Tommohawk

Yes agree - usually a little more magenta/blue showing. But it's a lovely image!

Looks great to me! Those stars are tough to control - but there is a lot of real reflection around them, so they will inevitably appear quite large. Link here to APOD of Flame nebula - superb detail but are those stars pretty? Re the noise, just more subs really. Couldn't see how many subs you used or what ISO/exposure - but looks like you have it pretty well nailed. Nice framing/cropping too.

Normally when I guide with EQ3-2 I have the laptop controlling the mount using Stellarium via an FTDI cable, plugged into the Skywatcher goto unit. The guidecamera plugs into the laptop and uses PHD to modify the tracking commands. The camera doesn't connect to the Skywatcher unit - only to the laptop. I don't use the Skywatcher handset at all, though I recall there is a way of setting up using the handset. Is that what youre doing? If your going to use a laptop, it's probably better to do it using 1st method.

Nice image - sorry I cant offer any opinion on the filter though! But as you say using the UHC for the stars and adding to it might make sense.

Well if you use library flats leaving the camera attached makes a lot of sense to be fair

Well you may be right - certainly my newts pick up dew on the secondary really easily. Usually if I suspect dew I remove the camera and look down the focuser with a torch.

Well dew on the secondary can certainly be a big issue, and I routinely use a low power heater. BTW keep the power low as possible. I got problems with odd star shapes with overheated secondary, and was only using a couple of watts. But, looking at your uncalibrated sub, I'm 99% sure the odd effect you note in the calibrated sub isn't dew, (though you may have few also) Well, 90% sure. Ok ...maybe 50/50

So you could try doing new flat and see it it matches old flat. If not something s shifted. Make sense?

I don't think the collimation issue is huge. It's just that if something has shifted the flats might not work properly... though I've assumed possibly incorrectly that you're using library flats. Are you using library flats, or do you take new flats per session? If you're comparing lights through the session I'd suggest do this without flat calibration because if the flats don't match it might make comparisons tricky.

Well that looks like off centre vignetting - also the collimation is a bit off. So I'm just wondering if something has slipped slightly, and the banding effect in the calibrated image is caused by the flats no longer being correct?

Ok great thanks

Great, that's really interesting. Did you cite ISO/EN standards etc or just generally give them grief - wondering what it was that made them act. I've done a lot of searching on light shields/shrouds and couldn't find much - useful to know they do exist. I found one link where the response was that shrouds add windage issues and were considered a hazard. Seems a bit daft. Here are pics of the offending item - could have posted these initially I guess! The angling doesn't look that bad but it means we can see the underside of the housing from our windows. Our house is opposite.

Hi All. Recently moved house, and unfortunately had to make some hard choices - unfortunately astrophotography wasn't high on the list! The previous location had no direct lights to speak of, but no view to the East at all, and limited view to the South. At new location the view is generally better - restricted to about 25 degrees to the South which isn't great, but generally wouldn't image below that anyhow. According to "Clear outside" I have Mag 21.29 Class 4 0.33 brightness 159 artificial brightness, which is in theory better than my previous location. However, I do have some streetlights to contend with and I'm still trying to asses the effect of this. They go off around midnight which is something but in the winter that means wasting 7 hours of imaging time, and suffering more dew and mist effects. I cant help but wonder if the effects of streetlights aren't included in Clear Outside figures and LP maps generally because if the LP assessments are done after midnight the effect of the street lights wouldnt show? Haven't done any imaging just yet, but trying tom make the most of the situation. Most of the lamps are sodium, but there is one bright LED right outside which is badly angled towards us by about 15 degrees to the horizontal which is a complete pain. The lamp housing seems to be fixed to the pre-existing post, which must have had a sodium light on it originally. I've written to East Sussex highways asking them to change this because other LED lamps in the vicinity are mounted to a different type of post such that the LED is horizontal. I've stressed this is interfering with our sleep - which it does - and said nothing about astronomy. One problem is if they do remount it there will probably be more light spill toward the house opposite so that might not be popular. Partly with that in mind I've suggested a shroud/shield. My initial inquiry was rebutted, but I've written again stressing duty of care etc. We will see. The street light is to the north so hopefully I can still do something more to the South. I haven't had a chance to do any imaging yet - main issue is my chosen spot has decking which is great for trampolining but not good for the mount. Anyhow, being practical I have a few questions. 1. If doing LRGB, the RGB filters seem to exclude the sodium lights, but L filters don't seem to. Does anyone make an L filter with sodium block? 2. At some point I'd like to do some test images - eg point to maximum elevation, do 10 shots before "lights out", and 10 after. Has anyone seen this done before? Thanks in advance for any input.

