DaveS

And now I have the south wall clad I still have to put the two middle sets of screws in, as I found that trying to do that while putting the cladding up bent the strakes just enough to make putting the next one in a real fight. I also need to order more T&G as I miscalculated how much I would need, but will wait until I know how much I will need for the roof skirt.

Another long time update. I now have most of the breathable membrane on, just a bit to do on the rear wall, and cladding going on. The roof base has been constructed and is on its wheels The blue rope is to stop it rolling off the track. Close up of the roof automation rack. The motor will be fitted when the roof is waterproof. More to follow when I make some more progress.

I had another go with the colour palette, swapping H and S to make a HSO version, which has been easier to get a neutral background. This was inspired by the alternate Hubble Palette in the image of part of the Veil complex.

That's very nice Olly. Nad a look on my own NB rendition but it looks like I cropped just below the shock wave. Ah well.

Superb rendition

Thanks both. I found this version a lot easier to process, probably due to now having enough data, there was much less magenta to get rid of.

This is 6 hours HII, plus 11 hours each [SII] and [OIII] in 10 mins subs through 3nm Astrodons. Initial stacking and RGB assembly followed by DDP in AstroArt 7. 16 bit TIFF into Affinity Photo for magenta removal in channel mixer (Thanks @don4l) followed by selective colour, clarity and a haze removal. Curves were also used to take down a blue-grey haze on the right. I'm not too worried by the various colour splodges in the background as they're probably genuine structures. C&C welcome as always.

What I'm seeing has all the hallmarks of diffraction, which suggests that *somewhere* in your light path you have three (Or possibly six) edges intruding. From the photo above the OG looks to be clear of edges. the diffraction isn't huge, which means you're likely to be looking for odd lens spacers, possibly in the reducer. It's unlikely to be a camera spacing issue as that would show up as elongated stars in the corners, and they look pretty round to me.

Some telescopes come in boxes. Others come in crates

Have a look into the objective. Do you see three little spacers intruding into the light path? Three spacers will give you six diffraction spikes as you've noted. It may only be a tiny bit but it can be enough.

And many happy returns from me too Gina. Alas I only caught it in the morning catch up, ah well. I was 13 at the time and already well into astronomy and all things science, from as young as I can remember. Born just before sputnik.

I take AN, but TBH I'm getting a bit narked by their monthly guide. There used to be a "how to image it" at least for the star DSO, but now it's mearly "how to observe". As a 100% imager I'm feeling a bit unloved.

Yep, you've got the fainter Pickering's (Really Fleming's) Triangle as well.

Not the postman, and not really astro, but.... 55" LG OLED. Last year's high end model, heavily discounted. Two blokes from John Lewis. Slightly complicated by my heating engineer fitting a room ventilator, putting a 5" hole through a 2' thick stone wall.

Depends on how far north you are. Astro Dark is back already here according to CO

Ah, that would explain the diffraction spikes. Since none of the 'scopes in your sig will give spikes I thought it might have been data from a previous 'scope. Interesting use of UV photometric filter, wouldn't have thought of that, was thinking UV narrow band, and wondered at the lack of blue bloat, which would have been considerable with a 'frac.

Well, that's certainly not the usual take on the Triffid! What filter did you use for the UV?

Thanks. As I already have AA7 I think I'll give that a go first, before looking at DNG or DSS.

Thanks Kev and Ian. I currently have AA 7 so will give it a go. I have some ideas for tracked MW shots with moderate FL, so the next clear night I'll run some experiments.

I was just casually thinking of using my old Fuji XT1 for some tracked milky way shots while the main rig was ding the serious stuff. I could use my Canon 550D, but noticed that the Fuji had an intervalometer setting in the menu. The hitch in this is that the Fuji X-Trans sensor doesn't use a Bayer pattern, so I think AstroArt won't want to know. Has anyone had any success with other software, DSS for instance? Not used DSS for a good few years now since getting AA5 back in 2014.

At APS-C I reckon I could get away with 36mm unmounted, for which SX have a 7 place wheel, and as I already have a SX USB wheel that's that sorted. Will wait though to see what QHY, Atik and ZWO come up with. I doubt SX will produce a version.

Did anyone get the announcement at the end, that next month would be an hour long Mars special?

On in 15 mins.

The fusion drive doesn't have to contain the plasma for any length of time, or even produce power, all it has to do is produce thrust, so essentially (As I understand) an open magnetic bottle.

This came up on my Google feed https://www.essexmagazine.co.uk/2020/07/ground-breaking-new-footage-captures-nuclear-reaction-that-unlocks-deep-space-travel/ I had a look at the parent site https://pulsarfusion.com/ And they look genuine. We need better engines if we want to send orbiters to the outer planets.