting together a new setup during the lockdowns and, at Christmas, finally added some mono imaging gear and an asiair plus - this is an absolute game changer for me. I can now be up and running in 15 minutes and everything pretty much just works from the start every time - makes the hobby much more enjoyable for me when trying to shoehorn it into a busy family life! Anyway, after the usual tour around various targets, I ended up settling down on the Horsehead for a first proper stab. I have 3 hours of 300s subs per channel (Ha, OIII, SII) in this image. Just stacked, combined, with the weighting tweaked a bit in APP (the SII seemed to be cancelling out a lot of the nebulosity in the other two channels) then a slight stretch and crop in Photoshop (processing is the next frontier I need to sit down and learn!). I also have some LRGB data too, so hoping to get some more of everything and then seeing just how much I can get out of the setup and what I can do with it. There are a few things I still need to improve (flattener was only set roughly, may be able to tweak it better / guiding settings could be improved), but overall I was blown away with what it’s produced here in the Bristol suburbs! The only issue I’ve noticed so far is some weird artefacts in the SII subs, most noticeable in Alnitak where it has an almost square, block-like halo around the star. Unsure what would cause that. Anyway, thanks for reading and please let me know what I could be doing better, apart from everything!
  3. Thank you all for your replies! Carole - yes, I know what you mean about there being no such thing as a quick setup, but perhaps quickER than my previous! I have memories of lugging the C8 around, waiting for it to cool down, As well asthe joy of collimation and focussing the SCT too! I certainly found the WO72 to be a great little scope. I remember looking at OAGs last time as well and ended up steering clear of them for similar reasons. A permanent pier might be an option here down the line, but the markers are a good call in the mean time. jkosefsen, thanks - I will look into that. I like the idea of setting things up in an easy “plug and play” format. Terry - great to hear firsthand experience of a similar setup. I remember I was guiding my old mount in a similar way, but plugged into the hand controller at the time. I will probably give the Canon 450D a go to start with, as I still have it (it was able to take much longer exposures if you controlled it using the Canon laptop utility, otherwise it had a similar limitation to the 400D) - how do you find the D2 filter and what kind of light pollution are you dealing with? That is something else that seems to have moved on since I was last involved. Rich
  4. Hi all, Firstly, sorry for the long post! Having been away from astronomy for nearly 10 years and having sold all my kit off, I’m now in the position of being able to get back into it properly! Before I jump into buying lots of kit this time, I’ve been trying to work out exactly what I want to do with it. I’ve always had a large interest in imaging and, before I had to stop, had just started getting into autoguiding my 8SE SCT with a WO Megrez 72 and using a DSLR. The issue I have with going down the same route again is that, whilst I want to get back into serious imaging, I also want a setup that I can put together and store relatively quickly and easily so that I can get maximum use out of it - I always found that setting all that up was always a faff and either ate into the available time, or put me off heading outside at all! On top of that, I’m now living in the suburbs with Bristol to the South, which is also pushing me towards narrowband and a dedicated imager due to the light pollution. Finally - I do want the capability of doing the odd bit of visual observing too, mainly lunar and the odd fuzzy when the mood takes me. So, now that’s all out of the way(!), I’ve been looking at something along these lines for an eventual set up: WO ZS73 with the matched flattener - good compromise for widefield imaging with either DSLR (LP permitting) or narrowband imager - whilst still portable and easy to set up/take down quickly. Just not sure how much I will realistically be able to do with it on the visual front (Don’t know how much more bang for buck a larger aperture refractor would be - probably couldn’t push the budget to much more than an 80-ish aperture, looking at prices). HEQ5 Mount - doesn’t necessarily meet the easy to set up/take down, but imagine I will need the capability again for guided imaging. Small spotter scope with something like an ASI120 for guiding (and maybe also some lunar imagery through the main scope). ASI1600MM pro with a filter wheel and narrowband filters for the main imager. I’d probably start with the scope and mount, along with an LP filter to start off with the DSLR again, then slowly expand into the guiding set up and, finally, the narrowband kit. Fortunately, I still have a couple of half decent eyepieces left from my former life. I’d appreciate any thoughts on the plan so far! One thing that’s obvious is that I am way out of touch with the available kit now compared to 10 years ago, so there are probably better options for the money that I’m not aware of. Thanks all!
  5. rickstanners

    DSOs

  6. rickstanners

    LP filter tests

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