alacant

...just the moon and skyglow then. No need to spend a fortune!

Here's a side by side. Both have moon and skyglow which removes the muddy orange. The better image is with the uv-ir I mentioned. Under €25 for both on AliExpress. HTH. **Taken on an eq so not strictly on topic but I thought my experiment findings -all by coincidence of choosing the wrong filter in the dark- may help other achro ap users. If you want to eliminate the ca completely you can use a 495nm long pass (wratten 12) along with the uv-ir -useful for e.g. the horsehead where there is a bright star in the fov.

Ah, I should add this filter (I think) is only true for dslrs, especially modified ones where the uv and ir record as blue and grey on the sensor. I believe ccd cameas work in a different way. I'm sure someone more techie could do an explanation...

Hi. I find modern achros good for AP. You may want to get one of these which prevents invisible radiation being recorded by the sensor. HTH.

Great thread. I don't have an eq3 -yet- but I shall be sticking around here for sure. Maybe we can pick up newcomers who've been given different -but of course in good faith- advice as to how to begin. I really wish that someone this time last year had advised me to get an eq3 for what I already had -my dslr- and have a go. Clear skies.

+1. Exactly. It would put anyone off. The advice is (at least) 10 years out of date. I think we should aim the level of posts at the level of the forum. The jargon is at times insurmountable. Just my €0.02.

Hi. Nice proposal. My (selfish) reason for being here is to have somewhere to discuss the experimental aspect of AP. Somewhere where we don't expect perfection. If we all stick with what the purists tell us we must all own APOs and those ritchey cretin -or whatever they're called- things and we never go anywhere new. This is the only place which has embraced anything experimental. So +1 for the proposal and thanks for taking the time to categorise it. Specifically I'd like to lose the alt-az only constraint; there are good cheap eqs too. So there's one fewer item to the all embracing concern. May I propose simply 'ap on a budget'? Or, dare I,;'ap under €500' [hides] OK then, €1000. HTH.

Hi. I found by accident that this filter cut the blue halos almost to nothing. It's something to do with uv (or ir?) being recorded as visible by modified canon sensors- I'm sure someone with technical knowledge could explain far better and in more detail. I didn't post here because I used an eq mount but just to add support for creating a budget-have-a-go-with-what-you-have-doesn't-need-to-cost-a-fortune section, I think this is the sort of post which would fit in there. I'm gonna post the snaps here anyway in the knowledge I'm off topic for which I apologise in advance. HTH and clear skies.

+1. May that include achromatic refractors? So often rejected out of hand for imaging. They've come a long way since the rule book was written. Cheers and clear skies.

+1. Very well put. I'm all for having a go with whatever you have. A cheap telescope on a cheap mount is capable of far more now than 10 or so years ago. The telescopes are better for a start. It's great to see threads like this where we push the limits and experiment. Rules are there to be broken. I don't think its a coincidence that this not-an-ed80-on-a-heq5 thread is so popular!

Me too. I'm guessing a fork?

Hi. +1 for having a go with the big refractor, underrated I feel. These days better than they used to be. I've a f10 petzval working at f5. Loads of fast, affordable no-spikes flat field contrast. With a uv-ir filter it works well and a decon on the blue channel really nails it. Have a look at this ST thread for the workflow. HTH and clear skies. **having said that, to get the whole of M31 I think the biggest you can go on an aps sensor is a 300mm lens. Do maybe nearby m33 instead?

Hi. Nice images anyway. I think the main advantage of Ivo's ST layers is that you can choose how much of each exposure you take.

Hi. Process the 20s and 10s individually and then layer them in ST. It's just a couple of clicks. HTH.

Hi. Good suggestions but I think you're gonna have to wait until next week for the nebulae. HTH.

Could be worse; new moon. Pass the scotch...

Hi. No, not piggyback; in the telescope as you're imaging. It's a 2" filter you screw onto the nosepiece to which the camera is attached. I think uv is part of it but you also need to cut the ir, one stops the core of the star expanding, the other the blue halos. There's one filter which does both and controls the way the sensor sees the blue or uv or ir or some combination of them. I'm no expert so sorry can't be more specific, I'm away at the moment but there's a photo of it in the link I sent. HTH

We've a thread on the st forum about reducing the halos, not just in software. I found by accident that there are methods at the image acquisition stage too. On my modified canon the remaining filter is not enough to avoid the stars enlarging. The uv (or maybe it was the ir -tech stuff I don't understand) records as blue by the sensor. A filter will remove all the invisible radiation and in so doing all but remove the blue star halo. HTH.

Great shot. Nice technique. Even better colour. Who needs an apo?!

Hi. I feel that you have less control over AutoDev than Dev. For me, the best way is to autodev first just to see what's there. Then after Wipe has done its gradient magic, use the Develop slider a bit at a time -a bit like seeing the print emerge in the old days of wet darkroom prints-. Just to the right of the slider there's a home-in- button which gets you a good approximatrion without overstretching. There's also dark anomaliy control and a chance to change rgb l values, something else you don't get with AutoDev. That way you have more control over the second stretch than by AutoDev without a mask. HTH. **Î've a feeling we're gonna get thrown off this thread soon as I think we may have gone off topic. Me certainly.

Hi Windows? Try calling it as Administrator. 324 is OK here on both Linux and Windows 10, 64bit. HTH

...which ST tags as compression so will not work with it. You can fool ST into thinking it's not compressed by opening in gimp and saving with no compression then opening in ST. A lot of info is lost whatever; go with FITS. Just my €0.02.

Hi. 700d: 204Mb. You need 64bit and as much Ram as you can throw at it. Make sure that you have no other stuff running before you call ST. If you are patient it will eventually load even in 4Gb RAM -have a beer meanwhile- but it'll be unresponsive whilst it does so. Make sure your /tmp -linux- or ST folder on windows contain nothing but the .trk or ST files respectively. As soon as it loads, bin it -to say 35%- so that you'll be able to process in more or less real time **. HTH **Realistically the only way to be able work with full size stacks is a 16GB machine with /tmp or the ST folder (linux-windows respectively) in RAM

Hi. ST works only with linear -un-stretched and uncompressed- files. For DSS ensure you are saving as FITS and have nothing selected for your camera in the FITS dialogue -unless you are stacking FITS files.

Hi. For me it's not so much a preference, more a necessity. Unless you've a top end gaming machine with oodles of RAM, it's the only way to get stacked and processed before xmas! No but seriously, it's not just StarTools. I'm sure processing raw images takes a lot of computing power no matter what you use.