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Thanks Chris I just watched your Fuji vid, well done for finding the time to help others make informed choices in this minefield hobby! Bryan

Thanks Peter I really appreciate your input, your last image was awesome! Bryan

You are welcome! The mount “copes” but I’ve just had to strip down and re-grease the gears again, recently as it was binding occasionally whilst slewing. Mainly as I had used a light silicone grease last time but I’ve reverted back to an quality engine assembly grease and it copes so much better! thanks Bryan

Thanks Skyhog Here it is on my AZEQ6 (which I believe has a similar load limit as the heq6 Bryan

Thanks Rodd I know what you mean it’s a proper dusty region! I’ve seen some stunning examples here recently of incredible processing on cloudy dusty regions. This Hobby I’d always throwing another curve ball tempting you to start again and learn new processing skills! I have developed a certain skill set that 5 years ago I didn’t think I would but it’s hard to be satisfied when you see some of the incredible work on this forum! Thanks 😊 Bryan

That’s stunning! thank you for sharing Bryan

This is a stunning image, such subtle clarity! Thanks for sharing Bryan

HI Rodd, I can definitely see the "edge" your edge has on my old 12" lx200! I was using 5 min subs with a Ha filter and imaging at approximately f6.3 as apposed to your 30s red subs at f10 (I'm assuming) The total integration time you have is about 2hr45 where as mine was was 3hr 20. Your stars are tighter than mine even though I was using narrow band and your arcseconds per pixel were much lower which is impressive! Possibly due to the guide errors that can creep into 5min instead of 30s? Over all, for the really quick image times it's impressive and I'm looking forward to the finished version Thanks for sharing Bryan

Thanks for the comment Rodd I would be interested in seeing your results too although I would imagine the edge would have the….erm, edge!? 😊

Thanks for the comments! 😊 I really appreciate them It can be a solitary hobby and it feels heartwarming to receive some encouragement from other people that like you are daft enough to spend hours and hours capturing and processing these images! Bryan

I feel your pain! I have neighbours who leave lights on all night for security! I’ve finally persuaded them to allow me to buy and install more directional lights that illuminate their gardens but not the night sky but it took 10 years of frustration before I talked to them! now I have a neighbour who, although followed me down the rabbit hole of AP has allowed their tree on our border to block my view of Orion!! Some people are just inconsiderate! Bryan

Hi Stargazers! I haven’t posted an image in a while due to life getting in the way. I have to admit, as much as I love summer it’s great to have astronomical darkness again (for an hour) at my location! I was playing with my old 12” Meade sct as Jupiter and Saturn are lurking behind trees and I was hoping to capture them. Unfortunately although the planets are higher than last transit, my Wife’s trees have grown also! (Maybe she’s trying to tell me something? Like get some sleep? Or stop spending money on Astro gear?) I guess I will have to either risk getting the loppers out, travel to a different location or wait a couple more years before I can play with planetary imaging! So deep sky if is! I would normally be using a different rig at this time of year for deep space, something wider to capture the many dusty delights in Cygnus and surrounding area but as I had the Meade rigged up I decided to pair it with my atik 460 (with 6.3focal reducer) and try the bubble nebula. I stuck with the Ha filter over 3 nights whilst solving several guiding issues, decided to bin my images 2x2 and ended up with 3hr 20min of “acceptable” 5 min subs stacked in App, Stars removed with Starnet, resulting image tweaked in photoshop and denoise ai then combined with the stars I may stick with this and capture the rest of the filters if the weather allows I am always dubious what to expect with such an “old” ota, it’s not an easy beast to tame and over weight for my Azeq6 for imaging but I’m quite pleased with the results so far anyway, enough waffle here is the image for anyone still reading! 24887878-A0BF-4B3C-80ED-726C543C7CB8.tiff Thanks for looking! Cheers and clear skies Bryan

Hi I am sorry if I seem ungrateful for the response from anyone who took the time to reply to my enquiry I wont go into any personal details here but it has been a tough time for our family. This is a hobby, albeit an important one, but sometimes life has a way of putting things into perspective. Thanks again for the replies Bryan

Hi sun worshipers! I have been playing with solar imaging for a year or so and at this time of year it's often the only 'astro fix' i get due to my latitude I have a quark, which belonged to a solarscout which I have adapted to fit other telescopes and my main imaging camera is a point grey blackfly which has a cs to 1.25 nosepiece but I would like to be able to use a 0.5 focal reducer however my nosepiece is too long to achieve a decent image. I have been searching the internet to try and find a low profile cs to 1.25 adapter to move my focal reducer closer but I am struggling! Can anyone suggest a solution? Many thanks in advance for any help Bryan

Thanks for the reply I'm sorry if this is a rookie question but when you invert in PS how do you remove green? I normally Image DSO's and Lunar processing is yet another learning curve but I am enjoying the challenge. I don't use pixinsight, I have opted for Astropixelprocessor for my DSO work Thanks Bryan

Hi Alex when you say invert, are you using photoshop? I want to have a go! 😊 Thanks Bryan

Here is the "Denoised" version

Hi I'm not convinced this is going to be the final version of this image but here is an aligned version of my RGB results. I have learned a lot with this image, I have discovered a couple of really useful new software programs (new to me) The final result was very green so I ended up using HLVG to dampen the overbearing green hue. Thank you Alex for your help! Here is the Jpg.. The Tif is below for anyone who wants to look Cheers Bryan Imppg aligned rgb hlvg.tif

Hi Alex ICE is the winner!! I have finally got around to trying ICE and I have to admit I like it! It has done a much better job of creating similar shaped lunar mosaic images from my individual RGB Data and I have just about aligned them in Photoshop to create an image I would be happy with! This is a relief as the imaging session took me about 3 hours and I started it at 11pm and I was at work the next day after 5 hours sleep so it's nice to see something for my sacrifice! ICE is definitely the way forward for me, and I will post my image when I am finished with it. I am so glad I posted the question and very grateful you responded sharing not only your experience but also a lovely piece of legacy software that adds to my Astrophotography arsenal! Thanks again Bryan

That’s very kind Alex thank you for the link, I am having to work this morning but I will download it later and see if it can create a better shaped moon the photomerge option in photoshop is under file, automate, photomerge cheers! Bryan

Thanks Alex for your comments and trying to help I don't have Microsoft ICE an it doesn't seem to be available for download anymore from Microsoft? however, the images were stitched together with Photoshops Mosaic Photomerge and I am not sure ICE could do a better job? I don't know imPPG but will research it Thanks again Bryan

Hi Lunatics! I have been trying my hand at Lunar mosaic photography with my Meade 12" SCT and my BlackFly bfly-u3-23s6m which is a mono Camera. I have filters and planned to create a lunar mosaic in RGB but as I have to refocus with each filter and it takes about 30 images to create each mosaic I chose to image with each filter, refocus, change filter then image etc choosing Blue last as the moon was reaching the zenith. I processed each filter as a batch with Autostakert then used photoshop to automatically align the individual stacks with photomerge. The individual RGB photomerged images all look good but when I try to align them as an RGB image the red and green images are pretty close but the blue image is distorted and impossible to align. Can anyone suggest software or technique to "reshape" the Blue Moon. I'll attach Jpeg versions for anyone who is interested Thanks in advance Bryan

Ok So, the next step is making absolutely sure I don't fry my new (ish) hub! Thanks Stuart Bryan

nope I don't have either..... I have this

Thanks I appreciate the clarity. With the cube shaped device that I own that is used for focusing you could maybe forgive my confusion with the Pegasus focus cube? Thanks again for your help Bryan