nitram100

Picked up a little 150p heritage dob a few weeks ago and I've observed more in the last few weeks than I have in the previous 6 months as my 10" NEQ6 Pro is so heavy.

Thanks mate just ordered that! Thanks for all the replies everybody 👍🏻

Thank you everyone for all the advice, great info on this thread. I'm going to get a 32mm Omni Plossl , I've seen a few on Ebay at good prices. Just missed one this morning at £18! Doh.

Great advice guys thank you so much, will have a good think today!

People with obnoxious security lights boil my blood.

Hi everyone, just recently picked up a great deal for a 150p heritage dob complete for £70. The super 25 eyepiece that came with it is ok but I'm hoping to get a low power eyepiece in the 25mm -32mm range with a fgield of view of 68 degrees or above. Is there anything around the £60 mark ? Thanks, Mart

Thanks mate, I only took about 4 darks but I will try with bias and dark flats tonight as I am going to have another crack at it.

thanks mate, i did mess with the detection and tried stacking with 8 stars, 100 stars, 400 stars but nothing changed, it always gave me a mis aligned image. I'll stick with ASTAP from now on as it just gets the job done for me! Just need better images to work with haha

Just an update, not sure why DSS is being such a pain in the butt. I just googled other software and tried ASTAP. Loaded the lights and a few darks and it aligned straight away. I'll stick to ASTAP from now on, thanks for the help guys. This is the image it popped out with default settings, not sure what the smudge marks are but I'm happy enough that everything seems aligned at least!

Thanks for all the info guys. This is a stack of 4 x 1 min subs. None of the single frames have star trails, a couple of the single frames have a slightly comet shaped star but other than that each single frame looks good. It seems like although the pictures aren't great, DSS should be registering it better than this. I'm quite to new to AP and with the UK weather I haven't had too much time to practise! I've uploaded my FITS to google drive if anyone is bored today and wants a bash at them! haha, its about 2gb. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T38Z9KO8CbSrVtcg47R2jexdGt00dmXD?usp=drive_link

Thanks for all the info guys, I was being stupid. I was registering pictures then getting the grey screen and not clicking stack checked pics. Sorry!! I was wondering though, the final image was pretty awful with star trails and quite useless. I took 1 min subs and on the screen they looked good but each individual FIT file shows m51 moving slightly, should M51 be centered 100% of the time in all images to avoid star trails? Maybe my polar alignment was off. I thought deep sky stacker was able to align stars even if they were slightly off. I've attached a pic of my m51 with 4 frames of 1 min subs where I could see the stars moved around slightly. Is there a way to fix this? Or do I have to get all the images again with perfect polar alignment. The night was windy, so that may have caused it too. Thanks for any help, Mart

Hi guys, I'm quite new to imaging and tried to take an image of M51 last night. I took 20 x 60 sec light frames, I chose RGB in sharp cap. I am trying to stack them in DSS but just get a single gray image. It doesn't even let me save the image for processing as it says no picture detected. I've changed it to RGGB in settings as that is the bayer pattern of my 183c Altair cam. I always seem to have issues with this software, is there a more straight forward alternative? Thanks for any help.

I gave up on Astronomy in the UK a good while back, it's just an exercise in frustration. I only have the one scope and a camera because I knew any more gear would be worthless in this god awful country. It's my main passion and really gets me down when I can't enjoy it. I decided a long time ago in order for me to be happy I need my hobbies, so worked hard and got my austalian permanent residency about a year ago through my Nursing experience. I've been out a few times since getting my residency and blows my bloody mind how amazing they have it down there. I'm making the permanent move in about 6-7 months.

Did this exact same trip back in 2017 also added in the grand canyon star party. I will never forget those views and clear skies! USA really is blessed.

Incrdible pic!

Haha too right

Thanks mate, appreciate it! I definitely need to work on the focus as I was doing it manually with live view, which can be quite tricky. Bhatinov mask thanks for the advice! It's the Altair Astro 183c Pro which has a built in UV-IR blocking filter. Ah that makes sense with regards to the core, because that was the part that was getting too bright and bloated with the 30 sec exposure. Thanks again, this imaging is definitely addictive!

Hi guys, Had my first go at a deep sky object last night, M42. It was 30 X 20 second subs with 20 darks in sharp cap and stacked in DSS. It was 16 bit RAW file. I messed about with it in GIMP, first attempt looks a bit too pink but I'll keep practising the levels, stretch etc Any advice would be great. Would I benefit from longer exposures? When I upped the frames to 25-30 seconds, it became too over exposed and the stars became big blobs. Thanks for any advice

Ah no way, that is very sad. Always desired one of his telescopes. RIP

Thanks for the advice guys! Some clear skies next week so going to give it another shot

Thanks ! Just waiting for clear skies so I can try my barlow 😁

Thanks buddy, will give it a shot with the barlow next clear sky !

Would using a Barlow help the image?

Happy with this one, nothing compared to some people's images but I'm pleased! Lovely pic of the GRS. Used 10" Orion optics f4.8 Eq6pro Altair 183c pro 30,000 frames with 32% frames used . Sharp cap, autostakkert then registax basic wavelet tweaking.any advice on improving?

Also tried a jupiter with a barlow, clearly a focusing issue?