CraigT82

Something weird going on! The only difference in the logs I can see is the resolution and focal length? I wonder if the SER file is somehow corrupt?

That's interesting. Can you post up the log file and perhaps sample of raw frame? Are you using firecapture? When you set it collecting on a new filter it might be bringing up some weird presets.

Hi Sean, nothing special other than the UV filter which is a bit of an investment. Haven't done anything to the camera: Its still got it's AR coated sensor window in place. It will probably block a little of the UV end of the spectrum but plenty gets through. There is more glass in the barlow but the APM one I use seems to have pretty good transmission between 350nm and 400nm.

Thanks Alan. Yes no problem use the image as you see fit!

I've collected together a few of the better captures I've made since getting a UV filter in early March. Shows nicely the expanding size and thinning crescent of Venus as it catches Earth up before overtaking us on 3rd June. All done at 0.13" pp (Fullerscope with 2.7x Barlow), Altair 290mono and Baader UV filter. Cheers

Very nice! Could try a HDR combination??

Lovely image. Nice and sharp. Great looking phase at the minute

Last night I've done something I've never done before and had a go at hir res imaging of the slim 3.5 day old crescent. I had to get it from around 7.30pm to 8pm before it dipped behind next doors trees. Sky was still bright blue and the capture was difficult with so little contrast. Focus was a guess! Had to use curves/levels very aggressively to get some contrast back. Don't think its come out too badly. 8.75" fullerscope and APM 2.7x Barlow. Altair 290mono and Baader IR685nm. 6 panes each pane 500 frames stacked from 5000 captured. Single raw frame also shown.

Very nice sketch, I think you've captured the earthshine beautifully

Thanks Steve, much appreciated.

I use just a touch of LR deconv and go quite heavy on the unsharp masking. I also then do further alternate iterations of noise reduction and unsharp masking in PS to enhance the contrast of the details on the disk.

Thanks! Yes focusing is really tough and worth spending time on. Waiting a few minutes for a period of steadiness to set focus often helps for me. Using the focus align feature in firecapture to keep the image steady on screen also helps. I've found I've got the best results just before sunset in the blue sky.

To be honest I just think it was the conditions in those few days 6th to 10th April which allowed me to produce these results. All my UV captures since then have revealed much more subtle and less obvious cloud features. Yes the scope is f7.5 and the CO is about 19%. However for imaging the CO isn't too important I feel, as the loss of contrast that a large CO causes can be restored in post processing. Small COs are much more important for visual.

I captured 3x30k frame videos and each one took about 5 mins to collect. Gain is 75% and exposure is 9.5ms which gives me about 100fps with the histogram at 60% I'm using a newt without ADC so not much glass at all in the imaging train means the UV image is relatively bright (when transparency is good).

Thanks Pete. Yes I use imppg for sharpening almost exclusively. Even with colour data I spilt the channels first then sharpen each channel on imppg before recombining. I use photoshop CC for finishing

Fascinating! Never seen that kind of thing before

Millions of images on here and astrobin from the C8 to vouch for its capabilities, but not so much with the classical cassegrain. Have you done any imaging with yours? Keen to see how it performs for hi res imaging.

That cassegrain looks the business!! Have you had much chance to get any lunar/planetary imaging done with it? I'm very interested to see how it performs as I could see some of these in my not too distant future. For imaging I'd probably go with the C8 edge HD out of those three. Mostly because I think it's the easiest to collimate and you've got a bit of an aperture advantage over the skymax. You've also got the tube vents in the edge HD and aftermarket fans are available, though probably not essential. The RC is open tube so that's good for thermal management but they are tricky to collimate. To be honest all things being equal there won't be a huge difference in the images produced by those three scopes, but I think the C8 would be easiest to live with.

Really nice set of images, nice work 👍

The screen is pitch black because you're not in focus with the camera. You will need to collapse the tube a couple of inches to get the DSLR to focus.

Here you go...

Just the 4 black phillips screws around the bottom and the mirror cell pulls off. The just loosen the clips and out she comes!

The heritage 130p was my first scope in 2011 and I still have it, it's a great little performer. My first EP upgrades were the BST eyepieces mentioned above and they are also great for the money. I'd go for the 5mm to give you 130x mag.

This could be very interesting for solar system imagers... 12" for under £2k is very good value! Assuming it performs of course. 17kg is pretty chunky but the short tube will mitigate that somewhat.

Thanks Reggie.