CraigT82

nice work, clear detail visible in both. Have you tried the RGB align function in registax? Might sharpen them up a little.

Very nice inages, nice a bright with great colour. V sharp shadow transit too 👍

Yes if you're doing longer exposures then darks/bias/flats will help. Not so important to do those for very short exposures on the moon and planets though

You can use it in the main scope to capture images, of the moon and planets for example. You don't need to use the gpcam software, you can use sharpcap or firecapture which are much more functional capture programs

Yes, most commonly used software is phd2. There are standalone guiders which don't require a laptop, like the skywatcher synguider, but not sure how effective these are.

the st4 lead is used when guiding. The st4 lead connects the st4 port on the camera to the st4 port on the mount, if it has one. Guiding is then achieved by the software on the laptop sending guide signals up the USB cable to camera and then the camera forwards them on to the mount via the st4 cable.

Very nice! I must say I do like the look of those 8" CCs. Good to finally see some images from one.

Snap! Well not quite. I recieved a 2 pack of space blankets today (would have cost more than my scope did to get the window film). Have just used one of them to wrap my plastic fullerscope tube. Its looks snazzy if nothing else!

Just found out for Mars you can go up to 60 minutes total capture time for winjupos derotation... plenty!

Thanks Peter ☺

Yes that's it. Load up all the sharpened stacks of the red channel and derotae them to the mid point of the entire session. Do the same with the green and blue, using the same mid point times and then you can combine the channels (however you like), with each final channel being at the exact same moment in time. Even if you can't manage to get each channel derotated to the same midpoint time (ie if you do shoot RRRGGGBBB - no motorised filter wheel?) you can do a second derotation of the RGB channels to combine them into the final colour image, as long as the total session time wasn't too long for winjupos. I'm not entirely sure what the total session time limit is currently for Mars as winjupos has been recently updated to handle longer times (60 mins for saturn & 20 mins for jupiter) will need to find this out and get back to you.

If you are using winjupos I think the standard quoted time for capture is a maximum of 6 minutes per sequence, ie. 2 mins per RGB channel, but this is dependent on the resolution, at finer pixel scales you should do shorter times and coarser scales you can do longer times. You could calculate the rotational smearing using the pixel scale, apparent size and rotation speed if you were so inclined. The key is to shoot RGBRGBRGB... etc. rather than RRRGGGBBB. That way you can derotate each colour channel to the exact same mid point time.

very nice for only 5.5"!

Regarding the questions about LRGB, Damian Peach has a good article on imaging Mars and the various colour combination methods: http://www.damianpeach.com/marscolour.htm As for software, sharpcap will be great for capture. I use autostakkert 3 for stacking, registax for sharpening, winjupos for derotation (can add lum channel in winjupos) and PS cc for final edits

That's good to hear. Glad you're happy with your choice 👍

Yes apparently... Pin sharp stars edge to edge according to reviews I could find online. Please buy it and save me!

Great little resource. Thanks for asking him about it Paul. I've been very tempted to by the very interesting little scope Ade is selling on ukabs (Celestron Comet Catcher) but have managed to restrain myself, so far!

You will need to stretch the image to bring out the faint signal, have you done this? If not, start with curves and levels in gimp or Photoshop... Loads of info online to show you how to do this

Welcome to the forum! I have this pillar tripod for my EQ6 and I had the same problem with the mount coming loose as I rolled it back and forth over my drive. I used the have the hand knob just nipped up, but found that actually if I really tightened the hand know down I could still do the Az adjustments (just) and it didn't come loose any more. I did sand down the interface between mount and adapter plate to allow them to slide a little easier. Not sure on the Az pin, mine fits fine. If it were mine and it is preventing a good flat contact between mount and adapter then I would definitely file it down as it would prevent the Az adjustements working properly I would have thought?

Thats the diffraction spike from the stalk holding the secondary mirror. There should actually be 2 spikes 180 degrees apart. Perfecrly normal.

Fantastic!

I think that fuzzy grey spot that wouldn't focus was probably the ring nebula, most planetary nebs look like that in small scopes at first glance, especially with a full moon, but with a bit of observing and maybe averted vision, you will make out the ring structure

Really nice set of images, well done. This imaging lark is very addictive so be warned!

Thanks for the comment! I've just noticed some chromatic artifacts at the north pole... didn't notice that on the monitor, serves me right for processing in a bright sunlit room!

Here's the Saturn I captured on Thursday night after Jupiter. Seeing was possibly a little better during this capture, or it might just have been that the Cassini division made it a bit easier to find focus than on the low contrast Jovian disc. Fullerscope with Altair GPCAM3 224c and APM 2.7x barlow. Baader L filter and IR685nm filter used. I captured 12x1 min videos in IR followed by 12x1 min videos of colour, derotated the lot and added the IR to colour as luminance. Cheers