dannybgoode

Going to try some NB imaging tonight. How will I be able to tell from the light frames which is which?

Thanks @vlaiv. Yes it's a problem and no - unfortunately these filters are all I have. Will have to look at the filters for any markings I think - no biggy and I have plenty of other things I need to get working for tonight (like the whole of Astroberry/KStars/EKOS!).

So dusting down the scope for what will hopefully be an imaging session this evening and going to have a go at some narrowband work. So stupid question; I loaded up my filterwheel some months ago and cannot say for certain which order I put the filters in. I think I have them Ha, SII and OIII (Baader ones if it helps). I know OIII is the bluish one however is there an easy way to tell which is Ha and which is SII?!

Thank you! The RX10M4 is an absolute beast of a camera. Sure it's only a 1" sensor however I find I get nearly as good results 90% of the time as I did with my 5D mkIII and I can actually carry it around everywhere. I am going to mount it on my AZ EQ6GT and try some deep space just for a giggle

Just got round to playing with this. Experimented with the Clear Image mode my Sony RX10M4 has - gives a 2x digital enlargement so 1200mm FF equiv focal length but as a consequence is jpeg only. Single images are actually very good however this is 190 frames stacked. I have tried to bring out the colour somewhat without overdoing it so hopefully it looks OK. Stacked in Registack, run through Topaz DeNoise (more for sharpening than NR) and then into DxO PL3 for final editing. Not bad for a mere bridge camera and hand held

Thanks-that is handy to know. I may just be being thick in that case. Got something to try tomorrow and will report back. A lot of things just feel a bit clumsy at the moment but it’s only how I felt when I was first getting to grips with APT.

I've made good progress in getting my R Pi 4 set up with Astroberry and have got it to recognise my CCD and filter wheel however when I go to the plate solve part it gives the following message in the dialogue box: --- World Coordinate System (WCS) is enabled. CCD rotation must be set either manually in the CCD driver or by solving an image before proceeding to capture any further images, otherwise the WCS information may be invalid. --- All the action buttons are disabled and I can't see anything in the Ekos or Indi options that lets me set the rotation manually or that will let me solve an image. If I try to disable WCS, the moment I click back on the plate solve option it re-enables automatically. Am I being a bit dense here and if so how to I resolve? Thanks all

To run PS you really want a minimum 16gb of ram and an SSD and then the most powerful CPU you can afford. £ for £ these days AMD’s Ryzen processors will outperform Intel as a general rule. What’s your budget?

Thanks for your feedback. This is my effort at combing the two - only using PS although I am sure there's a fancy way of doing it in PI. Reasonably happy with it however the blues don't look quite right but then the underlying data isn't the best/ I have something to aim for though at least and have a baseline to improve on.

Thank you for sharing the data, very kind of you - I have been trying to get as much out of my M51 data but I don't have nearly as much. I doubt I'll get anywhere close to yours but at least it gives me something to work with.

This a bit better? Need to work on my star reduction

Just tweaked this a little. Ran the initial TIFF version of the PixInsight file through Topaz DeNoise first then tweaked in DxO, LR and PS. Just brings the colours out a little more but not too overdone I hope

Thank you - that was what I was also looking at as I saw the obvious cluster. Bet that was a bit of a faff to process - extremely well done though.

Apologies if I am being thick but is the galaxy the small smudge at around 8 o’clock in the centre-ish? If so that’s extremely impressive. If not then it really is invisible to me!!

Dear old grannybgoode lived in Goring by Sea. Many many holidays spent down your neck of the woods. You’ve done better than me in being able to manually locate targets. I just didn’t have the patience so quickly got a goto. I blame the heavily light polluted skies - too hard to see the stars to jump to Have finally got a basic grip on AP though - great fun when it works. Which for me is not often!

Using what I've learned processing M13 here is a quick reworking of the data I captured on M51. First image is the re-work (obvs!) and the second my first attempt. Amazing how much detail you can extract once you get familiar with the software! Of course could still do with even more data - the blue in particular is lacking but I'm much happier with the second effort.

