BrendanC

So, Affinity does look like it has more control over panoramas with masking etc. First try, it did something weird with some stars. Second, it got it right but had no colour in StarTools. But I'll persevere with it cos it's a 'live' product. I do not understand why Microsoft shelved ICE. ICE was ace. Anyway, I added more data to the 'bad' image last night to make it better - and now ICE uses it less! What's that all about then? Weird. Never mind...

Played around with them too, no joy. I have Affinity which someone just told me does panoramas too. It worked - but I have exactly the same problem there too! This is driving me nuts.

You have to add two in one go, you can't import one image and then add another, unfortunately. That's the first thing I tried! I just cannot figure this out.

Does anyone here know much about Microsoft ICE? I've got two images with a big overlap. One is slightly better than the other, so I want the better one to be most of the image, with the less good one stitched onto that. But it always does it the other way around, so that the less good image is used in whole, and the better one in part. How do you control which image is 'on top' as it were? I've tried changing file names and dates etc, but no joy. Thanks, Brendan

Already done the deed - realised the thing I want doesn't exist, decided I'll have to paint, found a Black 3.0 10ml pot and have decided to go with that for £3.50. Done.

Thanks for the suggestions but no way am I going to spray or remove the vanes! This should be a quick, five minute job tops. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion of pigment blacks, I'm going to look into that. Definitely pointed me in the right direction!

@johninderby Yep, already said, I don't want to use Black 3.0! I know there's 'none more black' but it's a daft price, just for spider vanes. @ollypenrice I really did not realise the difference between pigment and dye-based paints, thanks. I'll look into this. Any recommendations from stuff you've actually used?

I could do that, but I'm a bit cackhanded and my greatest fear is a dollop of the stuff dropping off into the scope itself, especially the primary (which I can avert by having the scope vertical, but still...) I've come across the alloy wheel brush-up stuff too. Basically, I'm the type of person who will research, research, research, find loads of options, then not know which to go for! Which is why I was wondering whether anyone here actually knew of, specifically, a matt black paint pen that works on metal, that they've used before.

Hi all, I'm occasionally getting bright streaks on my subs, and I've identified the problem: reflections from the spider vanes in very specific circumstances. I pinpointed this by covering each vane with my hand and taking a shot. It's consistent and repeatable (and I'm so glad I've found the cause!) So, next up: the fix. I've got some tape on the vanes currently which works, but it's a bit, ummm, agricultural. I'd like something that looks a bit better. It seems to me that a nice, matt black paint would be best, but I don't really want to have to brush this on, let alone spray it. I want just to be able to spend a minute or so applying it, without having to remove the vanes or risk paint getting everywhere, or inconsistent application. I'd also rather not have to bother with flocking etc. I know the fix, and it doesn't require over-engineering. So I'm wondering if anyone could recommend a small paint PEN that could do the trick, available in the UK? I've come across some but they're only brands for sale in the US such as Testors. I'm sure they market themselves under a different brand in the UK/Europe but I haven't seen any solid recommendations from scouring the forums. There are plenty of black pens, obviously, but I'd just like a recommendation from anyone who happens to have used a specific one on their Newts? I also know there are super-duper blacks out there such as VantaBlack and Black 3.0, but they don't come as pens that I can see. They're also expensive (and, as far as I can tell, Anish Kapoor won't let anyone use the VantaBlack!) Thanks, Brendan

Thanks!

Nope, but that's another good idea. I could check the raw subs, and stretch them in Photoshop to see what's going on. My feeling is that they'll still be there, but I could check. All I've done is process in StarTools and Topaz DeNoise, so I don't see how they would have done this to the spikes. Btw the 130PDS thread shows some shots with uneven spikes and some with, so I guess it's down to individual setups. I have a strong feeling it's because the secondary might be very slightly canted in one direction, so I guess I'll have to get the Concenter out and give that pesky secondary another go. I hate collimating.

Good point! I haven't really looked. I know of the 130PDS thread on this forum so I'll take a look. Totally prepared to believe it's just something that happens with this scope. I know it's a very minor issue but after the long, hard struggle to get this far, I'm now considering these ongoing cosmetic irritations.

Hi all, Now that I've fixed the 999,999,999,999 other problems I've had over the past year, I'm working on the next one. I keep noticing that the diffraction spikes on my stars tend to be longer along one axis than another - example attached. To my eye, the vertical spikes are longer than the horizontal ones. I've collimated the heck out of my 130PDS - even bought a Concenter to help with the secondary mirror and the out-of-focus star test yields concentric circles - so does anyone know what could be causing this? It's not a huge issue but it does sort of bug me. Thanks, Brendan

Hi all, Sorted. It was the darks getting mixed up, and re-shooting the flats did the rest. Thanks for everyone's help!

Yep. After much scratching of head and getting a bit sweary, I think I know what to do to fix this all now. If there are any other issues going on, then after fixing these two, I'm sure they'll rear their ugly heads next!

