tomato

Great result, the RASA8/ASI2600 OSC performing beyond it’s nameplate specifications once again. Olly, why have you lost Starnet from Pixinsight? I still have it in my list of PI processes and occasionally find it does a slightly better job than StarXterminator.

Great video, I really liked the tracked crawler to move the Dobsonian, I could do with one to bring my 16” from the garage round to the back garden.☺️

Hi Brendan, my contribution doesn't really answer your questions but it is another processing take on your shared data, calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in APP, PI and AP. Needless to say I noted the same gradients as Vlaiv, I agree it could be high cloud but I have seen something similar when I was suffering from moisture fogging on the sensor. I did note you were running the camera at -20 degrees C? However, I have come much to the same conclusion as @david_taurus83, i.e. there is nothing inherently wrong with your data, it is a faint target, and to get some colour I had to push the saturation and then apply some hefty noise reduction, resulting in a blotchy background. It's something I see a lot with my images when I attempt a faint target with less than about 8 hrs of integration (Bortle 5/6 location), something I do much too often.

Very nice, I think monochrome really works in this region.

Thanks for the info, I believe Damian Peach does some of his planetary imaging from Barbados so I thought you might have similar good conditions but they must be specific to his location. I'm wish I could be more selective on my imaging nights, but then my imaging opportunities would be even more limited.

That's great work Chris, one of the most detailed M100 images I have seen on SGL. Achieving these sort of results on small galaxies is my Holy Grail in DSO imaging, I currently employ the large refractor of moderate focal length and small pixel camera approach to try and get there, but seeing your image makes me think again about a large aperture RC coupled with today's high sensitivity CMOS cameras. However, would I be correct in saying that in your location you can experience the seeing conditions necessary to support this approach, I don't think I could get away with 0.5 arcsec per pixel with my turbulent atmosphere.

Yes, I think Arthur C Clarke got it right when he said both prospects, a universe teeming with intelligent life or we are utterly alone, are equally terrifying.

Undeniable evidence of extra terrestrial intelligent life would be mine, another irrefutable “wow!” signal would do.

I'm not one to pass on a clear night, regardless of when it occurs. Sometimes the targets I choose are frankly ridiculous for the prevailing conditions, but I still like to give them a try to see what can be wrung out by the hardware and software. So this is the Iris Nebula and VDB-141 from last night, with the RASA8/QHY268c, 139 x 1 min exposures, IR/UV cut filter. Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in StarTools, and PI. I was hoping for a glimpse of the ghostly globs, but that was a capture too far.

This is the link. Resources (rc-astro.com)

Yes, it is a purchase plugin from the same stable as StarXterminator. I'm currently on the 30 day free trial but have been sufficiently impressed to purchase it when the trial comes to an end.

I used only your Ha (H46.fit) and OIII data, assigning the Ha to the green and the OIII to the blue in the Compose module of Startools. There is a vast choice of pre-set channel matrices in the software, I chose the 'Interpolate G 100R, (50R+50B), 100B' option. The image was a little noisy after the sampling SVDeconvolution exercise in Startools, so I applied the NoiseXTerminator module in PI, set at 50% strength and 50% detail as a final operation.

Apologies Rodd if it was never your intention to allow a free for all on processing your data, but here is an offering processed in Startools. It is obviously far away from the previous images' colour palette but I have posted it as a testament to the quality of your data. I much prefer this to any version I produced with the IKI 80 hrs of SHO data. I can see structure reminiscent of the Spaghetti Nebula which I had never noticed in NGC 6888 before. Thanks for posting the data.

I have IMX 571 OSC cameras and calibrate the lights with master darks, flats and dark flats. I have no idea if the darks are needed but they don’t seem to do any harm and it’s no hardship to use them.

Please excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is a massive Huntsman? I’m assuming it is some kind of spider and not that bloke out of Wolf Creek?

@Tomatobro used flexible couplers on these bespoke Esprit focus drives, l have never experienced any backlash or slippage on them but the drive is securely mounted on a base plate.

I think you are being hard on yourself, this was the IKI winning entry, 80 hrs of premium Ha/OIII/SII data…

You would only mistake them for stars if they were in one of my oversampled images…😉

Last night I had dancing lights on my All Sky camera, some bright, some faint, I went outside to have a look but nothing visible. On closer inspection, there was also a dark shape moving regularly across the FOV. You’ve guessed it, a spider was constructing a web from my streetlight shield across to my camera cover. I bet the industrious arachnid was not best pleased when I relocated it to a new site.

Well, I was mistaken, by dodging the clouds over the last few nights I have managed 154 x 2 mins on HCG 68 with the Esprit 150/IMX571 OSC dual rig, all captured in Nautical darkness. Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in APP, PI and AP.

If price is a factor, I would support the Risingcam IMX571 option, if you can reconcile the fact you have no UK retailer to return it to for a warranty repair. My OSC version is coming up to 6 months old, no issues so far 🤞except I needed to fit a £25 ZWO sensor heater to it to prevent fogging of the sensor window (a 5 minute job).

That’s a nice M101, with lots of fainter detail coming through. I’m looking at it on an iPad and the galaxy has a pinkish hue to my eye?

Dark nebula with a smart phone, now that’s a dark sky.

I have different cameras on the dual rig, the QHY 268 takes about a second longer to download than the Risingcam IMX571, not much but it adds up over the course of 30 subs. I think the only real solution would be for the two instances of NINA to talk to each other, as they do for synchronised dithering.

Having fitted a Telrad to my SW flex tube Dobsonian it is now out of balance on the altitude axis. Orion sell a nice magnetic counterweight for £26 but I thought I would have go at making one. Two pieces of flat steel strip and a redundant handle from a Pulsar dome shutter did the trick along with some self adhesive 3M magnetic strip. I thought the strip might not be strong enough to hold it when vertical, but 3 pieces across the base are enough.