SilverAstro

Thanks I'll go check them out. Meanwhile I had been thinking about your earlier dilemmas about a gradient in your otherwise very nice M45, I had also noticed it and that it was "warmer" red-ish than the predominant blue of the nebula and that the nebula looked like it was being buried in it so, as an experiment only ( I was hindered by only having an 8bit jpg and that my fingers and everything were xxed for Nige ! ) I decomposed it into R G and B and severely attacked the R, - with medium gaussian filter on the G and B channels, and yes, there is quite a bit of nebula down in the bottom left and right diagonals : First a 'gentle' one, I do like the pink pair in the middle : and a little OTT, but I like the structure and fine filiaments you have got, deffo lots of neb going off bottom left and right :-

I was about to say that there is the similar numbered cooled colour version which would be a more DSLR-like one-shot setup. But I have not seen anyone in the community using it ! But Ken and Gina are producing excellent results with the mono+filters. I will have to go google why Luminance is being shot alongside RG&B, I think once-upon-a-time colour TV cameras shot only R,G&B and the Luminance ( for B&W compatibility) was derived electronically from the RGB ?

Thanks Nige, not bored, a good excuse to continue my practicing in Gimp ! That is a very nice image of the veil that you have managed, very impressive wispy detail. I am late on parade with my version because originally I could not get Gimp to eliminate the vignetting, but a bit more practice with a gaussian blur subtraction and I've come up with these two for your inspection/amusement, the first is a bit 'warmed up' and the second is more true to the original blue. A curious thing is that Gimp is opening the .fts vertically flipped compared to others here

Oh no, dont start us off agin on the size of infinities, or size of the universe of possibilities ! Oh no, dont stop now !! Heheee, but seriously, that is a remarkably fine image. I think you have secretly snook away and upgraded to one of they spare Hubbles wot FLO are offering

And a slightly more gentle approach (still in GIMP) :-

Hi, very interesting first go and I had not seen that mount before, thanks for showing. I am still learning/no expert at processing, but since you offered I though I would have a practice on it. Yes, the vignetting is a bit of a problem, the nebulosity is about at the same level and size so the simple method in GIMP had a bit of trouble with it. A quick and rather heavy-handed go resulted in this : from this simple stretch : So it is there to be had by the more expert users of the specialist softwares when they come by. It was a very quick go because I have just acquired three new ( to me ) computers with windows7 ( great leap forward ) which are confusing me at the moment

I did a quicky two stacks of four and stacked the resulting pair in DSS, it was rubbish compared to a simple stack of the eight ! I was not sure if I had blundered and that it was supposed to work,, or not ! I couldnt decide on the maths of adding two lots of already RMS-ed noise so wondered how the going-deep many-hours people managed, do they re-stack all from the start each time

It was for Atik cams tho' I 'spect it is the same stuff ? Here is FLO response in that topic confirming the bake-off winner baking method https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/276540-atik-414ex-artefacts/?do=findComment&comment=3029866

and the ones already in the chamber : there was discussion on the forum somewhere where ice was suspected and much research led to the conclusion that they were Silica Gel based, dont want to be teaching eggs, I'm sure you know that low oven, a tad over 100C (not too much) may be quicker than getting fresh through the post ie. I second Rich's best wishes for tonight, oh hang on you are typing as I am, standard silica gel as we used to know it had cobalt as the indicator till you-know-who banned it, as far as I know and the ref. discuss suggested that it was still silica gel. I will now try to find that other discussion for you > >

Oh OK ! Oh um, " No wonder my cooling is not as good as others have reported. I think I'll have to do something about this. That should be 0.4v at 4A not over a volt." I'm sure you will overcome

Thanks Nige, the good news (after a few days of struggles -Onedrive does not seem to like my browsers and vista ) is that I finally got it with an ancient command line downloader (Wget) that can resume after an abort ! So I am now able to say that Gimp can also recover the dim outer nebulosity as well yea! it is pretty remarkable that you have achieved this with NoEq, mind u, stretched within an inch of its life it isnt yet exactly pretty, may take a few more subs LOL! For your entertainment : argh, just noticed that I forgot to rotate them 90deg, grrrr

Better still, a loop-resistance check ! 4a isnt all that much

It has been a long time since I used them, so something may have changed XLR for power supply ? They have very small round pins so contact area is going to be very small, normally used for audio /signal application not power routing. Can you measure the volts drop either side of your various connectors and when were the XLRs ( and other non-screwed down ones) moved to scrape off corrosion .

PS to save having to restack the whole set from sq.1 I mean ?

Eeeek. Can a previous stacked image be added to by the new frames, or maybe stack the new and add the result to the stacked previous , ah Ken is typing on similar , , , Is it my imagination or can I see a bit of a similar rectangle in @Filroden's Cat very like that in the ESA pic,,, that would be coincidence if it was due to secondary/spider ! hmmmmm and are those isophots in the middle genuine or an artifact of me using the jpg ?

Yep, I think you are right, just, mind u I sometimes see dragons in clouds This is what I have experimented with (can the forum do animated GIFs ? ) :- The same again but reducing the red noise a bit and upping the blue a tad :-

I cant see any of those, but I can see a weasel ! I cant download your fit so I had a fiddle in Gimp with your jpg for a consolation I think I have over-cooked it a bit

I have some genuine brass ex plate camera lenses somewhere, I think I ought to get a new cmos thingie and give them a surprise Good thinking Rich.

Oh dear, sorry to hear of the other probs. I was thinking - that the lens mount ring is probably sat round a v groove and is the way the base lens is lined up so the index and lettering is in the right position as well as it carrying the right thread/mount for the SLR camera, does that make sense. So removing that and fabricating something might have won you a few mm, but to no avail by the sound of the other complications So, I'll leave it with you cos I cant help any more ( I would have said all that earlier but I just unexpectedly lost 2hrs out of my life - swmbo phoned - stranded - lost car keys - had to go rescue with the spare ! grrr )

Is there 4mm in it though ? and is yours the same

Hang on I'm having another idea, just need to fetch one of my old lenses ,,,,ah I wonder, they came with rings on their backs to suit different camera mounts / threads, remove that and I wonder what thread is under ? Yes, held on with three little grubs to my 135mm

Marvin - the paranoid android Ohhh I dont know why I bovver hhaaahhhhhh

Oh crumbs ( hope the filter wont object to that word but I can think of others ! ) how weak can one find barlow elements ( negative lenses) to extend the focal length a wee bit ? Oh ding ! remember tele-extenders? didnt always do wonders for the fidelity but with that sensitive chip an f-stop could be sacrificed perhaps ?? EDIT nope brain took leave for a mo. the focal plane did remain the same sorry

Renters, I dont think anyone questions the gesture, the thought, the love, the care, on the part of the family member doing the giving, what we do question is giving money to a complete stranger * who has no interest in you or your family. Your daughter could have done all that, without throwing her money away, simply by showing you a star and calling it yours. * yes a profiteer as Pippy rightly says as I am typing this.

Yes, I agree with you (for now !) I think it is all in the matter of scale. But we still need to sort out why Steve's DSS was happier with his whateverit was compared to his thingumy on Andromeda ! I reserve the right to change your mind for you and Steve is free to crop at the edge, as long as he doesnt crop the middle, for a crop there would create a black hole and then who knows what might happen.