alacant

+1. StarTools. Take the upgrade to the latest version. Cheers.

Hi It's gonna be small: But there's loadsa other stuff around at this time of year. The Rosette goes well with a 130 for example. Cheers

Hi and welcome. Yeah, I agree. Go big:) Cheers

Hi The tsflat2 just works. Corner to corner. With the advantage of not altering the focal length of the telescope. Tested hands on. Cheers and HTH.

Hi Inside the nebula. Have you had a go with it yet? Cheers

Hi everyone The UHC filter does nice job on these little objects, so much so that the owl becomes lost in detail. A nice problem to have, except that the detail was due to the steady seeing and not our throw-in-everything-and-see-what-you-get processing. Call-out for Ivo's new sinisterly named un-glow module in StarTools; an exercise in human perceived reality. Reminiscences of Arnheim's, 'Art and visual perception'. Thanks for looking. Anyone else had a uhc go at this? I'm amazed at what a €30 filter can do to isolate nebulae. Cheers, clear skies and stay safe. 700d on gso203. 3 hours @ ISO800

Create a master bias frame: cover telescope, take 30 frames at minimum shutter speed. Stack using median without normalisation. Set your camera on Av Take a few flat frames with your light box. Pre-process the flat frames with the master bias. Stack the flat frames using multiplicative normalisation. Pre-process your light frames with the master bias and the pre-processed stacked flat. Register. Stack. Result: a stack ready to process. That's it. Cheers

Hi This works fine. HTH

Hi everyone Seeing above average and enough to support longer focal lengths. Really wish we'd given this longer as the puffy nebula bits are just starting to show. Moral of the story, as always, AP needs patience. Which we don't possess! Thanks for looking. 700d on gso 203/1000 with uhc @ ISO800

Yeah. You need a recent release. Anything with the 18mp sensor is good. Cheers.

Hi What are you looking for in the upgrade which your dslr doesn't provide? I've often been urged to dump my dslr for something 'better', but I've not yet seen anything which comes close. I once tried an asi294 and apart from it's smaller sensor (and you really notice the change even if it's only to 3/4) it was hard to distinguish its frames from the dslr. Anything APS-c is gonna cost you €silly! Just my €0,02. Cheers

Hi I'm no expert but no one has replied so... AFAIK, you choose at the time of debayer. Or at least with Siril you do. The averaging debayer -quite often called 'superpixel'- makes one blob by taking a block of 4 say rggb pixels and taking a mean (median? Std. Deviation?) value. You can also debayer normally and then split the colour channels, but bear in mind, there is always 'bleed' of one colour into the next; the Bayer filter wavelengths overlap. As do rgb filters when using a monochrome camera. Call out to @vlaiv (sorry) to correct me! HTH

Thanks. Some good ideas. Yeah, I think a few unfiltered frames without filter direct to the sensor to get the star colour shouldn't present too much of a layering nightmare and as you recall, stars are bright so maybe even a few 30s frames may suffice. Cheers and clear skies.

Hi Vlaiv. Thanks, yes of course. Exactly the same effect as on an unmodified 130pds. I should have thought of that. The solution In this case I suppose -as it's the cc and filter innermost rather than the focuser barrel- would be to move the mirrior up the tube. Cheers

Hi everyone Scenario with gso 203/1000 Newtonian reflector. No filter: all ok. east of meridian + filter; pronounced spikes [1] west of meridian + filter; less pronounced spikes [2] Here are examples directly from the camera with the stars in question at top right (1) and bottom left (2). Debayer and stack lessens the effect but... My theory is that the filter on the end of the cc protrudes into the tube; it is not shaded by the focuser barrel. It is worse with the uhc. Reflective surface? Dunno. Has anyone seen this effect before? Any fixes? Any or all comments most gratefully received. TIA and have a great weekend. [1] [2]

Not that essential though. It's far easier operating and viewing using your 'phone.

Hi Not sure why you've gone for the 80d. For AP, all you need is the B setting on M. A basic EOS perhaps with the 18mp sensor instead would leave you plenty to budget for a red cat and a decent lens. The vintage Takumar and Zeiss 135mm lenses are very good and are available for a sensible sum on eBay. Cheers

... and carry €silly price tags!

Hi I'm not a filter lover and far from expert in anything to do with them, but recently tried a UHC and was quite surprised at the outcome. They're around €30 for a 2" version. Cheers

Hi everyone Still trying not to like the uhc. It makes even cheap refractors produce half decent stars but thinking about taking a few non filtered frames and somehow adding them to the colourless filtered versions. But I bet I never get around to it. Liking the nebula. Hating the stars. You can't win...😟 This one seems to have responded a little better; there is a bit of yellow in the mush of orange. Thanks for looking. Any feedback on filters very welcome. 700d on 72ed @ ISO800

Sorry Alan My bad. I didn't read your post properly. You had the l-enhance. This is the UHC. Both made in the same factory. It's the former I deemed overpriced. Reading a little about them, they were designed for light polluted skies but IMHO they'd be better marketed sold as get-more-detail-in-nebula filters. Be warned though, they need a helluva load more exposure time than unfiltered. I'm still not convinced; the stars look just as bad as with mono cameras and false colour. Cheers and clear skies.

Maybe you had a different filter (?) as that one has the same graph. Maybe they're just re-marketed... Cheers

A google image search gives this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Svbony-Telescope-Filter-Contrast-Cameras/dp/B07FQD5D8R Which is available via AliExpress for around €30. HTH

Hi everyone A friend brought this along. It seems to do much like the new duo filters, rendering colourless stars and far fewer of them, but unlike the latter, doesn't cost €silly. I'm not a fan of/don't understand the latest false colour stuff, but this gives an interesting effect and enhances the hydrogen glow detail well. I can't find a graph of a false colour filter, but here's the spectrum for this one. Thanks for looking and do post if you've had a go with one of these. eos700d. ~3 hours @ ISO800

Hi Love it. To lose the dslr background mush, here's an example of masking. Bring the red peak up first to match the G and B. Cheers and HTH