Nigel G

Very nice M101 well done. I have been using APP for a while now, I stack and light pollution removal with APP then process with Star Tools. Sometimes polish with Photoshop express. Astro Pixel Processor was a big step forward from deep sky stacker for me and Star Tools works well with an APP stack. Star Tools 1.5 has some good new features, your computer probably struggled with Star tools with a full size image, bin 50% before starting processing and it will run twice as fast without loosing detail in the image. When you start star tools and open an image, on the left side with the tools is bin. If your happy with your chosen software, ignore the above Nige.

This is a very good book, covering all area's of deep sky imaging. Perfect for starters. Nige.

Excellent first attempt, great looking stars. Have you tried Star Tools ? great post stack processing software, unlimited free trial. https://www.startools.org/ Nige.

We are all newbie's at some point, you have to learn from somewhere I have never seen a global cluster on tv and only new they existed when I started astronomy 3 years ago.

Its M3 this ones M13

Oh my word. I never expected this. Thank you so much, to everyone involved. I have a very exciting sailing campaign going on now, so spirits are high. On top of that this really has made my day, no my month Cheers Nigel.

It will be a while, about a month before winners are announced. There's a lot to choose from.

M3 using my ZWO ASI294MC. Bought with dosh from Xmas. 30 x 240s unity gain, no dark's or flats. -10 sensor temp. 200PDS on a NEQ6 pro. Stacked in APP & processed in StarTools. Cheers Santa. Nige.

Bought with money from Christmas my ZWO ASI294MC OSC has been a good step forward. Shot using a 200PDS...... M100 and many more little fuzzy's. 30x240s unity gain and -10 sensor temp, with Dark's, flats & bias frames. Stacked in APP & processed in StarTools. Cheers Santa. Nigel.

I have the Equinox 80ED. It has a retractable dew shield, a good smooth duel speed & rotating focuser. No dove tail bar, just a short 4 inch bracket, so I had to bolt it to a 12 dove tail bar to be able to balance it with a guide scope, which is mounted on the finder bracket. All in all I'm happy with it. Nige.

Thanks The colour, I chose as it highlighted the faint fuzz better, it did have a reddish glow rather than blue. I'm going to get a good few hours in much better conditions, hopefully a more realistic looking image as a result.. Nige.

You need to turn the scope in the tube rings till the camera and finder or guide scope balance, as Roland has said. The camera needs to be inline with the counter weight bar or opposite side. Its not critical as I image most of the time with a slightly out of balance rig due to exactly what your saying. My guide scope is mounted on the finder bracket, and camera at 6 oclock position relative to mount ( in line with counter weight bar). This leaves it a little unbalanced but never caused a problem. I could turn the scope a little more to perfectly balance it but as I said, its a very small amount off balance. Nige.

Here is full size stretched and inverted. I have to convert to jpg to invert with the software I have. Although I can probably keep it as a tiff in PS CR2. I see what you mean about identifying with inverted data though Those little galaxy's pop out. I have a routine which I have used for a couple of years so don't often stray from it. Stacking APP - processing Star Tools, then convert to jpg for touch up in Photoshop express which only uses jpg. Photoshop express is how I inverted the image. Sorry about pixel scale, no idea I'll have to research and figure it out. Nige.

1960-1315. I will try without binning and little processing but data is noisy

Thanks. I do suffer from aperture fever myself, much preferring my 200 newt to my 80 frac for imaging.