tooth_dr

I did send it into the SAN magazine, but I didnt realise it was being used. That was a nice surprise.

No problem, good luck.

You probably know the answer 😉 It’s actually smaller, I assumed the lodestar was 1/4”

I was all for getting a lodestar x2 mono, and after chatting to several imagers on here, some use the lodestar and some use ASI cameras. I don’t think you will be disappointed in either. I went from a 120MM to a 290MM. The latter is in a different league to the 120. I use it at 1200mm and 185mm and it guides fine - on my mount I get <0.6RMS. My imaging resolutions are, depending on my configuration, either 0.93”/px or 2.23”/px. The 290MM I bought is the USB3 model and it doubles up as a great solar and lunar camera. The lodestar has a very small sensor so would be limited to guiding. The 120MM works well with a guidescope but is just borderline as an oag. The 290MM works well as both.

I didn’t miss the point. I ignored it. You have been resolute in getting this Lodestar X2 - hopefully mono - so go for it

That’s great! Absolutely share your images here, would love to see them.

290MM

I believe you should aim for a guiding ratio of 1:4, but I've seen people guiding at 1:10. If you buy a sensitive small pixel camera like the 290MM or 120MM, you cant go far wrong surely?

One guidecam of choice these days is the 290MM, I wouldnt get too hung up on resolution of the guidecam though

You should aim to guide at 1/2 your imaging resolution.

Last week I ended up buying a pink fishing rod for my son, as it was the only colour left. He ended up catching just as many fish as I did with my black rod. (He’s only 4). I assume telescopes are the same. My epsilon is a daft yellow colour for example but works ok.

Yes Olly, many thanks. I am sorry for hijacking your thread Steve, this has been in my mind for some time. I have seen integration info on some nice images, and the lum subs were half the length of the rgb subs. Previous to this my RGB subs had been shorter than my lum, and I was struggling with the colour from my perceived lack of data. This is where I started to read and think i was getting it the wrong way around. But it was most likely my processing rather than the data. Thanks also for the tip on using RGB as lum in cases, fantastic again. Adam

In this discussion I was referring to sub length, never total exposure. I was just curious if your colour filters are capturing say 1/3 of the signal of luminance why would you want shorter subs?

Stunning images again MG

I don’t know, my daughters princess limited edition 1 of 1 might take that crown

Thanks Carole and Ray. It popped up an Irish FB group I'm in, another member mentioned they had their drawing published. When I read the article I spotted my own image. With images from California, Iran, New Mexico, Stonehenge etc, it was great to see my hometown mentioned.

I'm a bit raging too that I didnt have mine running properly as I would have almost certainly picked it up. Good spot though, I didnt think to look for it.

I have just stumbled across my Beaghmore Neowise image in an article online Click - Sky at Night Neowise Article Any other members with images? Regards Adam

Thats xcellent, thanks for sharing.

Thats nice Dave despite the issues with the image. Have you tried 60s second before? I was shooting with my SA the other night at 180mm, and I only did a very rough PA by eye through the polar scope. I found that after 25s I started to get very slight trailing

Richie, this is quite a widerly covered topic, there are lots of topics answering this question on the forum. It comes down to different types of noise that are involved in an exposure - both from within the camera and from the environment you are shooting in. With your particular camera (383L+) for example, you will want to be taking longer subs compared to someone with a new CMOS camera due to the high read noise 10+ e-. I have the same camera as you and I would advocate longer subs. With reference to my quoted comment - you have taken what I was saying out of context of the thread. There was some confusion that I was suggesting spending twice as long exposing for RGB data, and that it should be the same total integration time as the luminance data. What in fact I was asking, was that why not make up the total integration time using less but longer subs. There is no longer time spent on integration but it just has a different make up - less longer subs rather than more shorter subs).

Oh wonderful! I would love another clear night here

Just my final point - longer individual subs not a change to total exposure time. 20 x 5 minutes is the same as 10 x 10 minutes, (100 = 100)

A short video from last night just showing the MW between the clouds. I moved my all sky camera, and only got round to connecting 12v to it. It misted up every night without the dew heater connected, but last night it worked perfectly, so definitely need to keep it heated all the time. allskycam280720.mp4

@vlaiv wishing you and the wife a speedy recovery.