Skipper Billy

The left hand example shows clipped blacks, the right hand clipped highlights.

You are certainly on the right track. In think your blacks are a little 'clipped' and maybe thats deliberate to try to reduce the brightness of the core?? Its a hard target to get right - ideally you need a full set of very short exposures for the core - and a set of long exposures for the whispy parts the blend them together in processing. Well done !!!

Anyone who can't navigate that stretch of water becuase of light glinting off windows doesnt deserve to be called a sailor!!!! I guess its an legal reason as just saying its the most horrendous abomination of a design that is totally out of keeping with the area doesnt always wash with planners!

How about yacht racing - invent the slowest form of transport imaginable - then race them!!

Maybe try a cheap bolt from your local hardware store to confirm the thread before shelling out £13 on a shiny SS thumbscrew!

There are two thread pitches at M8 - 1.25 and 1 If the bolt you tried had thread that was too coarse its probably an M8 x 1.25 - in which case try an M8 x 1 I would be very surpised if it was anything other than metric. https://www.westfieldfasteners.co.uk/Bolts-Screws-Metric/Thumb-Screw-High-Type-M8x12-A1-Stainless.html

Thanks @vlaiv - I only mentioned the 6200 as I have read good reviews but I realise its probbaly not the best choice. I am limited to a scope of 9" max due to the design of my oby. I would love a 12" - 14" RC but that will have to wait for obsy v2!

My current setup is a Tak 106 paired with an Atik16200 mono and I have enjoyed wide field imaging for several years For next season I am thinking about moving to a much longer focal length and possibly dabbling with a colour CMOS camera to attack the smaller nebulae and some galaxies. I am somewhat constrained by the size of my obsy and I will need something fairly compact like an SCT or RC. Weight isnt an issue - it will be perched on a Mesu Budget isnt an issue. It must be abe to accept an electronic focuser. Are there any 'golden combos' ??? I have been casually looking at the 9.25 Edge HD with its 0.7 reducer and the ZWO 6200 Happy to listen to any suggestions!!

Nae botha 😉

My comment was to the OP not you.

Any good ?? https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=184600

I think you are confusing volts with amps. The HEQ5 is designed to work off a 12v battery which is about 13.7 volts when fully charged and below 12v is 'flat' The ampage is irrelevant as long as it is high enough to power the device so whether its 10 amp or 12 amp doesnt matter as it only requites ~2 amps,

I have one on the side of my scope and chose fanless - I really dont want any vibrations! Another is inside a water and airtight enclosure for my 'all sky' camera and I chose a fan as I want the warm air to circulate to keep dew off the dome.

The other night my rig was churning away running NINA, camera, filter wheel, electronic focuser, mount etc etc and I was stacking the Lum subs in Pixinsight - all at the same time on an i5 with 16GB RAM - never broke into a sweat.

Its worth checking before you buy a particular model but AFAIK they are made for all of them.

I have 3 Intel NUC's all purchased used/seller refurbed off eBay All i5 processor, big SSD and 16GB Ram, Windows 10 etc. They were all between £130 and £150. All flawless performers. I fitted a new lid to one of them to give me an extra 2 USB ports (6 in total). It is supposed to be run off 19v but they all work just as well off 12v.

Hello Ian, Given the desperate weather situation over the last couple of years I have decided that its not sensible to allocate more than a full night on one target. I work out how long I can image for then spend half that time on Lum binned 1x1 and the other half split equally on RG and B binned 2x2. I have only ever used Pixinsight and whilst many talk about a steep learning curve I prefer to see it as a different way of thinking. I probably only use 20 processes and whilst I wouldn't claim to have mastered them I do have a pretty good idea of what they do. The above image was processed on an uncalibrated screen and now I have seen it on a calibrated screen I have had to reprocess it - see below. In my opinion - Pixinsight is well worth sticking with.

I will be taking my rig to bits soon as its the end of the season for me. Maybe there will be an update over the summer before I start again in September. If not I will try rolling it back.

Rosette Nebula - Imaged on 6th March 2022 through thin cloud and terrible seeing. 90 mins of Lum in 600 second subs binned 1x1 and 30 mins each RGB in 120 second subs binned 2x2. Processed entirely in Pixinsight. https://www.flickr.com/photos/113316085@N05/51923722116/in/album-72157675109735132/

No - I haven't updated a for a while and it has worked properly since. I tried restarting it half a dozen times and every time it sleeted a gap between 2 stars!

Thanks Francis I have tried it with multiple stars - and without - neither way lets me choose a star manually - maybe its because the prog. is started by N.I.N.A. and it must auto select after a Meridian flip??? David

Not sure whether it is related to the issue but it is also repeatedly saying Star Lost - Low HFD although the guide star is clearly visible on the screen! I am using the latest version- 2.6.11

PHD2 usually behaves really well but the the last couple of sessions it seems to have developed a strange problem. I cannot manually choose a star to guide on - if I click on a suitable star I get an amber box and it just stops taking subs. If I click 'auto select' it chooses a gap between two adjacent stars (almost every time) - see attached screen grab. The guiding is pretty good but it seems very odd! Any suggestions??

This looks really feeble next to the photos from Finland !!! https://www.davidbanksastro.com/widefield-imaging

Takahashi 106 EDX IV 😞