earlybird

Well after some reasonable results on M33 I decided to have a go at the horse and flame nebiulas. SN10 with Baader MPCC self modded Canon EOS20D CLS filter on a EQ6pro using EQMOD. Guided by a Vixen 70mm and DSI Pro. 10 x 5 mins and processed in DSS with hardly a tweak as still do not know what I am doing with colour. I am not sure what the blue bird like reflection is above and to the left of the horsehead ? I also have a doughnut to the left of the bright star Alnitak ? Anyway, it was good to do a bit of imaging and packed up around 1.15 am as it got a bit cloudy. John Resized down a bit.

Well its been many Months since I have been out. Got a Baader MPCC a few Months ago and thought I would give it a try. First Target was M33 with the SN10 Baader MPCC self modded Canon EOS20D on a EQ6 Pro using EQMOD. Guided by a vixen 70mm and DSI Pro. 17 x 5 mins using CLS filter. Processed in DSS and hardly a tweak as not sure what I am doing with colour LOL. John Resized down a bit.

Hello and welcome DeeBee1 From John in Woodingdean Best of luck with the new scope.

Very nice Martin. Did you use flats ? John

Just been lookung in to making a lightbox and came across this. hxxp://www.newastro.com/newastro/downloads/products.asp The One-shot color Flat Maker Plug-In works with CCDSoft or MaxIm DL to turn raw flats into normalized flats. With one-shot color cameras, the image is encoded in what is called a Bayer pattern. This raw format cannot be used as a flat. Currently, the only way to make a flat is to smooth the image, which introduces small errors into the flat. Using this plug-in, the color data is normalized and turned into a real flat that is highly accurate. If you are using a one-shot color camera, you need this plug-in! A lightbox for different scopes is not really on. Will have to look at the white sheet method. John

Very interesting Steve. It is a shame that I did not have the anti amp light set to off and the gain at about 33 instead of 50 and some good flats. I see that you have some amp glow left in yours where mine has been taken out by the bias/dark files, but so has some stars as well. I did try DSS but it wouldn't use the bias or dark files and the end result was not very good, but I may have had some parameters set wrong or the subs being carp. I was out again Tuesday night but the moon was so bright and there was some mist/fog so have nothing to show for that night that was usable. I have now got the Vixen VC200L set up with the ATIK16HR and will use that on the next clear night. I will look in to flats and get that sorted for the longer term. Thanks for all your help Steve and will maybe trouble you for DSS settings in the near future. John

All understood Stev. Yes I can use a FTP client. Where shall I FTP them to ? John

Steve Created an account but when I upload the file the web page sits there for ten minutes and then bombs out. I have tried half a dozen times. Can I upload a file that big as a NORMAL user or do I have to ipgrade my account by paying extra. It does say 200Mb and I am trying to upload a .rar of 120Mb so should be OK. Maybe a problem with the site ? Thanks for the info . It looks like I had the gain set too high for QHY's drivers then. I just assumed that if I set them the same as Mr Tom's that would be correct. Think there is an ant amp box to check so that should help also. Martin Thanks for the link. Had a look and seems easy enough to record the actions. Just need to create some good flats now. John

Ok Steve if you can tell me how to ? Do I have to join first ? John

Sorry Steve It was a bit big, so removed and made smaller. John

Many thanks for the replies Steve and Martin. Well after hours of playing, I have finally got something. I debayered all the lights, Bias, darks and would have done flats, if I had some good ones. I combined the lights and then calibrated with the bias and darks. I then used the SPLIT TRICOULOUR command in Maxim to get the red channel. All the above done in Maxim. I really need to get flats sorted and I am using QHY drivers and not Mr Toms. I used a gain of 50 and offset of 115. The subs were 12 x 10 mins and there was a lot of amp glow in the top left corner. I have played with DSS Steve and cannot get a lot of joy. Maybe some parameters set wrong. If you can find that macro Martin that would be great. Anyway. here is my poor result of the California nebula WOZS66 .8 FF/FF QHY8 with 13nm HA filter. Will flats sort it a lot ? John

With the moon up I have tried imaging with the QHY8 and HA filter. I have taken a sequence of FITS in Maxim and am having problems with what to do with them. Do I debayer first ? then combine and seperate the red channel ? I had a maxim plugin I downloaded from the QHYCCD site called redpixels.dll that someone posted, but maxim will not load it. What are the basic steps dealing with these FITS files from the QHY8 using a HA filter. I am sure it will be the same if I use my Canon DSLR. John

Great news Martin. One less thing to worry about and I am sure that was the biggest concern. You can concentrate on the remaining things like the QHY8 now LOL. John

Well I have learnt to use the QHY8 and can now produce an image. I capture in Maxim and take a sequence of Light's, Dark's, Bias and Flat frames. The Flat frames are unusable as I took them during the imaging session as prompted by the maxim sequence. Could I please have some advice on the best and easiest way to take flats that will be usable. I have heard one way is to point the scope at clear sky during the day etc. What would you advise ? John

Martin. Very sorry to hear about all your problems and I have been in the same boat for nearly 3 Month's. First my EQ6 Pro went for repair and was then replaced. This took two months. The new mount was installed with existing wiring and would work for a while and then loose comms with the PC via EQmod. What was it ? I don't know, but last night I had 100 minutes of problem free operation.I hope I have now fixed it. I have had problems with the QHY8 and ATIK16HR and various powered USB hubs. They are weird things and as I have to plug in and take down every night, I try and plug in to the same port. I even wondered whether the usb was affecting my dedicated COM1 port ? The real shame is your mount having to be sent to Japan for a fix. I hope it does not take too long. All I can say is spend the time it is away testing the QHY8 and all the other kit, so when the mount comes back, you are fully prepared. This technical side of the this hobby can make you get very cheesed of when multiple things go wrong, but when it all comes together again and thos images start coming in, they are easily forgot. It just takes time. John