Dave 2112

On a similar note I found a laptop near the base of the scope made for bad AP, eventually figured out even the night vision colour setting in carte du ciel was bright and close enough to cause poor images. Ended up getting a 3m usb cable and keep the laptop as far away from the scope as possible

I had that problem, I'd moved or renamed the location of the output folder so it wouldn't create anything to save. Might be worth a check in the output tab?

Very nice! Quite like the thangka thing on the mantelpiece too, got something similar on wall here.

Its been a little while since I did a philosophy module as part of a non-philosophy degree, but that's how I remember it being described. Something along the lines..."I see that A+B = C" so I come up with the theory A+B=C. And its fine until X comes along and points out if A+B happens while D is present the result is E. So being a theorist I don't simply fall into an "I'm right you're wrong" argument, instead I thank them for the input and opportunity to refine my theory to "If D is not present, A+B=C". The great thing about theories is discussing them can be entertaining, enlightening and endless. But the best thing about them is they aren't laws, you can modify and improve them. A sound theory is never going to be wrong, but it might be made more likely to be right.

Wasn't it Aristotle who theorised men have more teeth than women? Since he successfully argued it must be so (for reasons I either forgot or never bothered reading) it was accepted men did indeed have more teeth than women. If only he bothered with a simple experiment of counting teeth... To me that pretty much sums up theories...they are so much more convincing if there is at least some attempt at providing supporting evidence, otherwise its just philosophy, and even great philosophers can be wrong.

Ha...turns out you were doing that while i was writing that post! Glad it's sorted, and hope it all works.

Not sure if its more or less length, still working this stuff out too. I'm setting up a Skywatcher finderscope with QHY5 (and some youtube help) and haven't got as far as testing it tracking, but can get focus without any extension. Might be worth asking Skys the Limit. I've had some stuff from him in the past, very nice guy and he's likely to have an idea of how to make it focus.

Not trying to be funny, but you have tried twisting the focuser on the end of the scope to get focus or are you just moving the camera position? When looking at setting mine up it seemed a few people ran into that problem.

Have you tried taking the locking ring off the front of the scope? Should give an extra few mm, might be enough.

After much experimentation this evening the options that seem to work best for me are definitely Kappa Sigma (not median), per channel background calibration, everything else default. Used DSS 3.3.4 and images taken with a 100D. Marking the comet doesn't seem to make any difference I can see, adding darks keeps the noise down. I had the star detection as high as I could get it on 10 x 30s at 1600 ISO, and adding more data just increases noise around the comet without adding detail to the tail. A very purple image came out, fiddling with the levels, upping the saturation to 20% and a curve like this seems to bring it back. I keep reading you should do the colour stuff in PS, but my PS knowledge pretty much stops right after "click here to install". Might be able to tweak it further and end up much better, might even read the help files.

Excellent, thanks! I see you did the sensible thing and read the manual, I just did the usual...steamed in and pressed buttons. When I get back home I'll double check the settings for Kappa and RGB and let you know. Also I was using DSS 3.3.2 although I have just updated to 3.3.4 not sure it makes any diffence to the final image though.

Hi Alex, Stacking comets seems a real test of patience, almost makes me glad they are rare events. I couldn't get the comet stacking option to work in DSS. The reticule would lock on to every star but wouldn't lock on to the comet and all stacks ended up as large blobs. In the end I used the edit star button to remove every star in one sub as an attempt to make it lock on the comet but it still wouldn't. I stacked it anyway, 10 subs, with darks, didn't compute offsets, stacked using the kappa sigma option and left everything else to default. The end result was very washed out, but I saved it with no changes and even my total beginner PS skills got the colour back. It ended up like this... Star might be a little egg ish, at the edges particularly, but its brought a bit more tail out and reduced the noise. I might have another go with more subs when my patience levels build up a bit.

Once you've had a go at stacking comets its easier to be happy that they only come around once in a blue moon. Really well defined comet core in that, great image.

Stunning! Is there a version with stars?