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Yeah I think there is some tilt in the imaging train but I'm not to bothered about it, I don't use Pixinsight due to myself running an old PC so I've been keeping things simple with SIRIL & Photoshop. If I can round the stars using any one of those I'd be happier as I don't have much room to fit a tilt adapter as I already have a filter drawer & rotator fitted.

I've been having a few issues lately with the RASA 11 V1, firstly the collimation went out for some reason so I eventually managed to sort that when we had a clear night, that night came briefly on Sunday night Monday morning, I had some Gremlins with the software & the Onstepped CGE Pro mount so I ended up recalibrating PHD2 which fixed it & I finally got imaging. I did rush the processing a bit as I had to go to work so it's literally a background extraction & colour calibration in SIRIL then removed the stars to stretch the image then popped them back in using Photoshop & flipped the image the right way. Equipment; Altair 26C camera, IDAS NBZ filter, RASA 11 V1 on a Celestron CGE Pro fitted with an ONSTEP kit. Forty, three minute subs stacked on DSS & Processed using the above method.

Awesome Peter Beautiful image.

Very nice mate

I've been using NINA a while now & love it, like you say a bit daunting at first I were the same after using other capture software for so long but after some time & figuring it out I can't see me ever going back. I can't see me ever using the advanced sequencer as my observatory will never be fully automated so I'll be shoving the dome round as & when needed lol.

You're certainly having fun with your new camera Mark & getting some nice results to, the 269C & 26C I run those at a gain of 282 with the offset at 47 (I think) but that's in NINA, I do find the settings to be very confusing at times but those settings seemed to work for me ok.

I've only just come across this thread & I have to say it's very informative as I have tilt issues myself & when using the RASA it shows up a lot more. I've got a tilt adapter so I'll be doing the same with the 26C I own, by looking at everyone's pictures I'm sure I can knock up something.

It looks to be performing well Mark very impressive, I loved my 269C & now I've finally got a 26C (Which is pretty much identical to the ASI 2600MCpro) a camera I've been wanting for a while now as it has the APSC sized sensor & that's been a great performer to. I've got a QHY8 fan cooled camera which is pretty old now & the performance between them the 26C is light years ahead. I think these CMOS cameras are great performers & I'm glad you're happy with yours. Look forward to seeing more images mate if these pesky clouds depart lol, clear skies!!

Lovely image

Cracking image that mate you always good at this, I use NINA & ASTAP for platesolving & image acquisition even polar alignment as there's a 3 point polar alignment feature you can use, so it's great to use in the field & in the observatory to. Took me a bit of head scratching to set it up to begin with but now I've never looked back.

The 183C is a good camera but be aware they do suffer with starburst amp glow although calibration frames should get rid of those, if budget allows the 533C is a better bet but they have a square chip, I bought a 269C last year from Kelling heath & it's been a great camera & this year I upgraded it to a 26C all of which don't suffer with any amp glow. All above were taken with the 269C from home, I'm especially happy to have captured the Helix nebula as that's been a target I've wanted to capture since starting this hobby & I were shooting through a lot of light pollution to get it. I don't know what filters you use if any but dual band filters really do help with emission nebulas to.

After returning from Kelling Heath Star party & spending more money I've tested out my new camera an Altair Astro 26C on the RASA 11, I did manage to nab about an hour & a half on the Pacman nebula but I really wanted to get a bit more data on a target so luckily on Thursday night I managed to get 3 hours 4 minutes of data on the Crescent nebula, I processed it the first time on the laptop as I wasn't home & it looked ok on the screen, but on looking at it on other devices it was looking way to red for my taste so the following day I processed it again using a different workflow than usual. I opened up the stacked file in Siril did a colour calibration & removed green noise, saved the file without stretching then processed the rest in Photoshop by doing some light stretches removing the stars then working on the image some more to bring out more detail. I do have a tilt issue in the imaging train so it's by no means perfect & will need addressing but I'm pretty pleased with the result for just a short integration time. I got home on Sunday night & even though the weather was saying it were going to be cloudy it were lovely & clear so I didn't really plan a target just found one & thought I'd have a go at Jones Emberson-1, I really need a scope with a lot more reach for this target & I had to drizzle & crop into the image to even get a half decent view of this target but I don't think it turned out to bad for 2 hours 28minutes worth of data, it's not really ideally placed at the moment so I might go back to it when it's higher up should we get more clear skies of course. Images taken using a RASA 11, Altair Astro 26C, IDAS NBZ filter.

Sadly it looks like the stump wasn't killed off & it's rising up again, it's still got a way to go but I can see my view being blocked again sometime in the future so I'll be concentrating on southern targets for as long as I can I think weather permitting.

Hi everyone This is a target I've wanted to capture for a long time but from my location it only rises to 17 degrees so a challenging one to get, we've travelled right down to the Southwest of England to try to get it but the pitch we were promised & the one we were given had a great big cow shed blocking the South view. We came home a bit despondent but as I've already had a go at some low down targets from home I thought I'd give it a go & to my surprise after starting the sequence in NINA there it was in the field of view. My South view is a lot clearer now due to a neighbour having a tree cut down but the town on the horizon especially the industrial units do produce a lot of light pollution so I wasn't having high hopes. After a couple of imaging sessions I did a stack & quick-ish process just to see what I got, the image looked a little soft which wasn't a huge surprise shooting through all that atmosphere & murk let alone the light pollution to but it had promise. So I went out again at every opportunity just to see what I could get, in the end seven hours 16 minutes & thirty seconds worth of data was captured, I did try some longer subs but in all honesty I wasn't seeing much of an improvement so kept them short at ninety seconds but I did combine all the data for the end result. I do envy those who live further South as this has been a challenge to capture but maybe I'll be able to get some more data next season. Starless image just to show more of the Nebula itself Equipment used; RASA 11, IDAS NBZ filter, Altair Astro 269C OSC camera on an AZ EQ6 GT mount

This might help Carl as I've followed a few of his tutorials with SIRIL it's nothing like Photoshop so if that's what you're used to then it will take a while to get your head round it but it is good & free. https://siril.org/download/

Flats would certainly help mate I didn't do any for years but now I do them it does make the data easier to work with, Background extraction using Siril helps with it though although it wont fix dust motes.

