Jokehoba

Exactly. Watching the stack build in real-time during an imaging session with DSS Live is fun and exciting. I enjoyed the interactive star alignment process of Nebulosity (a bit nerdy, perhaps?🤪). In PixInsight, I like the way you drag a process onto an image to apply it, and other 'interactive' implementations (e.g., use of the scroll wheel and button). Plus, the batch processing and EZ Processing Suite scripts are a time saver. I enjoy using it.

The limiting factor is the 20A breaker to protect the cable, which can carry 25A. So no limit to the number of sockets as long as the total current isn't exceeded.

Is your hard disk a spinning disk (if so, do you know the rpm?) or an SSD or both? There are PixInsight preferences (Edit > Global Preferences > Directories and Network) which set the location for temporary swap files. Make sure the swap files are on the SSD. John

Fantastic. Love wide-field views.

Too many process icons perhaps?😁 It has grown from an original DSLR workflow to now include NB processing. I don't process nearly as aggressively as I did with DSLR data, so many process are no longer used. But I keep them just in case...

Are there any dry solder joints?

Hi there, I see there is an astronomy society in Goole. Closer than York. http://www.astronomyclubs.co.uk/Clubs/Details.aspx?ClubId=251 John

This may be useful: As others have said. getting an EQ-Direct cable is well worth it.

Craig Stark alluded to this in a presentation about image processing (https://stark-labs.com/craig/resources/Articles-&-Reviews/RTMC_2015.pdf), page 64! He states that a BPM is 'Useful on DSLRs where pixel model doesn’t entirely hold.' I had assumed this was a general rule for DLSRs and always used a BPM instead of darks as it meant I only needed to take lights/flats each session. However, I realise he might not have meant it as applying to all DSLRs...🙄 John

I have a similar setup at the moment - ASI1600 + filter wheel + ZS71. I imaged on Sunday night and took flats on Monday morning around 10am (still about freezing). My flats looked just like yours with a big dark circle in the middle. However my issue was condensation - either on the ASI1600 window or the rear of the Ha filter. I got a hairdryer to warm up the filter wheel/top of the camera, set the camera to expose for 1s continuously and watched the dark area disappear! Got perfect flats after I let it all stabilise for a few minutes. What was the temperature when you were taking your flats? John

Maybe ask your question on the PHD 2 forum together with a copy of your GiudeLog? They are usually pretty good. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/open-phd-guiding John

I almost gave up in 2013 when I got my first 'serious' mount. Wanting to get into photography, I intended to buy a Skywatcher HEQ5 but fell for Meade's hyped LX80! After spending every hour of clear sky from February to August trying to get the darned thing to guide, I nearly gave up in absolute frustration. But a second-hand NEQ6 became available and I have enjoyed the hobby ever since.

When I first started using PixInsight, I also had issues with star detection. I recall the key is the RANSAC tolerance /iterations values. As Harry Page says "Experiment!" These are the settings I use and haven't changed them for several years. I now tend to use the Batch Preprocessing script simply for calibration and continue manually with StarAlignment, Normalisation, Image Integration and Drizzle to complete the stack. John

I too have had issues with flats using this camera. I've found that shorter flat exposure gives more consistent results. I prefer to get under 1s.

I think you could simplify your initial pre-processing... Calibrate all subs as RGB and then extract the red channel, and stack only that. Even with 'weighting', the contributions of both B and G channels would be very small compared to R.