knobby

@swag72Just came here from your website ... Really beautiful image Sara 👍👍👍

HEQ5 is a great mount for imaging and frequently recommended. Maybe save a bit on the 80ed and try the 72ed (still a great scope) and with the money you save get a cheap used DSLR and T ting to dabble with imaging.

Although the Az-Gti isn't designed for imaging ... It can and indeed does. Taken with SW 72 Ed attached.

Just need to add the Star adventurer wedge / counterweight and update the mount firmware. 

Spaghetti nebula, very faint ... And difficult 👍

Ah, just seen your other thread ... You have the reducer, maybe try https://www.firstlightoptics.com/off-axis-guiders-oag/off-axis-guider.html and a ZWO 120 mm https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-120mm-mini-usb-20-mono-camera.html

But research the reducer spacing first and be aware that off axis guiding can be pretty tricky finding a guide star.

Generally for an SCT you'd want to use an off axis guider (cuts out guide errors caused by the mirror moving) also it's very hard to guide at 2000mm focal length accurately especially with an AVX mount (I have one)

On the flip side I've seen decent images produced with your set up 👍

I'd be inclined to get the 0.7 reducer (drops focal length to 1400mm) but that's £350 on its own 😒 and try for a used finder guider / mono camera.

Probably end up totalling £450 ish though.

Yep, looks really nice, not overdone - just looks about right !

34 hrs ! well worth the effort, really nice.

That's really nice !

Very nice seeing the two together, I've imaged them both separately recently.  

3 hours ago, Grzegorz Czernecki said:

Sorry, I copied from the Polish forum and forgot to transcribe it

No worries, I possibly have Polish ancestors so was fiddling with Google translate 🙂

Very nice image Grzegorz👍

Courtesy of Google translate

Photo taken in Bystrem in the Bieszczady Mountains during the PTMA Katowice meeting on 26.10.2019 consists of 180x60s and 80 x 10s

Camera chip size and telescope ... Bigger chip needs 2" smaller chip 1.25” as a very rough guide, so long as the filter will cover the chip without casing vignetting you should be ok.

Where do you image from Neil ? I ask as I recently did the same thing, went mono and bought a 5 position wheel, R G B L and Ha ... Then saw how amazing Ha was in light polluted area and ended up ditching the R G B and buying Oiii Sii and Ha. ZWO 1.25" and very happy with them ( make sure you get the newer version as Oiii has reflections greatly reduced)

Maybe try astro photography tool, use it for capture planning also but it can / will stretch the last capture.

Free too, but you can upgrade if you like it.

Thanks to @carastro for giving me something to aim for and @Laurin Dave for the guidance, even though I liked my first effort, I kind of knew it looked too over the top ...

I'm happy with this now though.

Hi Steve, as you will have probably noticed it's a bit dead on here ! Hope you got the firmware sorted .

Ooh, I'm liking that too 😄

What did you do ?

So, taking on board Caroles suggestion I've dropped the star colour a tad and backed off the green slightly (Looks great on my phone but marginally only different on here)

5 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Now that's very nice indeed Knobby, I want to shoot this but I need to change scopes over, I feel the Borg at 330mm and the 183mc will get it all in.

Alan

Thanks Alan, that was with a 335 focal length / ZWO 1600 mm so might be tight with the 183.

3 minutes ago, carastro said:

That's come out very well.

A few tips.

If you want to get rid of the magenta around the stars, you can use filter noise/reduce noise and move the "reduce colour noise" slider right over to the right.

If you want to change the colours of the image, play with the sliders in image adjust/selective colour.  I would suggest your Ha is too green at the moment.

Carole 

Thanks Carole, I'll have a dabble later

Slowly dabbling with narrow band and the processing that is becoming more like art than science 🙂

I really am enjoying it though, Imaged this in my red zone back garden last night, it's 10 x  300 secs each of Ha Oiii and Sii ( no darks as they looked weird )

Thanks for looking / feedback.

DSS - Photoshop levels / curves - gradient xterminator - photoshop channel combine as per @swag72 tutorial - photoshop levels to balance colours to my taste - slight noise and star size reduction  (Noels tools)

Could it be tilt somewhere ? The last image doesn't have an even mix of star elongation, spacing would cause the far edges to smear away from center.

Show us a pic of set up , I think the 146mm is without reducer ... Should he 105 mm with the celestron dedicated one.

Edit : just realised you have the 11" which as as you say correctly 146 mm 👍

I never have much luck with live view, I generally take a 5 second image then view it, tweak and try again.

Must admit it's weird that it works one night then not another ...

Old thread I know but the skywatcher finder guider platesolves to 181 mm 👍

Which backs up the above.