Nigel G

This is the message that comes, I try to restore but it keeps sending it to Quarantine

Yes W10. I'll look into it thanks.

Yes I used kappa-sigma clipping, and file opening options on ST first and second options tried.

I tried a restack of M33 changing settings on DSS, I un checking the 16 bit Monochrome box which I have always had checked, ( ref page 52 of this thread ) I also had any colour balance to no. The result was rather horrid to work on, I opened the file with both options in ST the first being better but still nowhere as good as before. also I had satellite streaking through the image which is a first for me. So that didn't work unfortunately, unless I missed something out. Nige.

Ian, I downloaded Alpha version but my PC blocks it, I haven't found a way past the block yet. tried disabling firewall and anti virus but PC will not let it run. Shame as there's things I would like to try myself. Nige.

I bin first but then I don't crop until the wipe stage, I just crop out any artefacts after a auto dev then sort the gradient and vignette then crop to the size I want. It makes vignetting easier, I think. Nige.

Very nice Jon, I find the colour module in ST very difficult to use, it takes a lot of practice. And to be honest I found M 31 to be the most difficult of all the DSO's I have imaged to draw the colours out, so you have done well. I seem to get a lot of pale blue stars which I think should be white stars, reading the latest posts in this thread I might have some settings wrong in DSS. For a first attemp at alt-az imaging that's awesome. Better than any of my M31's

My fits are 206 MB from a canon 1300D hope you get it sorted soon.

The best way to remove artefacts is to first do an auto dev, this will show you any artefacts, then crop any out and re do auto dev to check they are all removed. Go to wipe, do your stuff and re do global stretch with either auto or manual develop. if you still have gradients just undo and try again with different settings in wipe. Then carry on processing.

Use the wipe tool and select vignetting , all stacking artefacts need to be cropped out for wipe to work best.

I just did a quick gradient wipe with ST, Its all there, just needs a bit more total exp time Nige

Jon, that's coming on well and I'm sure with a bit of gradient work and a couple of other tricks on ST I'm sure you could get much more from this data, good luck, ST is worth buying to be able to save star masks which is necessary to fully use the tools, and save final images in a format which is workable after ST if needed. Nige.

Jon. A very good start, excellent focus, you will get use to your mount and find out your maximum exposure times. Every mount is different. On a good night with a rising target I can get upto 90 seconds BUT less than 50% will be good enough to use. Your setup looks great too. Looking forward to seeing more of your image's , I must admit this thread has come along way and images are improving. It's great to have more people joining in. Keep it up guys. Nige.

I thought that was a nice effect especially with the lights out and big screen Cheers Nige.

That's great Ian, it is a good one to image and process, plenty of detail and good star colours, Nice Nige

I had an hour to spare this afternoon so I bunged together a video of my images with some dodgy music for something to listen to and a couple of un published images. have a look if you want, best viewed full screen and lights out From my YouTube channel Sorry Nige.

Ken, Nice Pacman image , some good detail there and decent colours. Steve, The Californian nebula looks good, I wonder how that would turn out with a modded camera. Well done guy's Here's an interesting thing. Last night I took about 45 minutes worth on M33 between the clouds. with darks and flats, the image was not that good (not as nice as my first attempt a while back) so I thought I'd try stacking all my data together. The first batch was around 45 minutes of 30s taken with my 1200D the second batch including the flats darks and bias came from my wife's 1300D. There was around 30 degree change in the frame rotation between the sets of images so quite a big crop ( if you leave any stacking artefacts in the image its very difficult to process) The result was the easiest one of the 3 to process with a better result which has really surprised me. Also I finally processed a stack of M31 I've had knocking around for a while, heavily cropped. Still struggling with colours Nige. PS. spare parts for my 1200D are coming within the next week, fingers crossed.

Hi. I balance my kit slightly top heavy, this seems to keep the mount nice and steady. The mount is then always driving the scope, I don't have a good view to my west due to London and surrounding areas being in that direction. If my target was west I would balance slightly bottom heavy for the same reason. I have a newtonian reflector. Hope this helps Nige.

I tried un checking the box. Not much difference in it, if anything a little harder to reduce the noise level. Hmm

I'll give it a try.

The align RGB Channels in final image is checked, yes

Ken, you have made a better job than I both images were stacked the same, same flats, darks & bias, processed pretty much the same, subs were taken exactly same settings and m45 straight after ngc 6992. I have done a screen grab from both just after first develop , the difference is incredible , 2 images could not be further apart. I'm trying different settings in DSS. There's no difference if I check 1st or 2nd option in StarTools. Any ideas folks. I still can't see how they can be so different. No wonder I'm having trouble processing with images like this to work with. Cheers Nige.

That might be due to the dew on the lens. I kept checking and noticed it the last 15 minutes or so.

Last nights efforts. I'm not sure if I have something set wrong but I'm having serious trouble with colours, after stacking and Developing in ST my image was bright green, same as a mask green , in fact just for the hell of it I chose mask and could hardly see the mask green. To get some sort of colour is a proper task. No matter how hard I try I can't get any white stars, just blue, green, red or purple. I thought I'd have ago at the Veil nebula with my 210mm lens. After all the delays of last night I got around 1h 40m of 60 and 90 second subs. along with 68 dark, 30 flat and bias. ( had to create whole new batch for wifes new camera ) As the battery on the camera was running low I couldn't resist a quick snap at M45, the lens had just started to collect a little dew on so I grabbed 9 60s subs and stacked them too with 9 dark 9 flat and bias. not bad for 9 minutes exp time. Theres more in the first image than I was expecting, in the last 15 minutes light dew had started settling. I wonder what this would be like with a cooled mono CCD. Cheers Nige.

Very nice Ken, that's a vast improvement in details and great colours, I'm impressed. That's probably the best image I have seen from an Alt-Az mount. I wonder how sharp a nebula will be. Well done. Nige.