ngwillym

Lots of high cloud here - hope to have some images once I've finished processing - doesn't this stuff gobble up storage Neil

Quick thanks to Davey & Charl - not thought about re-tuning the Quark for proms. Another thing to check out. At least the sun is finally getting above the trees here - today - just re-checking the Quark tuning for surface - its been months since it was out of the box - conditions not too good - lots of high cloud. But some interesting stuff going on on the approaching limb. Neil

Nice work Charl. Weather looking better for earl next week, so I'm hopeful to begin my 2018 solar work - and that little AR should still be around.

I had a slightly non-standard request for the guys at Opticstar, but after a quick exchange of emails, that took all of 30 mins, we'd agreed on what could be done and how it could be paid for. Order placed and has arrived within 36 hours - with full tracking info provided. Can't fault their communication and helpfulness. It's not the first time I've dealt with them and they have always been extremely helpful in finding the stuff I've needed. Neil

Or, for £10 license you could yse the 'Brain' function in Sharpcap :- http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/news check out the 'smart histogram' section. Neil

Great effort Charl. At long last the sun is beginning to appear from behind the trees here - so I'll get about an hour to image - absolute guarantee that it will be cloudy for the next week or so

Thanks guys - I'd completely ignored the slewing method - doh!. I also always try for alignment with RA & Dec- registration marks on camera & scope, but in future if I've got a forecast of several clearish nights -I'll leave it all attached

Up until now, I've done planetary, solar & lunar work and dabbled in DSO stuff. I now want to take the DSO stuff more seriously and am aiming/trying to do both monochrome & LRGB with my ASI 1600MM-Cool. I've also realised thatit might be necessary to collect subs over more than one evening - due to weather and the amount of integration time needed. Question:- how do you keep the camera at the same orientation over multiple nights? Do you:- i) leave the camera attached to the scope? - my scope is in an obsy with dehumidifier etc, but the thought of leaving that expnesive bit of kit outside all the time worries me or, ii) put registration marks on the camera and scope and let the stacking software worry about slight differences in alignment? iii) something else - all advice welcome. Thanks Neil

Bobro - mono is a good idea - at least that way I can work on my processing techniques and then gather the RGB on subsequent nights - alredy done that for M1, M67 and NGC2903. rodd, thanks for the tips - never sure about green myself - but you see so many multicolured M42 its difficult to know what is 'real' And yes - Pixisnight - quite a learning curve, but I've got a basic workflow from Lightvortex, supplemented by the Pixinsight book by Warren Keller - still very basic at the moment. Still lots to learn

How can I get hold of this to display on my website? Thanks Neil

to explain:- Up until last year I was mainly a planetary/lunar/solar imaging guy - solar and lunar initially with a DMK camera and since the beginning of 2016 a ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool, planetary with an ASI224. now this stuff I 've got a reasonable handle on - take loads of short videos - generate almost terabytes of data in one evening plug it all into AS!2 or AS!3 process the result sin Registax or imPPG or similar and end up with reasonable images. But this DSO stuff is another world (no pun intended) - do I go for lots of short exposures or a smaller number of long exposures and then how to process - and that's just for starters Shortly after buying my ASI1600MM-Cool in January last year, I only had a small time to play with it for DSO imaging - other events (clouds, life) got in the way and then it was May and the nights never got dark so I concentrated back on solar & other solar system objects. But this winter I vowed to get some proper DSO stuff. And what better object than M42 - its bright - so short exposures should be OK. with the help of Sharpcap's Brain function I decide to get lots (between 50 and 300) subs at 1s, 2s, 4s and 8s of LRGB. And then I read LIghtvortex's tutorial on producing an HDR image - talk about jumping in the deep end! But I have got a result - 50subss each @ 1s, 2s, 4s for RGB, 100subs each for L @1,2,4,8s and matching flats I can see that I have a lot to learn - about processing, using darks properly, dithering and heaven knows what else Images captured with ASI1600MM-Cool @-15c with ZWO matching EFW & filter set on Opticstar 127mm f7.5 APO. Processed in Pixinsight and resized in PS CS5 to fit on here And before I got around to processing that lot - we had some more clear skies so I thought I'd try for the Horsehead - that took me two attempts - I didn't fully understand the field of view of my scope & camera combination and missed the HH by ~ 1.4 degree on the first night. Only got RGB for this one so far - L will have to wait for next winter - it's behind the trees now from my obsy :-(. Comments, advice, guidance etc all welcome. Neil

If you capture in any of the RAW modes (8 or 16), then you will need the extra processing step to debayer - you could try capturing in RGB24 mode which as far as I can tell avoids the debayering step, at the expense of a much larger (x3) file. Neil

Indeed - what software are you using to capture? - I'm using Sharpcap onto a SATAII SSD @~ 150fps - as long as its memory buffering keeps up. But it does gobble up storage doesn't it

Excellent set - like you I've got a 290 - takes a bit of getting used to. Neil

Maybe you can make use of the cloud gun you still have in stock?