Yawning Angel

It does it's job very well and does make setting up a painless process. It pairs nicely with CPWI if you go into computer control As with a lot of kit, it'll depend what you want from it?

Thank you Steve! Hoping for some steadier skies, but I'll take any sky without clouds!

First light with the Quark Chromosphere! It was a bit of a scramble to find the right length of extensions and pressing an old 1.25" diagonal into service. Not the best, as it is very windy and wobbly up there, but a new toy must be 'tested' 🙂 The most noticeable improvement over the PST mod I borrowed is the even illumination with no obvious sweet spot SW80ED / Altair Hypercam 174m / Sharpcap / AS!3 / PixInsight

Thanks everyone! Really appreciate the comments 👍🏻

That looks great! Well done 👍🏻

It gives it wonderful 3D quality. A bit of a pain to balance the sunlit peaks and rims with the deep shadows. oh, now I’m wondering about trying some HDR shenanigans...

I've used the Ha previously then swapped to a ProPlanet 642 IR bandpass - great when seeing is mixed. You may find more detail in the green channel - if you can get the exposure short enough to keep it stable

Thank you James. It's a little more faf with filters, but I can go to about 80% and stay inside one frame so it's not excessive. I like trying for the hints of colour, although this stack wasn't for giving me any blue without some work. Do you go for pure luminance when doing mono, or filtered?

Me too, but it seems to be around on my rare clear nights so I'm learning to love imaging her 🙂

Very kind Steve, thanks!

Thank you Paul!

I was treated to a slim window on the 24th, before snow clouds rolled in. Job 1 was to grab some moon data, so I had something from the night, then on to play with some camera / barlow combinations This is the result of 25% stacks of 1000 frames, captured from my 80ED / asi178mm. LRGB frames gently sharpened in Registax and aligned in imPPG. Combined, colour balanced and final sharpening in PixInsight. I have been fining the a less aggressive sharpen in Registax means the Pix's RestorationFilter can be used to crisp up after settling the colours & highlights I was going to present it in it's 'correct' orientation, but to my eye this suited it better Click for full size, it does it more justice

Thank you! Tonight’s data is fighting back, but fresh eyes in the morning might help

Haha, take that clouds! Caught you off guard didn’t I? Just long enough to grab a slice of mineral moon, 1000 frames each RGB 25% stacks

That looks fab, enjoy it! By far the best upgrade I ever did too 🙂

Fantastic, the highlights and shadows are really well defined! Love it, well done! There is a slight stacking artefact across the bottom

Had a fiddle: Removed the stars, ran some chrominance noise reduction on the starless image and gentle luminance noise reduction on the stars then recombined Most noticeable in the more colourful orange stars, especially the large one SE of centre (12 monocerotis, I believe)

Thank for the positive comments! Yes please! Cloud dodging is a pain 😁

One hour each for Ha, Oiii and Sii (30 x 120sec) Skywatcher Evostar 80ED x0.85 / asi1600mm / iOptron CEM60 It was a struggle to get meaningful Sii data, battling the full moon over new year - but I'm fairly happy with how it's turned out

Cheers everyone! I think the exposures where 5ms, with the gain pushed a little to give 60 - 70% histogram. 500 frames per stack and 50% stacked as it seemed very stable

This is a 20 panel mosaic with an asi178mm / 80ed + 2.5x barlow, green filter. It was done as a test to see if the scope could stand the magnification...what do you think? Click through for the full size

It's clear as a bell, so why not! Lovely way to put 2020 to bed I think asi178mm / Evostar 80ED. Best 25% of 500 per channel (RGB)

Thanks! It doesn’t look like I’ll be adding to it any time soon 🤪❄️

Last time I tried this, I managed a handful of minutes of Ha, then the weather said "nope" for so long, I moved elsewhere. Take 2 is getting there, with Ha and Oii but without any significant Sii contribution (for now). Once I have a full set as a first pass, I'll most likely try and rerun the set to double up on exposure time

Captured in IR-RGB around 5pm on Christmas eve. I hope everyone has a splendid holiday, however you are able to spend it