Xiga

I recently upgraded my guide camera to a ZWO 290mm mini. Haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I could immediately tell the 2m flat USB cable was pants, as it took an uncomfortable amount of brute force to get it to insert into my laptop's USB port, so not a good start, lol. It does at least seem to work, but as soon as I verified that the camera could connect to Phd2, and made a few darks, the cable went straight into the big ol bag of cables (we all have one), eventually destined for the scrap heap. At only 2m it wasn't long enough anyway. Ordered a quality 3m Lindy one off Amazon. Job done 😀

Lovely Richard. Amazing amount of dust for less than 2 hrs. I did have to download and rotate it, because it was messing with my head looking at it upside-down lol. Nice use of Starnet too btw - the filename gave the game away 😁 How did you find using Gain 0 vs the more often used higher Gain (can't remember what it is for the 2600mc)? I feel your pain on the weather front, this winter has been terrible! In my case, it's even worse, as even when the weather does play along, i can't image anything below 60 degrees South due to the large (leafless!) trees out the back of our house 😒 Curious - i wonder has anyone ever had 'Some fun between the branches'?! With CMOS subs being so short, i wonder if i just decided to let it rip for a night, what sort of percentage of the total subs would i end up actually being able to keep? Hmmmm...

Here's my attempt. Gradient reduction done in APP, everything else done in PS. Combined as SHO. Stars removed using Starnet, and then blended back in a lightly stretched Ha layer in blend mode Screen to add back the stars. Really amazing data, was fun to process, so once again thanks for sharing and taking pity on us poor folk who haven't seen a clear sky in weeks, if not months! Edit - made a slight revision, with toned down highlights and slightly different colour palette.

For anyone interested, the 26C weighs just 620g. Pretty impressive when you consider the 2600mc weighs 700g and the 268c over 800g. Ps - I got this piece of info direct from Altair over Fb messenger recently while researching whether to get an OSC or Mono. Their website lists just about every possible spec apart from the weight.

There won't be many, that's for sure lol. I will be hoping for more quality over quantity. ps - Yay for 1,000 posts for me! 😅 Holy moly, i've just noticed your post count 😳

Congrats on the new camera Adam! Can't wait to see what you do with this and the 2600mc working in tandem. If all goes to plan, i am hoping to have one of these myself in the not too distant future. When i get a chance to use it.... well, that's anyone's guess 🙄 😋

Woops! I thought that was Richard's latest version, but I can see now it's clearly not. Thanks for keeping me right Adam! That'll teach me for posting from my phone and not the computer 🤦‍♂️ Might be time to get a new phone. This S7 Edge is getting on a bit 😂

100% agree Richard. When I sell my Atik383l+ I will miss them. They make the stars so much prettier. I wish the CMOS sensors created the same effect! Ps - is there some slight micro lensing visible in your M45 image? I think I can see a reddish grid-like pattern around the brightest stars. Although, if it takes stars of this magnitude to show it, and only at this level, then it shouldn't be much of a problem I would think.

Someone over on CN has got their QHY 268M. It seems it weighs less than expected, 812 grams, and is 107mm long. So good news that it's almost 200 grams lighter than expected 😃

That photo should come with a XXX Warning! 🤤

I'm pretty much sold on the Qhy 268M now myself. However, i was doing a little searching online, and i came across this review of the early bird version of the OSC one. https://www.astrophotoygk.com/post/qhy268c-camera-review-best-astrophotography-camera Look at the length of that monstrosity, it's 180mm long! I really don't like the thought of such a long camera hanging off the back of my scopes. Qhy's website has a drawing that states it is actually only 102.8mm, but then it says that's for the Photographic version, which hasn't been released yet (and which apparently will weight 780 grams). I've emailed Bern to see if he knows for sure how long this early bird version will really be.

Wow, 1.8Kg! I've adjusted mine a couple of times over the years, to try and tighten it up. Each time, i had to go and find the webpage to remind me of which screws to adjust, but tbh, it always felt like trial and error to me, even though i did see a small improvement. It sounds like i need to have another go and see if it can be improved further. I just use the basic SW handheld auto-focuser. Hopefully it's up to the job too. What were you using to focus when you had that amount hanging off yours Adam?

