tomato

Great result on what I believe is quite a short integration time for this target. It’s heartening to know I’m not the only imager who prefers data acquisition to processing.

Here is my version processed in StarTools. This is using AutoDev rather than FilmDev after the Wipe module. I can't see much wrong with your original calibrated and stacked file, I use APP for this , but I don't think DSS did a bad job.

The numbers are fixed right, once the frame is captured and saved, so it's really weird that one instance of running APP gives you the warnings, and another using the same version, settings etc, does not?

Great image, plenty of faint detail there. This is indeed a tricky target, it fills the frame nicely on my small galaxy set up but I attempted it when the moon was up and the subs were not great.

It’s interesting that in some instances APP displayed a warning during the calibration process, using the default settings and processing each channel separately, I received no warnings with the data.

I use Telescopius and Stellarium, and in galaxy season I use the Cambridge Photographic Atlas of Galaxies, but often get frustrated to find some really photogenic examples are just too far South from my location.

Thanks, it's quite something for me to be complemented on my processing, its an area where I still have a long way to go. I think taking shorter subs is worth a try, but if you upload another set to have a go with, I'll have to beef up my router!😄

Here is my effort, processed in APP, then the stretched image in Affinity Photo, trying to match the palette suggested by @vlaiv. It's great data BTW.👍

As promised, another version combining LRGB in APP, further processing in APP, Pixinsight (on the stretched file) and Affinity Photo to balance the colour. It's just my opinion, but I would be chuffed if I had captured this data.

It’s weird but sometimes StarTools does a great job with my data and other times I can’t get a decent result. On your data I thought APP would do a better job but the initial RGB combination was a mile off on colour. I will give it another go in APP, the remove light pollution tool is excellent.

Here are the LRGB channels calibrated and stacked in APP, stretched but no gradient removal tool applied, these were registered and normalised in APP then taken into Startools. I had to push the blue channel and I have clipped the data in trying to get a more even background which I think was the original issue? Red Green Blue

Hi Brendan, I use APP for my calibration and stacking and StarTools quite a bit so I will give your data a go.

Well so far the cloud curse has come to pass but I got a brief 20 minutes of guiding which look promising, RA trend is now both above and below the line with corrections in both directions....

I have made the tick adjustment, will that be enough tinkering to ensure a cloudy night tonight?😉

When I measured the RA drift at the end of October last year it was 4.27 arcsecs per minute, so roughly twice as bad the drift you are seeing. @Singlin, who started a thread on this back in 2015 had 10.2 arcsecs per minute, and made a successful adjustment to the encoder tick count to fix it. I guess if you are seeing constant RA corrections and the trend is off set from the zero line, it's worth making an adjustment.

I know what you mean, I don't think it will improve the guiding by very much but it bugs me seeing all of the constant RA corrections and the PHD guide points offset from the centre. I will do a bit a more investigation but then I am going to alter the speed, I'll be certain to make a note so I can revert back if it all goes pear shaped.

Although my 8 year old Mesu mount guides at 0.4 arcsec total RMS, with some 70 + kg of kit on board, I still get frequent corrections in RA all in the same direction. I know folks have adjusted the RA speed successfully but I just want to be convinced that it this and not some other factor before I proceed. I think two other possible causes of frequent RA corrections are an out of balance assembly and poor polar alignment. For the former I would suppose the direction of corrections would reverse after a meridian flip but mine stay on the same side before and after. For poor PA, my DEC corrections are small and in both directions so I’m assuming this is OK, but I will do a drift align in PHD. I have let the mount track unguided and it is moving quite a lot in RA but not DEC as the guiding confirms, so if the PA is good it has to be the RA tracking rate that needs adjusting?

I guess the “too ill to go out” occasions come into the term Ffr, fraction of free nights? Based on my own circumstances as an imager, with 36% of the nights clear to date and I go out regardless of moon phase, wind (dome) or temperature(warm room) and after 8 years operation my set up is quite reliable, assuming the fraction of clear nights holds🤞I get: N= 365x 0.36 x 1.0 x 0.9 x 1.0 x 1.0 x 0.9 = 106. Looks like I need another hard drive….

On the dual rig, with mono cameras and filters, I collect LRGB in the ratio 3:1:1:1, sometimes I’ll start a target with both scopes on Lum so this channel gets pushed higher. It’s probably my inexpert manipulation of the respective software packages but with this ratio of channels I get lots of colour from StarTools, less with APP, but it’s like getting blood out of a stone with Pixinsight.

My optical imaging scale is 0.47” per pixel for small targets but I bin this 2x2. I imaged HCG 61 in Leo for the competition. You are right though, a lot of the groups are tiny and need imaging conditions beyond what is available in the damp UK if any meaningful detail is going to be captured.

+1 for MyPicture, I think they are reasonably good value and generally do a decent job on astro images.

That’s an interesting exercise. I wonder if the HST has imaged the same star at some point, it would be good to compare the JWST star test image with a longer integration from Hubble to see how many of those distant galaxies were picked up in the visible wavelengths.

Here is my effort processed in APP using the Remove light pollution tool at the linear stage and then the background removal tool in Affinity Photo on the stretched image.

Not up to Olly’s quality standard, but I used the MyPicture.co.uk offer of a small photo album, 26 pages, cost about £15 if I recall correctly. Not great, but it’s nice to turn a printed page.

It looks good to me too. I’m not on my imaging PC, but I’m sure APP has an option to combine Ha with LRGB in the combine RGB tool.