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Thank you for replying to my enquiry I can see I am going to have to do a sharpcap sensor analysis and get the valuable information required, I don’t think it’s wise to look for shortcuts with this camera! I miss the simplicity of the Atik ccd cameras, the only thing I had to decide on was to bin or not to bin depending on arcseconds per pixel! I’m not familiar with the risingcam capabilities, I’m aware of the camera as I nearly bought one myself, I have one question…. When you say you leave the gain and offset at default, what is the default on that camera? Thanks again Bryan

I of course realise i just need to open a file in pix to see if it’s blown out, I am just reaching out as I’m at work and haven’t got the capability to do that atm, I’m going to be pushed for time before I go away and I’m just hoping for a shortcut to the answer 🙄It’s one of those “back of the mind” niggles that’s eating away Cheers Bryan

Hi all A quick one, has anyone used this combo? I have the lens attached to the camera and the distance is good, aberration detector looks good in all corners now I am going camping this weekend to a dark site and it looks like there is going to be a clear sky for the first half of Friday night, I don’t want to waste my subs by over or under saturating them, can anyone help me decide a sub length at f2.8? For narrow and broadband? I had an hour clear last night and was trying mode 1 gain 56 offset 25 narrowband, on the heart and soul. 1min subs, I could see the nebula, 2min subs parts of the heart were white, looked oversaturated. I don’t know if Nina is stretching the image, I’m still a complete novice with this software Has anyone used this combo and do they have any tips? Many thanks Bryan

It’s not over for the 460 I’m sure It has been a wonderful camera, so easy to use and reliable I’m not going to part with it any time soon If I do get comfortable with the qhy268m (which is yet another learning curve in this hobby) I may possibly sell it on, but I think it will be a while before I’m at that stage Thanks for the comment Bryan 😊

Thanks Rodd I should have realised! well, now I know that, I have a new found respect for for the image! Well done! I hope you get chance to add more subs 😊 Bryan

Hi all! No big write up Just nearly 9 hours of over-processed SHO data! I never got around to adding rgb stars before I moved on to my new camera Thanks for looking Bryan

Thank you very much! This is great info! I am using Nina (or trying to!) I too have sesto senso and Pegasus, and know what you mean by slipping! I’ve created more problems with my focuser by fiddling with the fine focus “pin” when it came out with the knob!! I like the idea of sesto senso but in practice the Pegasus is my favourite! I will save your info for when I get around the focuser! Thanks again Bryan

Thanks Stuart I agree! I think it’s a combination of tilt (due to the qhy canon lens adapter which is quite “springy”) and possibly distance to sensor I have an adapter for the back of the lens to change it to an m48 thread now and will double check sensor distance when I get out next I hope it isn’t just a bad lens as the quality can be hit and miss with Samyang (apparently) I do pixel peep, and can be over critical with my images but I was just eager to try the camera that I didn’t spend a great deal of time getting everything exactly as it should be 😊

First image is my favourite I love the star colour, great image! Thanks for sharing Bryan

Great info! I’m looking forward to finally getting plate solving and the focuser set up, it will be great for my health as I’ll be able to sleep instead of staying up to re-align and re-focus! I have noticed that the ha filter is the same focus as the red filter with my astrodons, I haven’t tried comparing with my Antlia filters yet but if this was the case I was considering seeing if I could set up the ha focus with the red filter? and see if any of the other broadband filters align with sii and oiii You have given me some really useful info there, though and don’t worry about my name, it happens all the time, I hardly notice these days!! 😊 Cheers!

Thanks for all the info Richard! Greatly appreciated! I am using starxterminator I do have an Nvidia graphics card and have tried the “tenserflow, cuda hack” with starnet/starnet2++ but I failed, I think it’s down to the age of the card and or not having an original driver, I downloaded the last driver released for the card installed and upgraded the laptops firmware to the last known release, I wasn’t using Pixinsight just stand alone, so I even bought Pixinsight to try the hack but I just cannot seem to get it to work! I would love it if Pixinsight would run through Nvidia but it seems only a few installed Programs have the ability to activate it! Maybe it’s something I’m missing? I’m not a tech wizard but normally manage to fettle these things in the end, just not with this one 🙄 Thanks again, I’ll take another look Bryan 😊

Glad to know I’m not alone!! my laptop has 16g of ram but still takes about 20min or more to remove stars, I’m considering building a processing desktop I haven’t tried plate solving or installed the auto focuser yet! That’s all to come🙄 can I ask you a quick question? I was using mode 0 gain 29(I think) offset 25 what settings do you recommend to play around for narrowband? Clear skies are rare here atm and I can’t afford the luxury of testing different modes and gains right now Thanks for the input Bryan

