Grimbles

Thanks for the advice, I have made a few tweaks to the red channel as per your suggestions. I have to say that I am genuinely colour blind (red/green) which from what i understand is a brain colour interpretation issue rather than an eye defect, so the strange thing is that once someone points out the correct colours of things i can see them. I tend to struggle most with darker shades of red and lighter yellows/greens against whites. It has given my wife much amusement over the years and caused some confusion 😀. Hopefully this is an improvement.

Many thanks for the tip i will give that a go later today, i did think the outer core was a little too reddish but trying to deal with it in isolation was defeating me.

Hi Everyone This is my first attempt at mono RGB with the 533MM. Taken over 3 nights trying to dodge clouds and the impact of gusty winds hence the set of short exposures. I tried to be quite brutal when discarding the dodgy lights. I did take a series of Luminance light but have not used them in this iteration. Any tips etc welcome. 533MM, 150PDs, Heq5, Finder Guider Captured with Sharpcap Gain 100 , Brightness 20 Temp -5 Red Tot 69 min (17 x 30 sec and 52 x 60 sec) Green Tot 73 min (16 x 30 sec and 64 X 60 sec) Blue Tot 67 min (17 x 30 sec and 50 x 60 sec) Flats, Darks, Bias etc Processed with APP and PS

I had a second go at this whilst bearing in mind your comments , i think it is a significant improvement so many thanks

Out of interest what gain / offset combination have you settled on ? I did a few test images / darks etc and went for an offset of 10 but not sure if i need to up it a little to move the histogram slightly more to the right?

Thanks, refering back to masters is a good idea and will certainly do that next time. I used a modded 500d for a long time and more recently a 585MC (very good non cooled camera by the way), so a range of FOV's but think i am going to get on with this one. I am sure once I get to grips with it I will be looking to have a crack at some mosaics on larger targets.

Thanks for the comments , i do often find it hard to know when to stop with the noise reduction, i think i need to walk away from the screen every so often and then come back with fresh eyes. 🙂

Hi Everyone, Its been ages since my last post, life & weather been getting in the way of any serious imaging , but hope to change that now with the purchase of a 533MM pro earlier this week. I had only planned to set the camera up and have a quick play between clouds , but ended up with two consecutive nights with about 2 to three hours each of variable seeing and clouds so tried to take advantage. Framing is not great and his is my first attempt at Mono and SHO so colours may be off, it obvoiusly needs much more data and need to make a tweak to the offset sort out a proper routine for calibation frames. That said I am extremely happy with the camera. 533MM Pro, 150PDS, HEQ5, ZWO 2" filter Drawer, Optolong Ha 7nm, Baader OIII 8.5nm, Baader SII 8nm Captured using Sharpcap Pro - Gain 100 @ -5c, Offset 10 17 x 180 s SII 19 x 180s OIII 31 x 180s Ha Total 3hrs 21 min, processed in APP and PS All suggestions / advice welcome Thanks Martin First attempt. 2nd process attempt , i think it's much better, many thanks for the advice

Thanks, yes best avoid pixel peeping 😀. I think the apparent lack of OIII is probably down to my processing as RGB, I will have a go at processing the data in Bi-Colour when I get a moment.

Hi Everyone 2nd image back after a break. I tried to process nebula without stars and then reinsert RGB stars, I am not completely happy with the result as i found it hard to avoid artefacts around the stars. 150PDS, EOS500D, L-Enhance Clip Filter, Processed in APP, PS and Starnet to remove stars. 92 x 5 min and 9 X10 min so just over 9 hours. 20 x 10sec with no filter for RGB stars (probably should have pushed to 15 Sec). Thanks Martin

HI Everyone Due to a move and retiring I have not been able to do any imaging for what seems to be a couple of years, but now settled in the new house near Gunnislake in Cornwall, new telescope shed built (non sliding roof sadly) I am ready to go again. I have been lurking on the forum during that time and being very jealous of you all, but this is my first image post in that time. Imaged over multiple sessions in Dec 22 and Jan 23 NGC 1491 Fossil Foot Print Nebula with 150PDS on HEQ5 Belt Mod, EOS 500D (Modded & BYEOS for control), L-Enhance Clip in Filter and processed in APP (trial) and PS. 73 x 5 min, 18 x 10 Min Lights. 56 x 10 sec Lights for RGB Stars, Flats and Bias , no darks (Dithered). Just over 9 hours total excluding RGB stars. Reasonable crop to remove stacking artifacts etc. Collimation was out slightly and a little sensor tilt, hopefully both now sorted. If the weather allows I will be able to get a few more images done already started on the Jellyfish. It's great to be back at last. Thanks

I have just started experimenting with the l-enhance and a modded 550D, I thought it may speed things up as I was taking individual Ha and Oiii with separate filters but it was taking ages to get enough data for a decent image due to lack of clear nights. At least this way I can collect Ha and Oiii at the same time and then split the RGB for processing. Not quite as narrow band pass as my individual filters but does a reasonable job, obviously the l-extreme will be narrower. This is my first HOO image with this combination. Pacman Nebula with about 3.5 Hrs exposure on a 150PDS.