My next camera will definitely be an IMX571 one, but i haven't yet decided on whether it should be Mono or OSC. At the moment, I'm leaning towards Mono and pairing it with the D5300 for colour. Weight is an issue for me though. My wee 80ED's stock focuser is currently just about managing the Atik383l+ (at 750 grams). The ZWO weighs a similar amount, but the Qhy weighs just over 1Kg! which is just too heavy for me i think.Quite annoying really, as the Qhy is available now and at a very good price. In all likelihood, i'll probably just hold off until Autumn and see how things are looking then.

I've recently picked up a used RC6. It will be some time before i get to use it, but when the time comes, the method i will be using to collimate is Dave's method below (2nd last post in the thread):

Nothing's ever easy in this game Adam is it?! Hopefully the supplier steps up and offers the exchange. Offering only a 14 day return period is a bit of a joke, especially when we can wait 2 months for a clear night here in the UK. Good luck with the exchange and hopefully the FF works out better for you. Ps - I'm seriously thinking of getting an OSC IMX571 camera too. As you gather more data on various targets, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how it compares against 8300 data.

Hi Adam, I'm sure you researched all the options, so apologies if I'm stating the obvious here. Have you thought about sending the SS back and just going for an Esprit 100 instead? Slightly slower, slightly more expensive and slightly higher FL obviously, but at least you know it will perform up to a 40mm imaging circle.

Thanks Vlaiv, very enlightening as always! I use Astropixelprocessor for stacking, which I think uses Lanczos-3 and Mabula's own custom interpolation algorithm, which he coins 'Adaptive Airy Disc'. But I agree, I think we've veered just a tad off-topic here, lol, sorry Gerr! ☺️

Thanks Vlaiv. I'll admit it's really not that easy to tell which image is which in your example, which I wouldn't have imagined. I suppose with an OSC one will always want to use Bayer Drizzle. I only really used it once myself, on an image of M31, and I recall there being a noticeable improvement. So maybe the true resolution when using Bayer Drizzle isn't quite the full resolution, but is probably a lot closer to it than twice the value, would you say?

Hi Gerr I also have an HEQ5-PRO. It's currently getting the StellarDrive treatment by Dave at DarkFrame. I've recently picked up a used RC6 for galaxy hunting. It's definitely at the high end of the scale for the mount, but as long as you don't aim for too high an imaging scale, it should handle it ok.

Forgot to say, Mabula (the creator of Astro Pixel Processor, which I am a big fan of for calibration and integration) suggests not to use SuperPixel mode for over-sampled OSC images, as the lower resolution would affect registration. What's your opinion on using Bayer Drizzle (with appropriate droplet size) and an integration scale of 0.5 instead? https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/tutorials-workflows/does-app-support-software-binning-of-osc-color-images/

Hi Vlaiv You say that for OSC cameras the true imaging scale is actually double what one might think it is, due to the Bayer CFA. But what if one were to use Bayer Drizzle rather than an interpolation algorithm? Does this effectively bring the imaging scale back down to half the amount again? Richard Sweeney's recent amazing image of the HH Nebula comes to mind. He used a 2600mc camera with a Tak Epsilon 160, so roughly 1.5" resolution. I'll admit I am having a hard time accepting that it's really a 3" image it's that good. Ps - part of my reason for asking is that my next camera will be either the OSC or Mono version of the 2600. My head says go for the simplicity of OSC, but.......

I agree with Martin, Adam. You already have the base here for a truly great image, it just needs some RGB to make it complete. Keep going! Ps - I wish I could shoot this. Alas, most of the big winter objects are blocked by trees here 😭

Thanks Vlaiv, that makes perfect sense 🙏

Vlaiv, i see you mentioned 45cm for the RC8, but what about for the F/9 RC6? What prism to sensor distance would you have to stay under to keep the guide cam from effectively being stopped down?

Very nice Emil! A big improvement over the original, and I really like the colours. ps - Annie's action is a nice time-saver, but you can take full control of it if you want. When you run the action and the Levels window pops up, choose not to do it. This stops the action. You're then free to manually balance the Levels and then move on to doing as much of the Selective Colour adjustments as you wish. pps - You can go further and actually edit any PS action you want really. If you look at the list of Actions on the panel, you can click on the arrow beside them, and drill down to see the order of steps and exactly what each step does. You can choose not to run one particular step if you like, or edit it to do something different.