Nigel G

Nice one bobro. I also processed an image of multiple galaxys from a couple of weeks ago, have been waiting for clear skys since then. This is just 10 x 4 minutes with flat dark and bias. Seeing was bad at the time so not a great image but at a close inspection there is at least 34 distant galaxys in the image. The colours were quite bad so I went for B&W. The Virgo galaxy cluster. 80ED pro, eq3 pro, canon 1300d. Orion 50mm mini guide scope and Orion starshoot guide cam. Cheers Nige. I think there all galaxy's

No idea, it looks like all the outlets sell with the aluminium tripod.although it specifies the stainless steel type.

That's real tough luck Jimbo. Enjoy your wine at least, there will be more clear sky's for you and you know it's worth the wait. These things are sent to try us. Can you not manually track and video Jupiter. You only need 30 seconds or so to get a good stack in Registax or Autostakkert. Chin up. ☺ Nige

Ian. I am trying PI with the 40 day trial not quite moved completely to the dark dark side I have not tried stacking with PI yet, ( the old "I know DSS " thing ) I think on very close inspection there's a fraction less noise in the first image which is my normal stack, and a fraction more gradients around the edge in the 3rd but really not much in it , It obviously works for some but not all. If I had no dark frames I think I would just stack L-F & bias. I might try it with another image, I'm swapping cameras to the unmodified for a few images so maybe that might be different. Nige.

Ian, I made several stacks. 1 Normal stack - Lights, proper darks, flats and bias. 2 Lights, flats & bias. 3 Lights, master bias as a dark, flats & master bias as a dark flat. 4 Lights, master bias as a dark, flats and bias. 5 Lights, master bias as a dark, flats, master bias as a dark flat & bias. Any stack that had bias stacked with a copy of the master bias I got a blank image except for number 4 where I had only the brightest stars visible after full stretch. Number 1-2 & 3 stacks all produced a good image which I think number 1 being very slightly better maybe. Number 3 stack DSS suggested not to have the black point set to 0. I tried both and setting the black point to 0 worked.. Unchecking the black point to 0 tab produced no image. This DSS cheat has not worked for me but I know I'm not hurting my images with darks and I can get away with no darks. 3 images #1 L-D-F-B #2 L-F-B #3 L-MBd-F-MBdf. All background extracted and auto stretched only in PixInsight. Nige.

Got it so I enter the master bias file which DSS saved as a tiff, as a dark and a dark flat but don't use the bias frames to stack. I guess DSS does mix files as it saves master files as tiff's. All my input frames are raw. Edit: I have entered my 70 light, 1 dark, 1 dark flat and 30 flat. DSS is saying don't set the black point to 0 ....not sure what to do so I'm going to try both.

Give me a bit of timber and a knife and I'll make anything. Fits, tiff's, dithering, drizzling, flats, darkflats, darks, bias, my brain gets a bit like a scope out of focus. blurry. I'm now trying what I know works. just lights flats and bias. To see if I have a problem elsewhere. Nige.

I registered my lights, flats and bias as normal Then took the master bias .tiff file- renamed it 2 times and entered that as a dark and dark flat. So when stacking I had 70 light, 1 dark ( renamed master bias .tiff), 30 flat, 1 dark flat ( second renamed master bias .tiff file ) and 50 bias. The outcome is a 206 mb black image. I have since re stacked using the above without the dark. still blank. I am now stacking without the dark flat input but with the dark file. Edit ( failed, full maximum stretch showed a few stars ) What is going on ! Edit: all 800 ISO Nige.

Failed attempt. got a blank image. hmmm

Thanks Neil, it was very easy to over do this, It has very little processing, adding more lights has helped a lot. 90% of the processing was noise reducing.

I have studied the link and at first it was slightly confusing but I have got my head around it and am about to give it a go Thanks guy's.

Thanks Ken. I have found the whole EQ3 process quicker and more efficient than my Altaz. For this DSO I kept the camera attached to the scope at all times, I checked the focus every session at least 2 times but never had to adjust it in 4 nights. Setting up to guided imaging took about 15 minutes, just place mount on marks, mount scope, align 2 star with live view, mount guide scope, find DSO, choose guide star, calibrate, re centre DSO, start imaging. I check the PA every other session but haven't had to adjust it. I don't drift align but will manual drift at the beginning of every session. The only subs I dump are any with cloud drifts in. The only time PHD drops out is when dew has built up on the guide scope but a dew shield has been added. Once it dropped out as a low flying well lit jet plane flew across the guide star. DSS stacks quicker.

