AKB

Yes, indeed. Not sure where that’s coming from... need to rotate a few things and see what moves. Thanks for the comment on “green-ness” too!

Thanks for this... I’ve just bought the ‘Quad-band’ version to try. Sounds like one-upmanship, but actually it has a broader red passband and is recommended for less-severe light pollution levels. 🙂 I have an ASI294 too, so I think that this will be my next target to get a direct comparison. Thanks again. Tony

Never too late? I tried this just using the luminosity layer as a mask... (hope you don't mind) Really interested in knowing the scope, camera, and exposures. It's so much better than a recent one of mine in this area, but that was only 28 minutes! Tony

Good grief, that deep! I don't think I've done over 60 hours of imaging in total in my life (so far.) Never seen this looking so good. Hats off! Chapeau! ... plus whatever the Spanish equivalent is.

Still getting used to my ASI294 OSC attached to a new-ish Esprit 120ED. Having now taken lots of darks and flats, I'm hoping to have vanquished the infamous amp glow (and I think I have. Sort of.) From the night of Sept 27, the first moonless session I can really remember, and all the more unexpected and ill-prepared-for because of earlier rain, I grabbed a few test frames. A tad longer than my usual EEVA efforts, but still really too short for a good image, here they are (all with IDAS P2 filter, guided and dithered): M27, Dumbbell nebula: (15 x 2 min) This should be straight-forward, but I'm finding this a little on the green side? (I'm aware of the benefits of SCNR, but declined to apply it. NGC 7331 and friends, including Stephan's Quintet :(14 x 2 min) Certainly not enough exposure time here, but I was inspired by the lovely image posted recently here My FOV is not really right for this, but the bonus is Stephan's Quintet nestling at the lower left. NGC 6888, Crescent nebula (30 x 2 min) A longer total exposure here. Is that amp glow on the RHS? Maybe I haven't conquered it yet... I've always found this target really hard in RGB. I've done my best with masked stretches to suppress the stars, perhaps even over-done that? Now need to decide on a target for much more careful acquisition and processing... Comments and suggestions welcome. Tony

Commiserations. Strangely enough, I suffered the same problem through much of the previous imaging season with ASCOM, an Avalon mount controlled by StarGO, and Stellarium running on an Eagle 2 observatory computer. It was not always this way, but somewhere along the line it started happening. Checked times and coordinates in all possible places a dozen times. I never got to the root cause, but in the course of reassembling everything for the new season I've started with a clean slate and latest software/firmware versions of everything, and now things are spot on. I hesitate to suggest this as a solution, because it was a real pain, but perhaps less than the pain of having inaccurate Goto. Also, YMMV and it may not fix the problem. Experience shows, though, that in this situation the problem is not where you are looking for it, so the nuclear option might be the fastest way. Good Luck Tony

Nice! A 150 is out ,based on my criterion of "never buy a telescope you cannot lift." Yes indeed, classic. It does so much look like light leakage, though, but I now know better. Darks will have to wait a bit, but I've just done some flats this afternoon (sensor temperature 37.5C !) Spent a while looking at the other side of the image from the amp glow, but now suppose that you mean the mount ?! Actually, just now, it's the 60mm guide scope (not the best place for it) with a QHY8L just to look at the FOV. A 100 would be nice, but maybe just too large for this setup, so I'm planning a 80, but trying to work out which camera will be best. I'd like OSC on one side and Mono on the other (the 120) with the same FOV but that means a huge sensor if I'm to stick with my 294C.

I've been struggling for the last couple of years in my early attempts at imaging with things like an 8" F4 Netwtonian and a C9.25" Hyperstar giving me some inadequately good star shapes. I love those tools for EEVA quick-looks, but they really don't stand up to close inspection. I knew this already, because I had read the sage advice from SOMEONE WHO KNOWS BETTER... ...but, somehow, although I think of myself as a gentleman, I had to learn the hard (and expensive) way. However, I resolved that 2019 would be the year of the refractor (my first, aside from a guidescope!) and happily, in May, an Esprit 120ED came up here on the For Sale board. I grabbed it eagerly from the previous owner's arms (in a car park near Rugby – thanks for meeting halfway) but it's taken this long to really get set up. This was in part due to me having sent my mount back to Italy for an upgrade (it's now a dual-mount M-Uno.) Having spent the last couple of nights getting everything set up, drift-aligned, etc... I've managed to grab a couple of short images to test it all out for real. Seeing that stars had always been my nemesis, I've gone for a couple of globulars. Not yet delved into detail with CCD Inspector, but at first glance it looks OK, although maybe a bit of sensor tilt? Anyway, a vast improvement on what went before, IMHO. Details: SkyWatcher Esprit 120ED on M-Uno mount ASI294MC OSC with Skywatcher flattener and IDAS-P2 filter Guided and dithered M13 - 15 x 60s M92 - 10 x 60s Bias only, no darks or flats Simply processed in PixInsight, just colour calibration and stretching M13: M92: I know that this isn't real imaging yet, partly because the total exposures are shorter than many people's individual subs, but it is a start. Comments and criticism, plus suggestions for improvement welcomed. Tony

A cracking set of pics! I’m liking my 294 too, but haven’t done anything this good. Excellent suggestion on the filter position. Thanks Tony

Interesting! Is flocking a good idea, though, for optical components, actually? I spend my time trying to keep little bits of fluff off things!

Dare I say it... even the clouds look rather nice in this FOV!

IIRC, Sara @swag72 had one of these. Perhaps she can provide some actual experience.

Units of one-tenth of a decibel, unless I’m very much mistaken.

Ah, well, yes, that may do it. Good luck on that! This was a QHY8L, 26 x2 minutes exposures. My camera cables are held down by a heated dew shield, but curve rather randomly across the corrector plate before arriving at the edges. Must do better! Tony

Always interested to see a Hyperstar image. Comparing to my C9.25, it looks like your star shapes are better than mine. Do you make any special arrangements for the camera cables? I’m surprised that the emission nebulae in your image appear quite faint, but I guess it’s all in the processing. Your exposure is 55 minutes, mine is 52...

The North America nebula looks lovely and fluffy, with lots of texture... quite unlike the amorphous blob that I’ve managed so far (and, I have to say, that you see quite often.) Great stuff!

...another advantage of fibre to the house, I suppose! ...you almost definitely saw the plane carrying my precious cargo!

Rather worryingly, my Avalon M-Uno mount has been in Italy for an upgrade, and DHL tracking tells me that it was flying out from Milan to Heathrow last night!! Later... it seems to have landed safely at Heathrow, now... phew! Great pictures! Tony

Certainly a huge influence, but I was already hooked when he was the guest of honour at our local church fete (St. Bartholomew, Burstow, nr. Horley in Surrey) in the mid 1960's. It was the church where the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, was rector and is buried. He (Sir PM, not John Flamsteed) signed a copy of "The Sky at Night" for me...

I’d go for a mount with zero backlash and no need for a meridian flip...

Oh no! Not the pink one ...?

Depends what you want to view/image. I’m afraid that “it depends” will be the answer to many question you may have! To help decide, you should try out some different options with a field-of-view calculator such as http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ or http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fovcalc.php Tony

These different focal lengths would give you a different magnification and field of view for any given eyepiece. So, yes, quite some difference.

...so many to choose from ...!!

That’s really great, as usual! But it also encourages me that my C9.25 might one day allow me a good image of Jupiter, and perhaps I don’t need to dream of a C14 (my rule is to avoid any Astro gear you can’t lift.) Would be very interesting to see a side-by side comparison. Tony