Stub Mandrel

Your basic understanding is correct. Some people let the polar alignment be slightly out, as that tends to mean most corrections are in the same direction, minimising backlash (mostly an issue in DEC as guiding in RA is usually an issue of varying drive speed but not direction). My own experience is that the better the PA I get, the better the guiding. The clever bit is that the software measures the relative brightnesses of all the pixels in the star and uses these to average out the centre, this can be done accurately to a surprisingly small fraction of a pixel. This allows quite small, short-focal length scopes to be used as guiders and still allow tracking well enough for much longer scopes. Software wise I use PHD2, I now get consistent results, with the actual accuracy usually determined by the transparency and seeing. This meant 'tuning' the mount and experimenting with different guiding algorithms to see which worked best with my setup. I think I can be safe in saying that what works with me may not work as well for someone else as you need to match the way the software works to the hardware - we are asking the scope to point with an accuracy to shooting a bullet through the earth into a target the size of a football field, so tiny differences in setup mean measurable differnces in how teh rig reacts to guiding. Good news is that the number of choices is reduced by the ability of guiding software to learn how your rig reacts so you just need to experiment with a few algorithms and they will do tehir own fine tuning.

Ah, Now I see the elephant!

Well I've still used both on this iteration, but with greater care, sacrificing a bit of detail for greater smoothness. It is only 17 subs, so noise is an issue. What do the 'panel' think? (Edit - I masked in the old bright stars as they had posterised a bit, they are now bigger, but softer and more natural looking).

If ASCOM was 'just' a protocol or architecture like TCP or USB I'd agree but it isn't, you need the platform which is a discrete lump of software for it to work.

Usually means I used Noel's Deep Space Noise Reduction followed by Astra Image's Denoise ; must take care to use on OR the other..

I think it's just a bit noisy and colour blotchy being only 1 1/2 hours data? But criticism is useful... How about this?

This is a screen grab at my end:

Most odd, it looks fine here - one pixel per pixel, if you know what I mean! It's just a standard PNG, at half APSC-size (I used super-pixel mode).

I want a tube of ANYTHING called Glob Top. I don't care what it does.

Taken on my third outing with an Optolong L-Enhance filter, used with a modified, cooled canon 450D, home built ED 66 scope and HEQ5 mount. 17 x 5-minute subs.

It's the final fiddle with gamma and black point that does that.

Thanks, I did it manually in Photoshop: match a star, set it as centre of the image and rotate, then adjust gamma and black point until they pretty much match. Might be better if I processed the two images the same, the Soul is sharper but shows less detail.

I've made my first attempt at a mosaic with pictures of the Heart and Soul nebulas taken this month using the L-enhance filter:

Changing to a switch is unlikely to elminate such transients. The mount should be designed to cope with such things.

Here's an interesting comparison - lovely colour in last year's RGB image, but poor definition of the nebulosity: Overlayed on the L-enhance (not an exact fit!) the stars are subdued and the nebulosity is much clearer, but better colour: I need to get another batch of L-enhance subs to align properly.

L-enhance is one of the relatively new breed of tri-band filters, it's by Optolong: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/light-pollution-reduction-imaging/optolong-l-enhance-dual-narrowband-deep-sky-imaging-filter.html The 450D is my canon but 'a'stro modified and 'c'ooled 🙂

Last night's results using the L-Enhance with the ED 66 and 450Dac: 17 X 300s on the Elephant Trunk (cloud sabotaged my guiding so I lost about half an hour): 31 x 500s on the Soul nebula:

Definitely space related, oh yes!

Honestly, visit https://ascom-standards.org/About/Index.htm As far as I can tell there isn't actually, anywhere on the site that explains what ASCOM is in simple language for a non-programmer. This is the main introductory text: Yes you can just download the ASCOM Platform and use it, but most people do because they are told that's what they need to do. But a basic understanding of what it does and why would be a huge help when things go wrong. It would be nice if the main page said something like: "The Ascom Platform is a collection of computer drivers for different astronomy-related devices. It uses agreed standards that allow different computer programs ('apps') and devices to 'communicate' with each other simultaneously. This means that you can have things like mounts, focusers, cameras and filter wheels all controlled by a single computer, even with several computers sharing access to those resources. For example you can use one program to find targets and another to guide your telescope, with both of them sharing control of your mount at the same time." I happily renounce any copyright in that paragraph so the Ascom team can adapt remix and correct it to their satisfaction if it would be helpful to add it to the Ascom website 🙂

Confuses the hell out of tourists. They stand there saying "Where's the fourth bridge?"

Could be slightly too cool print temperature or it might be udner-extrusion, try either or both off increasing the head temperature 5-10 degrees or raising the extrusion percentage by 5-10%

I am pretty good at computers and programming. I've even written and OS and basic interpreter for a home made computer in assembler. I couldn't make head nor tail of the ASCOM documentation, it's appalling and impenetrable. Just install it and the programs written by brighter minds than mine will do their work.

66 days " Patrick Moore who said, "Light pollution is a huge problem. I am not saying we should turn all the lights out, that is not practical, but there are some things which are very unnecessary. The Blackpool Tower light is certainly something I do not think we should be doing. I very much oppose it." The beam could be seen 30 miles away. Moore called for the beam to be stopped. "

They even turn up on children's TV:

Any worse (or tackier) than this: