Lee_P

Nice, the colours make it look a bit ghostly, which I think suits it well 👍

It's been ok for me so far, but I haven't actually tried post-meridian flip. You can angle the antenna.

Worth a try, if you're going to scrap them anyway?

Others can give advice for improvements, but I'll just say a huge well done on producing your first astro image -- a real achievement!

I haven't used the V1 -- maybe someone that has experience of both the V1 and the Pro / Plus can help. Failing that, I guess my question to you would be: is there anything you wish your V1 did that it doesn't? (Other than control your Sony camera).

Hi and welcome

FLO have just listed them here. My guess is that supply / demand issues mean you need to get an order in quickly if you want one this side of Christmas.

That's a tough one. I guess you're looking at something like this 80ED and HEQ5 bundle, although that's already over budget. There are lots of upgrades worth considering budgeting for too. If I were in your position I'd be keeping a close eye on the buy/sell section of the forum, and try to snap up a second-hand bargain.

That's a great visualisation of the concept, makes it really clear

@Gogleddgazer @rwillett @qisback You might also want to check out this thread I've just spotted, by @powerlord. Sounds like it's a bit simpler, and perhaps cheaper, but also I expect a bit bigger and heavier. Good to have options!

Nah, I just push it up against the telescope's dew shield, nice and flat. That creates a good seal.

My telescope is a "closed system" so to speak -- easier being a refractor -- so it's not that easy for dust to get in. Also, I don't change anything (like swapping filters, removing or rotating the camera) during a project. So far I've used this Flats method for about a dozen long-integration images, each of them involving data acquisition over many many nights, and have never had any issues. Try it and see if it works for you too?

I've just written up how to make a DIY Flats Panel: http://urbanastrophotography.com/index.php/2021/09/27/diy-flats-panel/ It's very simple, but may be of interest to astroimagers that, like me, have pretty low DIY skills!

Great! I think there's something a bit special about monochrome H-alpha images.

Thanks Mike, that thread is a fantastic resource!

Hello and welcome 😃

Nice shot, lots of fine detail there. I use an Askar FRA400 too, great 'scope.

Ooh, interesting question. My approach is just to get as much data as possible, so if I were you I'd be imaging all night, filter or not. Even your pre-midnight skies are better than the best I ever get 😁

Fantastic, especially for your first picture!

Putting broadband stars into an L-eXtreme image is something I want to try but haven't gotten round to doing. I'd be interested in seeing any examples you have.

Darks: I always shoot 120-second subs at -10 deg C, and have a Darks library matching that. So I use the same Darks for every imaging project. Flats: I take one set of 20 Flats per imaging project (i.e. the same set of Flats covers approx. 600 subs / 20 hours integration time). I've got a DIY Flats panel I use for this: http://urbanastrophotography.com/index.php/2021/09/27/diy-flats-panel/ I take these 20 Flats altogether whenever is convenient; normally before an imaging run one night. This reminds me that I haven't taken the Flats for my current M31 project yet, so I should do that soon!

You can always add "just one more night" of data into the stack..! I'm currently imaging M31 as well, and am at about 20 hours. Nothing but rain forecast now, too

@MHaneferd a great result, especially considering it's just the raw stack! (Also, good idea deciding to test various exposure times for yourself and seeing what works best for you!)

There is a lot to be gained by going longer if the recommended sub length is just a few seconds, but you want to get a total integration time in the tens of hours -- see my comments later about file sizes. I understand the benefits of short subs; I've written about that here. By the way, don't worry about losing subs due to satellite trails, stacking algorithms remove the trails efficiently. I'm not misunderstanding this. If you re-read my previous comment, you'll see I say "The background sky level has a huge influence on the 'optimal exposure' length, which is about 10 seconds for me using an L-eXtreme" and "you trebling your sub length with an L-eXtreme is likely the right thing for you to do as you’ve got darker skies so have got more headroom, so to speak." I'm in agreement with you! Sure, I've seen many images like this. They're excellent proofs of concept. But again I reiterate what I've said previously, which is that from heavily light-polluted skies you benefit a lot from long total integration times. Let's say you want to get a total integration of 20 hours just from 1 second subs. That's 72,000 images. Each image from my 2600MC is 50MB. That's about 3.4TB of harddrive storage. Just for the raw subs. OR shoot 120-seconds and then we're talking under 30GB -- and you're still getting most of the benefits you get with shooting ultra-short subs. If I had dark skies and so could get away with lower total integration times, I might lower my sub length, and perhaps get into the realm of "lucky imaging". The same for if I had no restrictions on harddrive space or processing power. But I don't, and find that 120-seconds is a sweet spot for me. That's the sub length I used for most of these shots.

I think we need to be careful about the phrasing here: it would be accurate to say that I could use subs shorter than 120-seconds, but not necessarily that I should. Keep in mind that total integration time is the most important factor. Especially if you’ve got badly light-polluted skies, you really need to tease out that signal from the noise. I aim for 20 hours per target. The background sky level has a huge influence on the “optimal exposure” length, which is about 10 seconds for me using an L-eXtreme. That would be 7200 subs. 7200! I could do that but don’t think that I should. So, I shoot 120-second subs. One 120-second sub is equivalent to 12 10-second ones. And with 120-second subs, I now need 600 of them to make it to 20 hours. Still a lot, but manageable. 120 seconds isn’t some magic number reached at through calculations, but rather a reasonable compromise for me to get the benefits of shooting short subs without filling my harddrive or melting my PC. FYI I have a modern computer and 48GB of RAM. I integrate using PixInsight, which seems to be more resource-intensive than DSS. I generally leave it integrating overnight. When I got my camera I found Dr Glover’s presentation about CMOS exposure times, and ran through the calculations – it’s only just occurred to me that that’s what the spreadsheet is doing. I think that we’re both right in our approaches: you trebling your sub length with an L-eXtreme is likely the right thing for you to do as you’ve got darker skies so have got more headroom, so to speak. @MHaneferd is in Bortle 8/9, similar to me, so will likely find that the same kinds of settings as I use will work well. That’s my understanding of it all anyway 😊