Hi everyone I managed a couple of nights imaging these targets although the Helix is definitely a challenge at 17 degrees, firstly here's the Lion Nebula my other half suggested I go for this target & it was a very tight fit in the camera so I manually rotated it to make it fit, it probably could have done being a mosaic but I've not tried that yet so it's something I need to learn at some point although setting up a sequence in NINA seems pretty straight forward. More data needed as this is just 4 hours 3 minutes worth of data. Now for the Helix nebula, this is a target I've wanted to capture since I started this hobby but I've never had any luck as it's always to low & when I tried at a dark site I were just using a modded DSLR with no filter & was getting nothing. We did go away a couple of weeks ago in Cornwall hoping to get it from there but the pitch we were promised & the pitch we were given soon scuppered that plan. So I tried from home in the observatory I attempted it last year but the pier were to short so I added a Skywatcher pier extension to it & tried again a couple of nights ago & I were surprised I were picking up anything. At 17 degrees it were low down in the murk & light pollution so I wasn't expecting much. After deleting a load of subs I only managed 2 hours 55 minutes worth of data collected over 2 nights & with shooting this target so low down in the murk it's not going to be the sharpest image either. Even so I'm happy to have got something from it & I really hope I can get more data to add to both of these targets. Equipment used on both targets; RASA 11, Altair astro 269C OSC camera, IDAS NBZ filter on the AZ EQ6 GT mount.

Hi Tony hope you're well? Thanks it's about time I started to improve ,sadly the job I have only gives us limited free days off but I'm trying to fix that by getting a job elsewhere, hopefully we'll get down there sooner rather than later.

I've still been out imaging even though the skies aren't properly dark this time of year just to really get used to the equipment & try to improve my processing as that has always been a bug bare of mine, with some of the tools you can use now like Starnet2 it has helped plus I've been learning a lot more from watching some youTube tutorials. First here's the Witches broom which over 2 nights I got 4 hours 48 minutes worth of data doing 90 second subs I need to sort out my cabling on the camera as it caused some odd diffractions Here's the Dumbbell nebula this one has always been a favourite of mine to image although I did managed to get a bit deeper than I have before the image itself looks a little soft so I don't know if that was just down to seeing or focus being a little bit off. Again taken using 90 second subs & I managed 5 hours 25 minute & 30 seconds worth of data both images were taken using a RASA 11, NBZ nebula boost filter, Altair astro 269C camera. Images captured using NINA & processed in Photoshop.

Hi everyone haven't posted up any images for a while so here's some I managed to do last week, unfortunately the last image I did of the Wizard I hastily set up & forgotten to add the NBZ filter, when I realised I quickly added it & refocused & only got half hours worth of data. All images taken with the RASA 11 V1, Altair astro 269C camera, IDAS NBZ nebula boost filter all mounted on the AZEQ6 mount in the observatory.

Apologies for hijacking the thread I'm considering buying an onstep kit to fit to a CGE pro & I were wondering how easy it is to operate? The mount will be permanently in the observatory & connected via the mini pc using NINA, ASCOM GS server so I doubt I'd be using the handset the comes with it anyway.

Thanks for the replies the video I linked was to a guy called Chad Gray who builds the kit for the CGE pro, I did ask about whether he'd build a kit to go inside the original pier but it sounds like it would be to much hassle so I'll probably end up doing that myself if it's possible of course, as I can't see the point of it having dead Celestron boards in there taking up space anyway. Interestingly enough my motors are good as I did test those but as the mount got water damaged the boards are pretty much fried I think. I guess the only other question I have is onstep intuitive to use? As I'll be plugging in the mini pc & connecting using ASCOM GS server PHD & NINA to platesolve & acquire targets.

Hi everyone as some of you know I've got an old CGE pro that is broken & is collecting dust, so much so that it's getting to the point of I've been thinking of throwing it away due to the space it's taking up. However I've come across a system called onstep & there's a guy on there who does a kit for the CGE pro which includes motors & a belt drive as well as the boards needed to run the mount, a lot of the stuff is 3d printed but I'd just want to operate the mount via the mini pc in the observatory using NINA, ASCOM & GS server. Has anyone else used the onstep system? Is it any good or is it going to cause me another can of worms & headaches to learn? I know I need a bigger mount for my imaging rig as I'm on the limit of mine but I don't have 3K plus lying around to buy one but if onstep is a good reliable system I may be able to get the cge fixed. I think this is a video of the system in it's early stages.

Hopefully we'll get a proper session imaging soon

Hi everyone hope you all have a great time at Pencelli, we've ended up at Kelling again this year but I think this will be the last time we will come here now so I hope we don't get blown away, we hope to see you all at the next meet & catch up as it's been way to long.