Skipper Billy

You dont say where you are but up here the air is unbelievably dry at the moment - you might get away without dew control. Here last night it was -7 and the dew point was -12.  

NGC 2174 - The Monkeys Head Nebula. 5 hours Ha in 1200 sec subs binned 1x1 from a couple of weeks ago and 3 hours OIII in 600 second subs binned 1x1 from last night. The OIII was weak and sketchy and it clouded over before I had as much data as I really wanted. If its clear again tonight I will grab a few more hours of OIII and reprocess it as I had to push the OIII really hard (too hard). Or I might image it in SII and make a 'Hubble' pallet image.

In the words of the great philosopher (Billy Connolly!) 'There is no such thing as bad weather - just wrong clothes' !!! 😉

I work outside quite a bit (down to -19º) and handle large lumps of alloy - yacht masts and rigging etc which pulls the heat out of your hands in an instant. Merino wool gloves and socks and thick soled boots are a big help as is a good hat - I wear a rabbit skin hat which may be not very politically correct but is very warm.

A big help is a bowl of hot steaming porridge before you go out. No alcohol - makes you colder quicker.

43 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

+1 for NINA. Doesn't take long at all to get used to it. Though its not perfect and you need to babysit sometimes. I struggle with meridian flips sometimes.

I too had setup issues with the Meridian flip. It seems I was asking NINA and SiTech to do the same thing and as a result neither did it. Once that was resolved it has performed flawlessly. (I am using 1.10 Beta 3). IE NOT the nightly updates!

4 hours ago, old_eyes said:

NINA will not (yet) close up the observatory at the end of session or if it rains. Voyager will. NINA has no scripting language that I can find. The Voyager one is very sophisticated (at least so far). It also has a web browser interface so you can operate obsy from tablet or phone. 

I understand that all of this is in the next major full release (1.11?) - its already there in the nightly updates if you like living at the bleeding edge 😱

1 hour ago, Gan said:

That's great. Thank you Skipper Billy. I had a good couple of hours of clear skies last night and took more images of M 42 with NINA and simply took the subs in FITS file. They came out in colour  when I processed in GIMP. However, I have a feeling software like Pixinsight may bring out more out of it. I am not very good at post processing and heard that Pixinsight is a bit more complex programme with a steep learning curve. Just not very confident at present to try even the trial version.

Pixinsight is extremely powerful but fairly complicated ie its a steep learning curve.  I haven't used GIMP but understand that it is very like Photoshop - many people produce extraordinary images with it. 

Keep at it and shout out if you need help processing it - it sounds like you might have decent data to work with now ???

1 hour ago, SamAndrew said:

3 hours ago, Skipper Billy said:

How about trying NINA???

https://nighttime-imaging.eu/

Certainly considering it now.

I tried NINA alongside SGP as a trial really. This was influenced by the occasional flakiness of SGP and the change in the SGP business model.

I was very impressed and within 3 weeks I had deleted SGP. NINA is robust, flexible, reliable, easy to set up and use and free - very well written and comprehensive help files etc. In the interests of balance I would list any negatives too but I cant think of any 😉 

How about trying NINA???

https://nighttime-imaging.eu/

45 minutes ago, Shimonu said:

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

I'm not sure that difference is that significant. Could you walk us thru the reasoning behind 50% figure?

Would also like to know the reasoning. This 50% figure really made me question my plan to get a cooled OSC.

I cant remember the details but @ollypenrice wrote a very convincing article some time ago that explained the 'how and why' - I will see if I can find it. I remember being very convinced by the powerful arguments made for mono over OSC.

1 hour ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

I believe I'm right in saying this, although happy to be corrected if not, but I think mono + lrgb filters is technically faster than OSC for a given quality of image, all other things being equal. It also gives you the option of branching out into narrowband, so you can still image on full moon nights.

Its not just 'technically' faster - it is demonstrably faster by at least 50%  - but I can understand that the extra complexity (and cost) of a filter wheel, filters etc may be off-putting - but on the upside the processing on mono images is easier.

A guide scope is more than adequate for up to about 1200mm focal length - above that OAG comes into its own as it helps eliminate differential flexure.

The OAG can be very fiddly to set up - whereas the separate scope is a piece of cake. You will have enough to fiddle with at the start! 😉 

If you dont go for a cooled camera you aren't gaining much over a DSLR which I guess you may already have if you are into photography??

I cant comment on the latest colour CMOS cameras as I haven't got one ! I see great images from them though.

The rest of your planned kit sounds like a match made in heaven - personally I would avoid the added complexity (as per Olly) of an OAG and go with a converted finder scope.

Welcome to the Asylum 😉 

Good luck - are you fairly clear on what to do next time ???

I had a play with your autosaved image and whilst the bayer matrix is completely messed up I deliberately used the wrong matrix to reveal some colour so at least you can see what you got - you could have a play at processing it when its cloudy!! 

Autosave_RGB_VNG.tif

@Gan  Did you get it sorted ???

PS - if you decide you want a box I will happily make you one for just the cost of the parts and postage. I rewire the 12v systems on boats for a living so I have a rough idea what I am doing! 😉 

10 minutes ago, iwols said:

well splitter cable arrived and fitted suspect it might be better than a box?? 

Just a heads up - put insulation tape over any sockets that are not being used - its really easy to accidentally short unused sockets which will really spoil your evening!!! 😉 

11 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

If he has gone ahead and stacked without debayering then it wont work as the bayer matrix will get all jumbled up.

Yep - that's what I wanted to ascertain.

2 minutes ago, Gan said:

I thought I did, but very sorry if I  had mistakenly uploaded a stacked image, but just in case I will upload once more a sub direct from camera. Not stacked.

It  might be a single image but its a TIFF - have you got NINA saving images as TIFFs instead of FITS ???

Can you upload the autosaved DSS file ??

It looks like the correct debayering for your images should be RGGB

David-Taurus beat me to it - this is your image debayered.

It has to be something in DSS settings making it export a greyscale image ie not correctly debayering it.

OK - so the image you uploaded I am guessing is not directly from the camera???

It is indeed a greyscale image which makes me think that its a file file that DSS has spat out due to incorrectly debayering the image.

Can you upload a sub direct from camera ie NOTHING done to it then we can work out where its going wrong?

What programme are you using to open the TIFF files ??

Can you post an example TIFF file??

Outstanding - you should feel very proud of that!

2 hours ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Hmm. Maybe I'll give the RC a miss for now then!

I would !! 😉 

1 hour ago, newbie alert said:

With regards to the RC,yes they're £400 brand new but have you put aside enough for all the collimation tools,  probably another focuser.... ?

Collimation tools, probably another focuser and a hair transplant for when you have ripped your own out and a private prescription for maximum dose of Valium 😉