Demonperformer

I saw the title of this thread and thought "he's talking about me" .

I chose #1 for two reasons. Firstly the Ha mix and secondly the top left hand corner. It seems to me that there is more of the faint stuff in the top image (beyond the top Ha dots and above the blue star on the left, if that makes sense). At least, that's how it appears to me on my monitor.

BUT, if I ended up with either, I would be dead chuffed.

The balloon analogy refers to the surface of the balloon expanding, rather than the volume of the balloon. There is no centre of the surface, it is just expanding into something which is outside it. So the thing outside it may have a centre, but not the surface itself. Remember, this analogy is losing a dimension - it is a 2D surface expanding into a 3D space.

Hi, Geo, and welcome to SGL.

Enjoy the journey.

In answer to your second question, yes. Take a look at the transmission graphs here. I used to use a 1600 camera (at f4.9) and flats pretty much dealt with whatever vignetting there was. There are a lot of 1600-users about, so maybe someone who uses it closer to your f7 would have a different experience?

2 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

Once we start thinking in those terms, the possibility for other life in the universe becomes an almost assured possibility.

So what exactly is the process that turns inanimate molecules into life? Without a definitive answer to that, I don't see how that possibility can be "assured".

In light of this, just to clarify my previous comments.

I do not hold with processing data that another has collected and posting it as your own. But I see this as different from buying time on a remote right,  making all the same decisions you would when imaging from home and using the subs you have chosen to take.

1 hour ago, MilwaukeeLion said:

Nice, direct me to nearest wormhole im in.

Great. You can be our advance party. If you survive the first ten minutes, phone home and we'll be right behind you ...

There may be more to it than he said, but his constant "Jupiter did this" and "Jupiter did that" all seemed mighty speculative to me. Why should the impact that exterminated the dinosaurs have been caused by Jupiter? There are earth-crossing objects of similar size. Why not just one of those? Wouldn't that be the simplest solution? And doesn't Occams Razor require us to accept the simplest solution?

So that will be about 21:30 (BST) on 27th September 559,510,479 AD? ... I won't hold my breath ...

16 hours ago, Wasp said:

Can anyone remember the last clear sky?

the last what?

Looks like you can have either 1.25" mounted or 36mm unmounted, but not 31mm.

Hi, Yash, and welcome to SGL.

Enjoy the journey.

Excellent plan ... look forward to reading the reports

4 minutes ago, carastro said:

Not in the case of purchasing downloaded data from places like DSW, it's all done for you, you just process it.

OK, just had a look at their website and in the case of DSW I would agree with you. I believe you can do the same thing with some of the Hubble data. Possibly good for honing one's processing skills, but not for claiming the picture was yours.

7 minutes ago, carastro said:

If we simply downloaded data already captured with great equipment

But wouldn't I be making the same decisions? What am I going to capture? How am I going to frame it? How many subs of what length and using what (if any) filters am I going to take?

True, I may have fewer clear skies here and have to contend with a lot more light pollution (so are images taken at star parties cheating?) imaging from home. But are self-imposed difficulties for their own sake a contributing factor in the achievement. If I choose to manually guide my subs instead of using PHD2, does that make the result any more worthy of credit? I could equally argue that the result obtained by people who set their automated observatory going and then go to bed rather than standing out in the cold for hours on a winter's night is less worthy of credit.

The thing about mounts is that they are an investment in the future, so the rule of thumb becomes "the best one you can afford" - not very helpful possibly. I would suggest that, as a bare minimum you should be looking at an EQ3-2 with at least RA drive, preferrably dual-drive. And EQ5 would be even better.

There is a "planetary imaging" forum, and also a "getting started with imaging" forum for posting your pics. Whatever the quality, they are worth posting ... everyone on here is interested in helping you improve rather than criticising, and there is a wealth of expertise here to achieve that goal.

If they are not a package deal, then I would say get the scope and see how it goes. Post a few pictures on here and you will soon be told if they would benefit from the flattener. The only other thing is that the flattener is also a reducer and so would give your small chips a wider fov.

Hi, Matthew, and welcome to SGL.

I know it is easy for me to spend your money, but can I suggest that, if you are serious about wanting to take images, a better (more stable) mount should be a higher priority than a new eyepiece?

Enjoy the journey.

Exactly my point, Olly.

All imagers are, to some extent, totally reliant upon what somebody else has done/is providing. I would guess that most people who insist on using all their own gear, set up and maintained by themselves (which I would agree is a totally valid option) probably neither write nor maintain the software they use to process the raw data. And, as more software packages become "pay every year" packages, the distinction between "paying to use software x for a year" and "paying to use telescope y for an hour" becomes ever fuzzier ...

Hi, Mike, and welcome to SGL.

Excelleng first images.

Enjoy the journey.

I guess many of us took our first astro-images with just a camera on a tripod. Good start. I never tried Jupy that way, but my first one (taken holding a camera over the eyepiece of an ETX80) is not a lot better than yours.

I hope this has whetted your appetite for further imaging.

15 hours ago, Jkulin said:

If I went to Olly's (Which I would love to do, then I would take my own kit and use my own processing, but would listen and learn from Olly to make my own images better.

A response which nicely ignores the point of my question.

I note from your signature that there are a lot of scopes, mounts, cameras and accessories that you presumably consider to be "yours" because you have given money to the person who did the work of making them. You also presumably consider the results gained by using this equipment to be "yours" (despite having not manufactured the chip in the camera you are using?). Indeed, the question arises, did you write all the software that you are using to process "your" picture? If not, it isn't really "yours" ...

So where does one draw the line?

If I give money to someone who has done the work of setting up a scope to buy an amount of time on that scope, the time and the results gained (using my skill - such as it is - of selecting & framing my object, and selecting settings, including filter choice) are similarly "mine" as long as I do not claim to have done something I haven't.

I've posed this before, so I know what the response will be,  but it bears repeating. If you went to Olly's and used his equipment, but uncollimated and unPAd his perfectly collimated and PAd scope, just so you could say you had set it all up yourself, imagine his reaction.

Major ENVY of your drawing skills. Keep 'em coming.