DaveS

Not a lot I really need, but I have an automated cover on order for the ODK. Beyond that I may be looking at a couple of QHY 268 cameras, a colour for the 80 mm f/4.4 and a mono plus filters for the 130 f/7. Unfortunately Chroma are about to get a whole lot more expensive and I don't want to compromise if I can help it. Longer term I would like to automate the setup on the platform, using the experience gained from building the obsy.

Scrubbed

Thanks Alan, and glad you like it, but it really was a quick play, doubt if it took more than 30 mins or so. Most of the processes I applied were not much more than one-click actions in AA7, the non-liner DDP taking the longest. The channel mixer in Affinity took a little care to pull the magenta stars down without sending everything green again.

Touch wood, no problems so far, and I've had it under a cover for a couple of years now.

If you can use a TG 365 cover (You say you have lost most use of your right arm / hand) then there's no need to bring the 'scope indoors at all, unless for maintenance. I keep one of my imaging rigs under one all the time, with an electric pet-bed on low to keep condensation at bay. For dew control have you considered a Pegasus APB? It has temperature / humidity sensors so can calculate dew point, and how much power it needs to send to the heaters.

I prefer to use Stellarium for planning targets as it has a better Field of View tool, and usually better pictures, however for controlling the telescope I use Cartes du Ciel. For robotic telescope subscriptions you could also look at iTelescope. They have several instruments, including in the southern hemisphere.

Had a quick play. Pulled the TIFF into AA7 and decomposed into separate RGB channels Applied Gradient Reduction > Adaptive Subtract to each The individual files into Trichromy followed by a slight colour rebalance. DDP followd by a slight Saturation Boos while holding back the background then export as TIFF Into Affinity Photo for Channel Mixer > CMYK and reduce the magenta in the magenta channel. Finally export as Best Quality JPEG

Before spending any money buy yourself This book and read it at least twice. You will inevitably have more questions so come back and we'll try to answer them. Beware: it's very easy to end up spending a lot of money, only to have to go back and start again if you're not careful

Oh I will, just as soon as these blasted clouds go away.

Wow! That is seriously good!

And I have now edited my sig to acknowledge that I have achieved "First "Light".

Good job I bought my Chroma filters when I did. Painful, but considering the rest of the kit they joined, not too bad. Now I'm planning on a QHY 268M to go on the 130 triplet, I will need larger filters, probably get away with 36mm unmounted. Question now is: which?

Bork, bork, bork

Finally I have something like First Light with the ODK12. This is just 6 x 600 sec subs Luminance with the Moravian G3 16200 and Chroma filters. Sigma Add stacking in AstroArt 7 followed by a slight crop to get rid of dither edges, Gradient Reduction (As the moon was starting to interfere), DDP and Unsharp Mask. Calibration was with Darks and Flats only as I had neglected to do Dark Flats *slapped wrist*. Reduced 50% for upload and JPEG. Yes it's a bit noisy, and I think I may have focus issues. C&C welcome as usual.

Maybe I can do some "real astronomy" with the ODK12, not just make "pretty pictures".

If you are imaging emission nebulae with NB then it shouldn't take any longer than with broad band filters as the emission lines are likely to be narrower than your filter's bandwidth, so won't be cut off by the filter.

My ASI 1600 lives on my 'scope all year round under a TG 365 cover with an electric pet bed to keep the dew off.

Maybe have a word with Louise, @Thalestris24, she images (Weather permitting) from her living room.

Even down here on the south coast it's been a stupidly long time without a useable clear night.

I'll have to have a dig through some old images as I haven't used the 80mm for a while now. I may have something with the ASI 183. The combination would have been riding piggyback on the 130mm apo, on the DDM 60, certainly capable of better than 0.35", on occasion below 0.2"

This is what I get if I put my TS 80mm f/4.4 and 2.3 micron pixels into Astronomy Tools

Might be worth doing for a short focus 'scope or camera lens.

About your only hope is with 3 nm H-Alpha

I've had packages from Amazon where the "packaging" was just the address label.

That's very nice Carole, especially with only 4 hours.