Nigel G

wxsatuser, To be honest I don't understand what you mean, ( histogram peak on the back of the camera ) & ( clear gap between histogram tail and histogram origin ) At the moment this is foreign to me, but I need to understand. I think I need to do some research ☺ Nige.

Ken. There's a good improvement there, sharper , more details and better colour. Nice ☺ I'm going to look into pixlnsight with improvement like that. Nige.

I stacked the 5 x 90s, with much the same result as trying to cheat with duplicates. Just not so bright, this has surprised me, not much detail loads of noise, or maybe the light from the nebula but no sharpness. Nige.

I'll give it ago ☺.

I had a higher star threshold on the second attempt first score was 2380 second was 660 so it seems it's using star numbers.

Result. You all know the result, an absolute wash of mixed colour with stars thrown in, incredible noise ?. I knew it wouldn't work otherwise people would have cottoned on a while ago ?but I had to find out. I'm not going to post it here it might spoil our reputation hehehe. Nige.

I'm going to try an experiment today, what do you think the result will be I'm going to take the 3 best 90second exposures and copy them several times to get about 60 frames, I will have to rename them all different I think. Then stack them. Will it work ? Nige.

Scores are as follows 90s highest score 2348 lowest score 1300. 3 are over 2000. 45 highest score 2000 average score about 1000

DSS did stack all 5 90s and dropped only 2 45s all the frames were spot on though. I will check the 90 scores against the 45s and get back to you. As in the first post of these I can bring out much more detail in the second image, but not get the same colours This was purely a test to process them identically and see what happened. Nige

As Ken has busy re processing his images so have I on ngc 7000. I have processed these 2 identically, even the masks were the same, First is 85 x 45 plus 5 x 90s. Second is the 85 x 45s There's a big difference in the images. I'm not sure that 10 more 45s would have the same effect as the 5 90s. What do you think ? Nige.

Thanks Steve, I have been using the first option till now, so I will see if there's any difference when I redo my last image ☺ Nige.

A quick question. In StarTools which tab should I open my image with........., linear, was not Bayered or is white balanced ......linear,was Bayered, is not white balanced. ........modified and not linear ........ or .......I'm not sure. Nige.

I guess it depends on how much noise your chip has, my canons dark frames have about 6 hot pixels in, which are visible in the lights, the darks delete these. My astro webcam dark frames are full of noise, a few hundred hot pixels but that has an automatic add dark frame tab so darks are added to every light frame. But not as good for dso's as the dslr is. My images without the darks have the hot pixels in which look like bright tiny red and white stars . The white pixels you could get away with but the red pixels are as obvious as the ring nebula ☺ So darks are working for me I have read that you only need 12 to 20 darks though, same as flats. Nige.

No I didn't know that, thanks for the info, there is a tab for saving masks I have seen but not sure if it needs to be purchased to access it.

Thanks Ian, I was rather pleased when I started to develop. I tried to keep the processing the same but masks are different every time, the exposure and gamma are identical the colour input is very similar but I didn't take note of everything, a job for a wet night ☺

Thanks Ken, I think the 5 x 90 frames helped quite a bit , the mount was spot on last night, very clear and no dew at all, all big bonuses helping the imaging session. Nige.

Herzy, thanks ☺ I have quite polluted sky's but at 1 am the street light go out around here improving the sky's big time. London is 25 miles to the west of me, which is always visible in the western sky. The eastern sky is the darkest especially after 1am . Nige

Steve & Ken. Great images, nice work. I love the nebula's always my favourite. I had a go at NGC 7000 last night, a beautiful mild and clear night, went to bed as the morning chorus started 4.20 am. I tried some longer exposures as the mount was on top form last night. The first image is 85 x 45s plus 5 x 90s @1600 iso, I added 2 x 90s darks to 14 x 45s , the flats didn't work again, 50 bias. The second image is 85 x 45s , darks and bias. DSS and StarTools. The first image with the 5 x 90s seems to be slightly better to me. I am pleased with these, while taking the subs I could only make out a fairly small amount of emissions but there's plenty in there. I'm sure more could come from these. Nige.

I'm going to bed zzzzzzz

I have just checked the distance between t ring and main tube. To get prime focus the distance needs to be 50mm this is a picture of the t ring in position. Nige.

I just checked the exposure time , 20 seconds at iso 1600, not sure thats enough time to collect the light needed to bring out the nebulosity.

Ian, I think this was very high contrast, this is the original image I got before any manipulation. If anyone wants a cracking at seeing what's there please give it a go,

That looks a bit more like the nebula, thanks, I had dismissed this as my imagination, I will target it again when it's back. Nige.