Stub Mandrel

Indeed! I bet next month they do an M31 challenge just to irritate you!

Nice engineering. Where's the slot for the pennies?

Looking good. A little effort to reduce the red rims on a few stars, especially that one at top centre. This can be a great image :-)

Why not stack ALL the data for a luminance layer and just the unmodded data for an RGB layer? By the way I am slowly learning ways of getting better colour out of modded camera data, not all the way there yet, but making progress. This game really is three steps forwards, two steps back.

If they are different you need to use 'edit --> free transform' with the transform tool (little arrow by a +) to move it. You can align a star in both images, then move the centre of rotation on top of the star, then enter values of rotation (down to 0.05 of a degree steps) until the two images are aligned. Then click another tool and it will ask if you want to apply the transformation. I think...

Can you see the layers in the layer manager at right? Just drag the layer onto the other image and drop it. if you hold it there for a second before releasing the mouse it should auto align itself.

Why not use the nice colour one as bottom layer, put the modded image as top layer and choose 'luminance'

77 minutes of M33, best of last year's data (60s at iso 1600) plus 12 subs 240s at iso800 cooled from this year. The scores on the new data are 4,500 - 6000 compared to 3,000 - 5,000 for the old data which is interesting. I need the old data to let sigma kappa kill the thin haze streak effect. Hopefully I can get 2-3 hours more on M33 if we get a clear night soon.

Second one looks better Nige, but I think the colour in number 1 is closer to where you want to get as the puffy bits at each end are showing some blue. you need to steer the pink towards orange. With the deer lick I conquered the red starting with a colour shift to move towards blue/cyan, then doing a round of 'soft light' saturation boost followed by gently bringing down the red saturation & maybe pushing blue and cyan up a tiny bit, then repeating the sat bosst/red cut several times while an keeping an eye on yellow + magenta so they didn't go OTT

Looks like I should live twenty miles further south :-(

Can explain how the dustbunnies move when you refocus? How do all the good people with automated systems who refocus after every 90 minutes cope?

I would lose the wrapper. Laccy band is a good idea

One worked for my Tokina 300mm held on by insulation tape. Night before last I used one on my guidescope, held on by wide masking tape. I didn't use guiding but at the end of the night it was still cold - I think I stopped enough oxygen getting to it to allow it to work. (They work by rusting salty iron in the presence of oxygen and a little bit of moisture)

Surely refocus is putting things back as they were?

That gives me encouragement! Clearly I will need to get my tracking on point, but it should be doable. And start early or the scope will hit the tripod and I don't care for meridian flips as they only last an hour before the scope is in the trees and I have to unflip.

I think in my case it's NR and at least partly Gradient exterminator which can leave a faint trace across the image like wrinkly contours on a map.

There will be another go, there's a light patch on the right of the galaxy i thought was 'extended nebulosity' that I think is really an artefact. The 150PL will make it bigger but I wonder if it will get any more detail? The weekend looks really promising fingers crossed!

I restacked, throwing all the two years of data into the bucket, no darks used. Mix of 60 second uncooled and 90 second cooled subs. Gobsmacked at the detail appearing in the big galaxy

Adjust the histogram so your 'black point' is about 23. Then you use curves and fix the point at about 23,23 and add a few dots to keep the top of the curve straight. Raise the very left had side so you get a level bit roughly from about 0,22 to 23,23 so all the mottling that's darker than your black point is lifted up to it. I usually like to drop the dark point a bit afterwards

Fair cop. I've applied Olly's Fix.

Nice one Nige, I went back to my 2016 data , and it was far better colour, but noisier. Unashamedly I took the best of each year and put them together and I think this is quite good :-)

One from last night, also posted in DSOs. Very hard to decide how to crop this, this one is only about 50% of the original.:

I would leave out the CC if using a barlow as comas isn't an issue in the central part of the field of view.

If I stick the 2-1.25 adaptor into the 2" extension the ep is way too far out. How do I use the CC with an EP?

For folks who shorten their drawtubes to prevent d-shaped stars, be aware that it is possible to do this and prevent being able to focus with an eyepiece! I suspect this is partly caused by having the mirror adjusted well up the tube as well. Anyway my second attempt at visual use worked, but the eyepieces had to be fitted some 10mm from being home in the 2"-1.25" adaptor. If you want to do a lot of visual work with your 130P-DS I suggest checking how far up the tube needs to be be to give you focus before using the hacksaw.