alacant

Yeah, GIMP will do it. It's best if you have just two layers. The one you have posted and a second far less aggressively stretched version. A mild arcsin in Siril should do it. Mask and then paint ieith a fuzzy brush in black over the core area to reveal the stars. Another way is to take short exposures, say 10s or so so the centre remains as separate stars. Stack that for the core layer. HTH

Hi StarTools' HDR, You could do something similar by developing one stack less than the other and merging the layers. What software do you have? Cheers

No no. They're f2. So much faster. See here for a full explanation. LOL!

180s HTH

Hi Our f4.something Newtonian reflector has a 203mm diameter mirror and 1000mm focal length. It's fine even on our abused eq6s. I wish someone had suggested it rather than a miserable 80mm refractor with which to begin imaging! @gorann May we take this opportunity to congratulate you upon the images you produce using modern cameras upon your RASA? They should help convince the OP one way or the other. Most likely one way. They have certainly helped us in deciding that that's the way things are heading. Cheers

Hi everyone Plagued ATM with bright stars in or near to the FOV. A few nights a go it was m109; spring Alintaks waiting to pounce upon the unwary imager. We managed 19 frames on this one. Really intrusive star at top left. Had a go at minimising it but made a total mess. By then however I'd spent my 15 minutes of processing patience. So it remains. Mess, noise and all. Much easier to just cheat and remove it altogether! Thanks for looking and do post your dslr m5s. eos700d @ ISO800 **EDIT. Here's the cheat version. Even managed a bit of artificial colour. I am supposed to be cheating after all...

Hi everyone This one is dim and needs loadsa frames to get anywhere near. To see anything, turn up your 'phone's brightness! The main problem for imaging here ATM is resisting the temptation stop whatever you're imaging and go south as Scorpio and Sagittarius rise. By then of course it's too late to get anything decent before sunrise. That completes our excuse section for today. Thanks for looking and as ever, do please post your dslr images of the same. 700d on gso203 ~4 hours

Hi Lovely shot. Nice and close. Yeah, i'd put good money on tghe UHC being responsible for the colour. The UHC seems just as aggressive as the new generation duo band filters, so you're missing quite a bit of the galaxy spectrum. Maybe keep what you have and add some simply more frames without the filter? Cheers

Hi If you're using a windows computer, get the etx driver here. HTH

Affinity aside, which we've never tried and so don't know, I don't think any of @scotty38's software will allow otherwise.

Hi Lovely shot. To get the faint stuff, make sure you employ AutoDev twice, A first instance simply to 'see what's there'. Then a second instance after Wipe which should include a roi with a fair amount of said therein. Cheers

We already told you. There's a first time for everything. Your definition of good seems to be something to do with 18. Anyway, we're off to do astro-photgraphy. 18 of course. Try it!

Noah. Jemima has to wait for two friends to arrive before she can lift her telescope onto the mount. Celebrating the end of lock-down, they arrive with frost bitten fingers from the pub car park. It is late. In the darkness, they forget to tighten the dovetail clamp and the telescope falls to the hard concrete floor beneath causing €4000 damage, FLO send a courier to collect, the but the damaged instrument is confiscated on arrival at Dover for not having the correct vaccine documentation. It spends the next 14 days in quarantine at a luxury 5 star hotel. By this time, Noah has managed 36 hours on m101 and it's now behind the trees when viewed from Jemima's fixed pier. Am I close? Do I win a gso 16" f5? I promise I'll be careful with it.

There's a first time for everything! But seriously, despite being shown to be misleadingly wrong on any number of occasions, he insists with his armchair muses. According to the latest, the vast majority of images presented on this forum are bad.

Hi As soon as you're allowed to do so, go along to an astro club, see all the mirrors first hand and get a free demonstration:) Cheers

What are the arguments against? But yeah, absolutely. Both will give the desired effect. Go with whichever. Cheers

Hi No.

Hi everyone After the galaxy, this occupied the gso until the end of darkness at around 05:15. Quite cute. Amazing to see Vega so high and Antares so far west... Must be summer. Thanks for looking. At least we managed a bit of colour for this one. 700d on gso203 30x3min

Hi everyone Yeah, I know. yet another one of the collision, so apologies in advance. The excuse for this one was to try DarkTable's parametric masking. Yet another step away from the well trodden norm:) Anyway, here is 80 minutes either side of the meridian, dangerously close to dew point but somehow surviving. The atmosphere was super still last night which may explain a reasonable galaxy. Gave up on the stars! Thanks for looking and DSLR users, do please post if you're had a go at this. 700d on gso203 @ ISO800

Hi It maybe worth mentioning a quick method for the same modification.... Simply remove the clips and place the mirror back in its cell with 3 blobs of silicone sealant. Viz, lose the clips altogether. Cheers

I do not wish to quote from this forum. However, you can find the answer to your query in the thread on clarkvision I quoted earlier. Cheers

Have a look through the forum. You'll soon see that some are corrected on a regular basis;)

LOL. We'll Said. Let's go out and do it rather than talk about it. Especially if it's wrong. Too much talking. Not enough doing! Cheers

Exactly. Unfortunately, some of what is written is just plain wrong. Some understand the theory. Others just don't. It is those in the latter category who should perhaps refrain. Cheers

If we're interested in theory, then please let's check it's correct. Unfortunately, sometimes it isn't. The clarkvision article linked herein, is a prime example. Thanks