Is your posted image done with flats? Would be interesting to see without flats

Maybe light leak around primary - I guess you've already ruled that out. I got caught out once when I repositioned my laptop and screen light leaked into primary end of tube. Edit - Hmmmm. would vary then when pointed to different parts of sky somaybe not

Be aware there are 2 versions of zwo NB filters. The later version is better. https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/zwo-new-narrowband-31mm-filter Shows difference.

Hi and welcome! I'm in agreement with others re your scope size. The 200pds is a great scope but rather too big for imaging with eq5. Maybe go down a size to 150 or even 130pds. Or a refractor of course.

Thing is it's a great image especially for 8" aperture. Just a thought...at the risk of thrashing the data again, if you have 2 more or less adjacent runs, you could join them in PIPP, and then do best 5% in AS. Might get you a smidge more.

Bit over-cooked for my taste TBH!

Nice set of images, worth the wait!

I think that's a great result, especially for a 180 scope. Everyone wants bigger - even the Hubble isn't big enough anymore!

Thanks - that's very useful, hadn't seen it before.

Hi all. A break in the rotten weather the other day and fortunately had the opportunity to get set up in plenty of time. That said, I went in for a while to give Mars time to rise pretty much to the meridian and although the sky had been clear and the forecast good, there was a shower which fortunately wasnt too heavy. No harm done, the scope was only elevated about 20 deg at that point and the cap was on. Fortunately I'd also closed my kit box and closed the laptop. The seeing looked pretty poor - I had a nightmare getting focussed - and it was petty blowy. I'm sheltered from the wind by a high bank which is a disaster for views to the East, but great as a wind break, so the scope didnt get too battered but the image looked plenty wobbly. As it happend though the result was pretty good - best yet I'd say. Used my experimental scope - F4 250mm Quattro mirror mounted in 250mm Flextube scope with Omegon Velox 385C camera mounted at prime focus. I did white balance at capture this time because the RGB peaks are quite different and I wanted to be sure to avoid clipping. Getting quite used to the Toupsky capture software now. The best result was using 3x 6 minute back to back AVIs at 8ms giving 165FPS, giving about 178,000 frames. The gain was ridiculously low - I thought I'd done something wrong! AVIs joined in PIPP, best 25% then through AS!2, best 6%, then put the sharpened conv file through PS. Very pleased with the result, after quite a bit of testing the Omegon 385C gets a big thumbs up from me. Happy to receive comments as ever, thanks for looking. One question - does anyone know what AS!2 does to produce the conv file? I cant get anything as good using Registax wavelets.

It does sound like you were overexposed. You should be able to reduce the exposure time until the image pretty much disappears. Obviously will depend on your gain settings, but for Mars recently I was using 8ms with just 8% gain. Does that help?

That looks great! The C8 does seem capable of great results given its a fairly modest aperture. If you have multiple image runs you might want to try combining them depending on how long they are of course. Last night I did lots of back to back 3 minute runs and then combine them in PIPP and ask PIPP to keep the best say 25%, and then put the resulting AVI through AS2/3 as normal. As an eg, from my data last night it appears that 3 x 3 minute runs gave the best result.