Hi Everyone Not posted for months, mostly due to what seems to have been months of constant cloud in N. Somerset and was becoming jealous of those that were blessed with some clear skies. However managed a few very short nights over the last week to get first light with the L-enhance filter. This is 43 * 300s with 500D, 150PDS. Processed red and green separately (blue was very noisy) and combined into HOO in PS CC and a bit of a crop. I know the colours of narrow band, SHO or HOO, are subjective but I do stuggle to get something I am completely happy with. Thanks Martin

Hi Craig Thanks and you are right, probably didn't need the ADC but was try to image Jupiter and Saturn earlier and had things set nicely , just checking focus with bhatinov every now and again. So didn't want to upset the apple cart by messing with the setup😀

Hi Everyone, Have not been able to get out imaging for a little while and discovered it is not like riding a bike, in that you most definitely forget stuff. This is from the early hours 18th Sept, not the best seeing. HEQ5, Skymax 150, ADC, ASI224MC. Best 3,000 of 18,179 frames @ 151fps. PIPP, AS!3, Registax, PS CC. Native size (ROI 400 x 400) with slight crop Resampled to 640 x 640, and a small contrast curve in PS. Thanks Martin

Beautiful image

I use DSS, and Photoshop CC for deep sky, I also have a copy of the old Pixinsight LE and use the DBE tool if i am struggling with a background. If i have several narrowband images of a target I align them with Picture Window which is now free and very good. For planetary I use PIPP, AS!2, AS!3 and Registax Martin

I had the same issue with a 150 PDS, a cut down black bin liner and a piece of bungy cord sorted not just the darks and flats but improved the contrast in the light frames.

Hi Everyone Set up the MAK yesterday and did some testing of the kit and my memory on using this set up. A quick image of Montes Apenninus, 600 frames stacked from 2000 using ZWO 850 IR pass. Cropped to remove stacking artifacts. Thanks Martin

Hi I used a 150pds on an eq5 pro for imaging with a modded DSLR for a few years. Performance will come down to good balancing and mount tuning, I also used a finder guider with this setup which obviously helped no end in terms of the ability to capture longer subs. So it does work, however as others have stated you will be close to the limit for imaging weight wise and anything more than a slight breeze will cause you to discard quite a few subs. I eventually upgraded to an HEQ5 which was much more suited to the scope. If you are not ready to upgrade the mount I would suggest, again as others already have, that the 130PDS may be a better option. Good Luck Martin

Both are great but I do prefer the slightly increased contrast of the revised version it gives the dusty areas more emphasis, and I agree the core on the second version is more subtle and showing a little more detail. A really very nice image.

Awful news, happened to me about 15 months ago. I did get some stuff back, some on ebay and quite a bit was in a Cash Converters about 30 miles away, keep looking and I really hope you get lucky and recover the scope.

Hi Bryan Thank you, hopefully i will get more data before it disappears. I had a modded 450d as well and didn't really notice a difference in noise, i used an iso of 800 on the 450d , the optimum on the 500d seems to be 1600. Obviously they have different processors, DIGIC III vs DIGIC 4, i am not sure how much difference that makes if any. I use several methods for noise reduction, but always do at least one pass of 'Dfine 2' from the Nik Collection plugin for Photoshop, with a setting of between 25 - 50% . I find it works very well . Martin

Hi Everyone I have posted a couple of iterations of this work in progress, a Ha only version and a HaRGB. I had an early Christmas present of a 2" Baader 8nm Oiii filter which I managed to try for a little over an hour between the almost non stop wind and rain. Of course once I had the data, albeit nowhere near enough, I had to have a go at my first bi-colour. Captured with 500d, 150pds, PHD, BYEOS, HEQ5 9 x 600s Oiii 29 x 600s Ha 6 x 900s Ha Flats for each and Bias , no darks as dithered in BYEOS Processed in photoshop and PI LE, using a bi-colour HOO false green method as described by a few people including Travis Rector, Steve Cannistra, and Ken Crawford . I have also include the Ha and Oiii component images. Oiii was generated using both blue and green channels. Any comments or tips on how to improve this more than welcome. Thanks Martin Bicolour Oiii Ha

Hi Everyone, I posted a basic Ha version of this a few weeks ago but have managed to get a little more data. It still needs more in particular RGB which I struggled with when trying to combine with the Ha. I blended Ha as luminance and added a little to the red channel of the RGB. 150PDS, 500D, HEQ5 , PHD, Dithered in BYEOS, Optolong 7nm HA 2" Filter. Processed using DSS and PS, Ha and RGB aligned in Picture Window. 40x120s RGB 29 x 600s Ha 6 x 900s Ha 7.6 Hours total Flats & Bias Martin