Pompey Monkey

Star registration will do a <ahem> stellar job of this.

I stretched the astrobin image out over nearly three monitors! It's a brilliant image. When you get it printed, make sure to find someone who will help you get the best results.

Marvelous! You should put that wall on your wall!

That's great. I'd better get up to speed with my processing. I've got no more excuses!

I tried the tsred279 on my Esprit 80ed, which was "supposed" to work with the matching adaptor. However, by the time I had the backfocus getting to the right place, it wasn't possible to wind the draw tube far enough in to get focus! Shame, because the additional fov it was giving me made a heck of a difference!

Rodd - I completely agree. But it all depends on the rejection criteria that you set. As the bulk of your subs are already at a high level of quality, you are still adding useful information to the image. I do like the comparison between the stacks - it shows a lot. Is it possible to do a GIF or animation of one over the other?

I really like your rendition. It also shows that a "budget" telescope can produce excellent results!

The filters need to be large enough to cover your sensor. If you had a 40mm chip, then you would need the 2 inch filters. But as your chip is about 22mm across the diagonal, then you will be fine with your 36mm filters.

Good stuff. Equatorial mounts can, and do, put the eyepiece in an awkward position. Does the scope come with a 90 or 45 degree star-diagonal? You may not be able to rotate the telescope tube, but you should be able to rotate the diagonal to get the eyepiece in a better position. Edit. It is a reflector. Ignore me! Lol.

What camera are you (trying to) use? If you post a picture of the camera mounted to the 'scope, it might just be obvious what's going on to someone here

PI really makes use of threads and RAM for a lot of processes. About a year ago, I bought a second-hand dual-Xeon server. It's got two Xeon X5690 hex core multithreading CPUs and 96 GB DDR3 ECC RAM. I made a 32 GB RAM drive and configured PI to use it as multiple swaps. It flies!!! Cost was under £300.

Carole, It is actually easy to see Venus with the naked eye in full daylight, as long as you know where and when to look. The way I first did it was when Venus was close to maximum elongation rising before the Sun (i.e. "morning star"). The trick was to stand in the same place and remember where it was in relation to a building or tree. I did this every hour or so and could see the planet from dawn through to past 1400 GMT. I've also heard that it's possible to see Jupiter in the daytime, but I've not managed it yet!

As I understand it, 36mm filters have been produced to meet the demands of imagers using the very popular KAF 8300 chip based cameras. The 8300 is only 0.6mm bigger in the diagonal. I guess it's down to how close you can get the filters to the chip...

I've never had a real problem with dust bunnies from the filters, it's usually somewhere else in the imaging train. In fact, like others on SGL, I usually just use the luminance flat to correct all my subs. FWIW, i had the SX 7 position usb filter wheel. The biggest problem with that one is the janky usb connection diectly on the circuit board, but that's another story!

Yes, you need the flattener. I would also suggest that the 36mm filters will match the ASI1600mm better. I can also vouch for the heq5/Esprit 80ED combo. My mount is not modded at all and I image at 2.8"pp: I was rejecting about 15 to 20% of my subs, as long as i avoided imaging around the point where the scope balance flips over (usually around, or just past, the meridian).

Meh... I emailed Baader last year to see if they would be releasing the ultra-narrowband filters in 36 mm unmounted format. They said that they had no plans to do so and consequently I ended up spending just shy of 2-grand (pounds, not Euros!) on a set of Chroma 3 nm's Ho-hum....

So true. After visiting a few dark sites in France, Spain and La palma, I've all but given up on imaging from the murky and light polluted south coast! I'm in the fortunate position of being able to afford a remote shed at E-Eye in Spain with a friend. We're setting up there in September.

I tried the TS279red with my Esprit 80 last year, including the special low profile M74 (?) to M48 adapter from Telescope Austria https://teleskop-austria.at/M74nM48p_M74neg-M48posFeingewinde-Adapter-um-den-TS-079x-Reducer However after many hours finding the correct backfocus distance, I then found that I couldn't move the drawtube far enough in to get focus! YMMV, but for me, some things are just not meant to be

Increased information or not, I know which image looks better to me.

I'm deliberately not going to quote anyone on this, because I don't want to offend. But I DO have a strong opinion on this matter: I think that if you don't collect your own sand and trace minerals, build a kiln, produce your own blanks, grind and polish your own mirror, devise a new method for testing the optics using a hand made light-blub powered by home made batteries*, <pause for breath> smelt the steel to make your own lathe to produce your own bearings (do you know how much science and effort goes into making accurate ball-bearings?), develop your own light sensitive semiconductors and the associated digital electronics (not to mention programming the thing to work)**... then you are not worthy of any recognition at all. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. If you want to be masochistic about life, fair enough. Personally, I enjoy the rich pickings of modern society! Plus I've worked blinking hard to get to the point where I can set up a remote observatory - does that effort count for nowt too? *Gotta make your own copper wire (from ore that you prospected yourself) and insulation too.. **I could go on, but you get the idea

My rosette was done with a KAF8300 mono CCD chip, through Baader RGB and 7nm Ha filters, all plugged into the 150 PDS and SW CC. If that helps..?

If you get on better with PI, then use it! Everybodies brains are wired a bit differently, some are more attuned to the PS workflow while others work better with PI. It's good that we have a choice.

You still might have "fun" getting the spacing correct with the 80...

Wrong thread!

Actually, I got the Bortle scale wrong- I should have written 5/6!