DaveS

I think I would rather put a proper camera on the end of my 'scopes and go deep.

This is why don't do NV, much rather spend my money on a real camera and filters.

That's really rather fine Peter, As you say, a busy area!

Could DSS have output a 32 bit TIFF?

You want Drizzle OFF! Otherwise it will at least quadruple your file size.

Eh?

I have an 10x8 monorail camera, and a couple of lenses that will cover the image circle, but doubt they are anything like diffraction limited (0.84 Strehl) at any aperture, let alone wide open.

Well OK, but what was it's poly Strehl?

The "inch" size is a long obsolete measure dating back to vidicon TV camera tubes.

Can you point me to a commercially available camera with a sensor larger than 60mm square? If you want bigger then you'll either have to have 6 or 7 figure sums for a custom built observatory class camera, or else revert to silver halide and large format film. And find a telescope with a big enough prime focus imaging circle.

Well that's effectively eyepiece projection, not prime focus imaging.

A Tak FSQ106 will cover 88 mm so good for a 6060 sensor, well at least theoretically. Not many telescopes are well corrected beyond, I think, 60 mm and even that's pushing it.

Even the Liverpool Telescope in La Palma only has a 60mm square sensor. Beyond that the sensors are one-off custom designs.

A square format means you aren't constantly changing the orientation of your camera. Unfortunately all the square sensor cameras that might make sense for me are stupidly expensive.

A bit small? 50 x 40 mm or even 60 x 60 mm? How big do you want? Actually gigabit ethernet would be a better option than USB3 Thunderbolt is just too flakey for scientific cameras.

I'd seen some of these on their site, but Baader have prices and can order for you. Better have won the lottery first though. Here

Well, if you *really* want 6x6 medium format FLI will do you one.

The two I tried were an Astronomik CLS and an IDAS P2. The CLS went 43.85, the P2 went 43.0. Haven't measured the Chromas as they're in the filter wheel.

I put some figures into Astronomy Tools, and measured up a couple of spare 2" filters that I had kicking around as I was considering selling off my G3 16200 for something more modern, but realised that my 2" Chroma filters would vignette at any spacing. So I would have to move up to 50 mm anyway, putting the kibosh on that idea.

Very nice indeed, plenty of detail in M106, and loads of faint fuzzies.

Decided to have one final (Yeah, right) bash. Cropped off that nasty light leak and hit it with the big hammer

I had another bash. By using a big hammer I was able to include all the data without the horrid light leak causing a problem, so this is now about 6 hours each RGB, plus 13 hours Luminance. Stacked in DSS with full calibration, Sigma Kappa method. Histogram stretch, DDP several rounds of Gradient reduction then Trichromy and LRGB synthesis. More colour Balance and Saturation. oh, and a touch of Unsharp Mask somewhere in the chain. Now that's odd. The JPEG uploaded looks nothing like it does in AstroArt, or on my monitor.

This has been a real fight. I captured lots of subs, but unfortunately a lot after meridian flip had a horrible light leak from the LED floods on my CCTV so had to be binned leaving me with 30 Red, 30 Green, 42 Blue, and 42 Luminance. I started capture on the 19th March, and finished the main capture on the 14th April. I still have some H-alpha which I may or may not att in to the red channel. Stacked in DSS with Sigma Kappa, Dark, Flat and Dark Flat frames, but no Bias. Many rounds of Gradient Reduction in AstroArt before and after Histogram Stretch, DDP, Colour Balance, RGB assembly, LRGB Synthesis etc. And a big crop due to severe alignment problems with the camera becoming skewed between sessions. This is the version without Unsharp Mask, as I think I may have overcooked it and got too much noise. Even in the image of M106 itself there are gradients!

And yet another NGC 3718 group 2 h 30 mins Red and Green, 3 h 30 m Blue with the ODK rig in my sig on the 16th and 17th April. It's not really up to scratch but as we're losing astro dark and getting a brighter moon I'll post. {Mods / judges. Please disregard this version. I will be posting my definitive version with new data and correct calibration below}

Mesu?