So managed to squeeze one last photo in before the short summer nights and it is my best to date - quite happy with it. I also need to now revisit my data on some other targets as I learned an awful lot about processing in PixInsight doing this. M13 - the Great Globular Cluster. Data Captured 06 May 2020. Not bad for a full moon and Bortle 8 skies - gives me hope for later in the year... 5 x 300S subs for RGB and 20 x 120S subs for L. Scope TMB Optics 105/650, Camera SX-674, FW SX and Baader filters.

Would love a solar scope but sadly funds do not permit at the moment. Be great to use over the summer

If the OP wants to use it for imaging the Meade fork mount isn't particularly suited and an GEM is the much better option. The AZEQ6GT is an excellent choice for a 10" Meade - I know, I have that combo For pure visual work I would agree with you...

I've got a few bits planned: 1/ I am setting up a base project in PixInsight with various processes set up for each step so I can just follow through a consistent workflow. I have even set up specific instances for integration with different numbers of subs - screenshot below. This will go hand in hand with spending some time fiddling and learning the software with meagre bits of data I acquired this year so far and trying to get more from it. 2/ Spend some time expanding my darks library. I want at least 20 subs for each filter at various the exposure times I am likely to use in the future. 3/ I have a raspberry pi 4 coming today so will spend some time fiddling with Indi / Astroberry and will see how reliable it is. would prefer to leave a Pi out with my scope than my laptop it also helps with my ultimate aim of getting a portable set-up going. At the moment I am somewhat reliant on mains power - a relatively straightforward fix I know but just need to get everything together. Of course if I don't like Indi and associated packages. 4/ Whilst a permanent pier is out of the question I at least want to put some form of indentations/ marks on the patio so I can quickly put my tripod up and know that it is aligned North. Needs to be wife friendly though so have to think about the best way to do that. 5/ If life returns to some semblance of normality I want to get my scope over to Germany to have the lens cell properly cleaned of the light fungus - ain't risking that as things stand though. 6/ If only I could find the Polemaster I bought a couple of years ago, put somewhere and haven't seen since - a house move in-between hasn't helped. I know you can use Sharpcap et al but I have a Polemaster somewhere so would quite like to use it! 7/ Wouldn't mine practicing so close in lunar imaging so will try my hand at that too.

Honestly I spent £130 on my first setup - a second hand f5 150P and an AZ4 mount and if my astro journey has begun and ended at my first sight of that pair I still feel I would have got my money’s worth. Never get bored of the sight either.

The 750mm 150P is a great scope. I bought one second hand when staring out and still have it as it is, for me at least, the best compromise between light gathering and portability - it has a very useful advantage over a 130 in respect of light gathering. Will go on just about any mount and is very easy to carry about and set up. However it is also a very capable scope for AP as and when you have a suitable mount to stick it on so certainly one you will be able to grow with. It's very well built I got my first views of Saturn's rings through it and Jupiter as well as some (very) faint fuzzies and lovely lunar views - all from my heavily light polluted city centre skies. The views of Saturn and Jupiter I will never forget and made the scope worth it just for them. For casual visual work and learning with I haven't found it too fussy about eyepieces so long as you avoid the real bottom end of the market.

The 130mm has a much bigger mirror and I suspect the Zennox is a spherical mirror and not a Parabolic one which makes a big difference when it comes to focusing the light to the eyepiece. The mount on the Zennox looks pretty rudimentary so it's not a stable base from which the telescope can do its thing. This is not so important for visual work but is still a factor; a wibbly wobbly mount is no fun to use. The focuser will be of a lower quality too and may have flex and slippage making it harder to achieve nailed on focus. Agree with @John - for a modest extra outlay the 130M will be the far more satisfying scope to being your astronomy adventure on and will be one you probably keep forever because it's a great 'pick up and go' scope.

Agree - I have been looking at various tutorials and resources and given the battle I had getting EQMod set up to recognise my run of the mill Skywatcher mount, ensuring all the plate solve libraries actually worked, piddling about with com ports etc on W10 I don't see anything that will make this harder. That required me to watch a fair few YouTube vids and ferret around the net for instructions and I am a Windows veteran. The Astroberry distro looks particularly useful as it at least has all the applications pre-baked in so it's just matter of setting them up. Pi 4 should be arriving today so will have a play

Thanks for this. Need to practice my processing skills and it will be nice to work on excellent data as opposed to my meagre efforts