I need a little more info, I use the master bias file and add that as a single dark frame, then the same file for a dark flat ?

I have had the chance to add some more subs to NGC 1499. I took a total of 6h 40 m and used 4h 40m of the best ones. I didn't use any of the 6m subs just the 4 minute. Still fighting the canon banding but now have a couple of programs to use, Fitswork has a good function as does Pixinsight. Startools module doesn't seem aggressive enough. I'm wondering if I lower the ISO to 400 if that might help. California nebula. 4h 40m of 240s ISO 800. modified Canon 1200D with CLS filter - Darks, flats & bias. 80ED Pro - EQ3 Pro. No colour work done other than saturation. DSS - Startools - Fitswork & PS express. Thanks for looking. Nige.

Lovely image Shaun. Thanks for sharing. Ian. Another fine image from the Admiral. Happy-kat - I like your image of the comet with the Owl and Surfboard, Itook a 2 hour time lapse of the comet Friday night. Just need to process the subs s a ltitle. The Owl and Surfboard sounds like a pub ? Cheers Nige.

I added a couple of hours to the California neb last night with 33x240s. This is just the 4 minute subs, next I will add the 10 x 360s subs. This is also my first process with Pixinsight. There's a lot of modules in PI, if it wasn't for @Filroden and PI tutorials I would be totally lost 33 x 240s ISO 800 - 10 dark - 30 flat - 50 bias. 80ED Pro - EQ3 Pro - guided. DSS & PI with a tweak in PS. A ton better than the first. I think 6 minutes at 800iso is over exposing from my location. The 4 minute subs looked much better. Cheers Nige. Edit----- 240s & 360s 3h 12m image processed with ST added at bottom. Horizontal bars still there, I'm struggling with them, it doesn't appear to be over exposed stars.

That's interesting, I will try extending my dew shields first then, I'll add a further 6" to the imaging scope and make one for the guide scope Cheers Nige.

Only the scopes extendable dew shield which is around 6 inches long. I'm looking into making a couple of dew heaters, one for the imaging scope and one for the guide scope.

I can't believe how few clear nights we are getting this year. Wednesday evening was clear but I didn't get home until 8pm so only got an hour of subs on my selected target before it dipped into Basildon & London's light pollution in the Western sky. So 10 x 360s with 5 dark 20 flat and 50 bias. I intend to get around 15 hours total and a bunch of darks on this to reduce noise and boost the S-N but time is running out. California nebula with 1 hour exposure. 80ED Pro with flattener & modded 1200d. EQ3 Pro, guided with PHD2, stacked and processed with DSS & Startools. I keep getting horizontal lines in my images, not sure if is the start of dew forming on the lens. It started when I started using the refractor. Nige.

Good efforts, keep at, the stacking bit will come. Try taking about 40 x 20s at ISO 1600 on M42 to start. Take these in raw files. Then download Deep sky stacker ready for the next step. Load the light frames into DSS and stack. The final stack will then need processing as it will look very dark and featureless. Adding bias and flat frames will be a step in the right direction but for now just try light frames. Offset frames are easy to take and make a big difference to the processing. Nige.

As I set up Polaris was in the right place so polar alignment was good. PHD2 was peaking at 6" maximum normal adjustments 2-3" main adjustment was on the dec, ra was good with very few inputs from PDH. I thought I should mention that my EQ3 has had an Astrotec service before I got it which apparently improves the mount a fair bit. If you get a good result from PDH drift aligning you shouldn't have any trouble. Make sure you manual drift to let PDH know whats North and West, then calibrate. I use the ST4 cable and on camera mount connection so I still use the Synscan handset to choose stars and objects, not EQmod. Nige.

Will do Mikey as soon as I get home ?

I had a couple of hours Monday night with clearish sky's so I done a little test. I set the tripod up on its marks, checked Polaris and it was in the right place in the polarscope. ( using polar finder ). 2 star aligned then aimed at M51. Fired up PHD2 and chose a star in the field of view, done a manual nudge to get North and West correct. then calibrated. I did not enter the star altitude. I did not do a drift align, but went straight to guiding. Just 20 minutes to start imaging. The mount guided perfect for 1.5 hours until the star was lost due to dew on the guidescope I need to sort out dew heaters or something, only an hour and it started building up which has ruined the image. Cheers Nige.