tooth_dr

This target is broadband primarily to get the dust, not narrowband. Requires dark skies and no moon ideally!

If I didn’t have a permanent setup these days though I don’t think I’d bother. I did my time setting up an imaging rig (and ripping down an hour later when cloud appeared), and saw the only way out was an observatory.

We had some clear skies last week, and I captured 50+ hours on IC1396, 46 of which are good and usable. I have the opposite problem in that I capture data but dont get around to processing it! I had a look on my hard drive and I have unprocessed data on the following, somewhere in the region of 300 hours, 10k+ subs I'm sure. I lost my mojo last year, but finally it's come back. But I never stopped collecting data, only processing it Markarians Chain NGC7822 NGC2264 IC1396 B7 NGC1499 Leo Triplets Orion Mosaic Whale Galaxy M13 M51 M64 M78 Rosette M104 NGC6543 NGC7023 Polaris

That widefield image is something else Goran, well done indeed 👌 A diplodocus travelling through space

Thank you Paul 👋

Hi everyone Inspired by Caroles image, I was fortunate to have a clear sky the very same night, so I pointed my rig at this target in Lacerta. APM 105/650 with Ha 3nm Chroma, QHY 268M, 16200s APM 105/650 with ZWO 2600MC, 15000s Mesu e200, OAG/290MM, PHD2, SGPro Stacked and processed in APP, PI, Images Plus, PS Total exposure = 8 hours 40 minutes I've probably overdone it a bit, but I'm never failed to be impressed by what I get from this set up in just four hours (I have a dual rig). This was shot from midnight to four am, in the early hours of Thursday morning, 21st Sept. There was a bit of haze resulting in the blue stars having some haloes around them. I've attached this at 100% at there are some interesting galaxies in the background, including a really nice spiral with arm extending out, PGC 69101, reminscent of M81. C+C welcome Adam.

Nice wide field Goran. I posted a version on here a couple of years ago, as far as I remember it is close to the coat hanger asterism.

Lovely Lee, really nicely done. I'm in the same camp as you, and just image one target when we get a 'clear spell'. I'm currently trying to stack 46 hours on IC1396 and but after 12 hours of processing in APP the PC crashed. M2 harddrive glitch, thank God it was recoverable. How do you stack your large number of files?

Hi Carole This is such an interesting target, and you've got all the details that make it so special. What was the breakdown of the data? You done very well to get Lum Ha and RGB filters in just 4.5 hours total!

Not half bad at all, I like the detail in the NGC7331 especially.

Another great image from the 533 in good hands 👍🏼

It’s like strings holding up a gigantic cosmic alien puppet.

Thanks again Alan for the information and reply. What you are saying explains my issue and makes perfect sense. I'll see if I can address it later. It's got to be more physical than software if everything works with the PC.

Just to update this again, two full nights imaging completed since moving the 2 x USB2 devices off the Pegasus device and no lock-ups, freezes or dropouts. So I think it is the USB2 connections / or my devices on the Pegasus box that are causing the dropouts. I still have my USB3 cameras both plugged into the Pegasus box along with all the power cables and dew heaters, so the box clearly still works fine. I do think it might be mechanical issues as the USB ports are quite wobbly and moving them about causes dropouts. I have been in communication with Pegasus and they replied almost immediately which was great. They think it's an issue with cables, possibly the input cable, but I dont think so because I can use it, but not with my Atik EFW or Focuser Controller attached. I have asked about mechanical looseness and how to fix this but the replies now stopped. I might try to address with a thin 3d printed stabiliser around the edge of the USB port.

Looks like good data so will be something to look forward to adding a few hours to when its clear again. It's an excellent FOV for M45.

It does overall look a bit light on my screen. Have you tried careful use of curves to darken the background a bit. I find my images can be like yours too, hard to get a good contrast. Curves seems to do the trick sometimes. I also don’t think the actual sub time makes a big difference. It’s the total integration time. You’ve only got 50 minutes. In the grand scheme of things that’s not a lot for astro imaging. 4-8hours will pull out the background dust and the nebulosity.

Very nice @Kon never thought of stacking DSLR data.

Crappy is subjective! I think it’s excellent and thanks for sharing.

I used an ED80 for a good while and I think you image reflects my own experiences. It's a beautiful image, just looks a little bright overall on my monitor.

It's a fairly challenging target, so I think you've done remarkably well with 5 hours of data with a OSC and dual NB filter. I dont think you could push it any more without it falling apart.

Looks pretty good TBH, stars look nice and round throughout the image. I'd not change anything with your setup.

I like it as an image. Has that natural feel about it. It’s hard to say if the distance is correct, a single sub frame would be more useful.

Cheers Alan. I assumed it was a subscription so that’s good to know.

I like that Phil. Colours are pleasing and the overall FOV is perfect. Needs the space

Alan that’s a great reply. Many thanks for taking the time to share the links also. It seems I have similar issues to the other folks. Over the past days/nights I’ve exhausted software updates, rollbacks to legacy software, new usb cables, various combinations of equipment plugged in and not plugged in, connected to SGPro and not connected. I ‘think’ I’ve found the issue. I have an old metal startech usb 2.0 hub attached to a dovetail above my scope. It was attached for balancing purposes some time ago and I forgot it was there. I connected it up to the pc and moved both the focuser and the EFW USBs to it from the Pegasus hub. Two hours of testing and touch wood all appears to be working fine. It’s cloudy now but I was able to change filters multiple times and autofocus both scopes, plus PHD2 guiding and image downloads all 100%. Got a few subs of IC1396 in the process. Im going to assume at this point there is an issue with the compatibility of the Pegasus hub and my equipment. Might be that the hub has only USB3, there are no USB2 ports on it. Or might be a mechanical issue as the female ports allow a bit of play and jiggling the connectors causes that window’s disconnect/reconnect bing. I will use the startech hub for a while and monitor the situation. Cheers! Hi Stuart I really hope SGPro continues to work for me as I’m just so used to the interface. If however it stops for good I’ll switch to NINA. I won’t be paying the ongoing subscription for SGPro for sure.