Thank you, this seems to me to be bang on the money. So, I've identified two things (I've been up since 6am working on this - yes, it worries me that much!) There were some rogue 180s files in my 120s darks library. I've removed them, and that's fixed this problem. HOWEVER, it hasn't fixed other images that I've taken over the past two nights. I've stacked those images with no calibration at all, and the result is much, much better. So that tells me it's not acquisition or the camera. Now, given that the darks should be ok - and that I get the same result if I use the older darks - I'm starting to think that this is a separate problem with the flats. So, I'm going to retake the flats (the camera is still in the same orientation) and see what happens there. The reason I extended the darks library was that I didn't have many subs at certain temperatures, so I just added some. But, as per my bullet above, I accidentally moved some of the new ones to the wrong folder. Doh! So yes, a thorny problem which I believe is possibly two separate problems. Main thing is, as you say, the actual data is/are fine and if/when I nail this, I've got lots to be doing.

I think you're right. It's almost as if there's an overcorrection happening. The flats are definitely fine, I just took them in exactly the same way I always do. Any more opinions on this one? Thanks again for the help.

Hi all, My past three shoots have yielded weird results - unaccountable vignetting and poor detail. In my efforts to understand what's going on, I tried restacking the last decent image I did, about a month ago. It came out differently. I don't know why. This is how it came out originally, about a month ago, just very quickly stretched in StarTools, no colour processing etc: This is how it came out just now, using the same files in DSS: See what I mean? It's almost as if the flats aren't being applied, or something. They're using the exact same files - darks, dark flat, flats, no bias. This leads me to believe that something, somewhere, has changed. My thoughts are: * Something's different in DSS, possibly to do with the flats. I've tried stacking on other machines and get the same results however. I'm going to give this another go to make sure. * Something's wrong with my darks. I extended my darks library while the weather was bad, so I'm wondering whether some of my darks have 'gone bad' somehow, and now everything's over-compensating. I've got an offsite backup of the original library so I'll be getting hold of that too and seeing if that gets me anywhere. Either way, I really, really, really need someone's help before I spent hours and hours trying to figure this one out. I've got lots of plans for the next few clear nights but without ironing this problem out, I'm in real trouble. Does anyone have any suggestion about something that might have changed in DSS to do this? Or, is my hypothesis about the changed darks library a possibility? Thanks, Brendan

So I took the exact same shots last night and they came out much better. It must have been high cloud. That's my working hypothesis anyway, until/unless anyone else can offer another one!

Hi all, Last night I took 16x120s of the part of the North America Nebula just to the right of the Cygnus Wall (I'm doing a mosaic), and 28x240s. The reason for doing this is that I've found taking shorter exposures while the object is lower in the sky, helps with light pollution where I live. Then, when it's higher, I can move onto the longer exposures. This worked just fine for the Cygnus Wall bit, which I did a month ago: However, last night's images have come out pretty badly. I've done a VERY quick stack in DSS and process in StarTools (no noise reduction or owt), and it's not looking good: It's using essentially exactly the same calibration approach as the other image - 25 flats taken on the night, 50 darks from the library, a master dark flat, no bias frames. What I'm finding is that the 120s exposures show bad vignetting, which I'd have thought the flats would have fixed... ... while the 240s exposures are oversaturated (and noisy): I've tried EVERYTHING to find out what's causing this. I've used different flats from another night, retrieved old darks from an older library, tried without any calibration at all, using different stacking algorithms, and it just seems to be there, in the subs. So, this is weird, and I don't quite understand it. The conditions seemed perfect last night. I've not had such bad vignetting or saturation, and I'm confused as to why this is a split between the 120s and 240s subs. One theory is that perhaps there was very high cloud last night? Could this have caused it? My guiding was pretty good, which isn't usually the case with high cloud. I've noticed that particularly with the 240s subs there's quite a variation between lighter subs and darker ones, which would bear this theory out. Or, is it just simply not enough data for this to give good results? It's similar to what I captured for the Cygnus Wall image. But frankly, if it isn't something like that, I'm stumped! Again! Thanks, Brendan

Interesting! I'd read about them but never really understood what they're for. This could be really useful, thanks.

Outstanding! Thank you so much! It must have been there staring me in the face all along...!

Hi all, When I'm revisiting a previous target or doing a mosaic, and I really need to get the rotation angle just right, I plate solve in APT and then Show the result in Stellarium. This gives me an exact rotation angle, from where it's an iterative process of rotate, solve, show, repeat. However, it just occurred to me that it would be incredibly useful if APT could just show the angle of rotation instead. I'd still need to iterate, but wouldn't have to jump across to Stellarium (which isn't very easy to make out sometimes). I know that a compass icon is displayed top left after the plate solve, but ideally there would be an actual figure there too, for more precise alignment. I must admit I don't have APT in front of me right now and this might already exist! If so, could someone tell me where I should be looking please (ideally before tonight!) Thanks, Brendan

Actually, I decided just to think about this for a moment, and I completely get it now. Of course it won't change the focal length but it will just make the scope a bit slower. I think I get it now. Thanks.

Thanks! So, data before and after should still work together then?