Hi Rodd Yet again you post an image of an object I’ve recently been working on! I like them all but the processing in version 1 (new) it’s more ‘natural’ and I agree you would benefit from more integration I personally find the individual subs in ha-sii-oiii are really clear (I’m my case) but as soon as you try to add them together it gets tricky! how long were the subs and how many? Thanks for sharing Bryan

Hi guys! I’ve had a real rollercoaster of a ride since buying a second hand QHY268m Firstly, I had to repair the QHY 2” filter wheel that I got with the camera, then find some 2” filters! Up till now I am used to using astrodon 1.25” filters that are faultless, they never let me down, but to buy the 2” equivalent I would be looking at taking out a mortgage!! So I took a punt on Antlia 4.5nm edge filters that cost more than the camera! Then I had to set up a new laptop that had the required usb3 inputs! Then I had to learn how to use new software, namely Nina so I could make it all work. I finally got all the software working and had a short spell of clear sky I took some 2 min subs of the Cygnus region in narrow band with my Samyang 135mm lens, some of which were spoiled by high thin cloud that affected the Oiii filter more than the other 2, I’ve yet to confirm halo free oiii with the Antlia filters but the ones taken without cloud look promising I have had a nightmare trying to achieve flat frames, so the results are calibrated without them Anyway….rant over… Here is my poorly processed first light 47 min in total SHO jpg Thanks for looking and sorry for the long description, it can be a lonely hobby, family and friends don’t always get the frustrations and obsession over capturing photons of ancient light from objects that are not only so far away but no longer probably look anything like the image captured I hope to learn how to tame the new equipment Bryan 😊

Hi This is the Cygnus region, so dropping into the west this time of year, taken in September, I think the integration time was 2min but it was a long time ago so I will have to look back over a couple of laptops to find the original data to find out how many subs were stacked etc I’ll get back to you Cheers Bryan

It’s an incredibly short dataset due to clouds on first light, but thanks and yes I think I’ll be able to squeeze a respectable image from it without flats 😊 Thanks Bryan

I use a T-shirt doubled or sometimes tripled if needed, but I haven’t tried grease proof paper Thanks for the tip! 😊 Bryan

Thanks I have always used 5s flats with my Atik 383 due to the shutter I intended using longer flats originally but the Samyang lens at f2.8 with the QHY 268m I cannot get the panel brightness low enough! I will however pursue this Thank you Bryan

Thanks Olly appreciate the input! I understand what you are saying, and maybe I will have to wait until I use the camera with one of my slower scopes to achieve a successful flat Thanks Bryan

Maybe? I have tried 2 different power supplies just in case, I’m using a 13.8v 15 amp bench power supply atm Unless the flat panel is emitting some emf? cheers Bryan

I didn’t use bias originally and the effect was worse! Bias improved but didn’t eliminate the vertical lines the results of integration without the flats are pretty good and I will be able to produce a final image I have compared my flats to others taken by this camera and Nina and I haven’t seen anything like the interference produced by my efforts

Thanks The vertical lines are in the flats. Thats the issue! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong yet as the flats are taken the same way I’ve been taking them successfully for years with ccd. I will overcome this…. Somehow! 😊 Thanks again Bryan

A lot to digest there! I really am going back to school with cmos! I’m so used to ccd it’s a completely different beast! I take everything you say on board it’s just a shame the flats (which are the one component messing up my integration) are the one thing you cannot help me with 😢 I will get to the bottom of this somehow Thank you sincerely for your help Bryan 😊

Thanks Here are some files I know the flat is at a different temperature but it was taken indoors with a flat panel (my first flats were 50% adu so I retook them at 35% adu in the hope that would help[) Cheers BryanBias.fitdark_60.fitha_flat.fitha_lights.fit

Thanks, that’s useful but it doesn’t solve my initial issue of the flat frames My first attempt didn’t include bias frames and I wasn’t intending taking and using bias, just flats and dark flats The results were badly affected by the flats though which is when I posed my question here and started doing my own research where I learned that bias frames can be useful with cmos and even though I got a slightly better result it was still the flat frames that caused the issue I just need to find out how to take an effective flat with this camera? It takes a long time to process the images compared to my ccd due to the file size and that’s why I’m reaching out for help to avoid the time wasted in calibration attempts! I don’t know whether I should be using different settings (mode 0 or 1, gain, offset etc) I took some 5 min subs in mode 1 but they were over saturated so settled on mode 0 to avoid this Cheers Bryan