Northernlight

Wornish, how did you get the almost 3d effect on the galaxy. When i'm processing it comes out looking very flat, whilst your version looks like it has a bit of depth to it. Cheers, Rich

Hi Wornish, Thanks for testing my data, the good news is that my subs are half-decent, so the bad news is my processing technique is rubbish. I'm busy recreating my workflow from scratch, so i'm hoping that having a fresh start and going through lots of different tutorials will allow me to pull together my own work-flow that actually works. Hopefully i'll be posting up my own effort later today to compare.

Hi all, Been away from imaging for a while and i'm really struggling to get going again and at this moment in time i dont know if it's because my data is garbage or if my processing Technique is garbage. So i'm would be very grateful if some kind sole could do a quick process of my LRGB subs for M31 and see what they get - Hopefully this will put me out of my misery and tell me if it's my data that bad or my processing technique. Subs are located here on my google drive --> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Db-SATcY6jz6UERQFd_GVzYZxIuvsrCq?usp=sharing (For some reason the link only seems to work if you cut and paste it into browser) The 4 subs are combined masters from (15x RGB - 120s @2x bin) + (15x Lum = 300s @ 1x bin) Many thanks in advance, Rich.

HI Michael, I'm using pixinsight. I could be wrong but i think it's something to do with the way i was doing star alignment. I have changed my method to registering each channel separately and then registering the masters of each channel to each other and this seems to help, but now when i combine my RGB i get a very washed out image after initil RGB combination, but i am able to combine the RGB with the L. However 2 days ago, i did somehow manage to get the RGB to combine and it looked great even before processing but it wouldn't combine with the Lum channel, but i'm yet to reproduce the good looking RGB. So stuck going round in circles at the moment, where i fix 1 issue and it causes another. I might upload my LRGB masters and see if anyone can combine them and see what luck others have. Cheers, Rich.

Hi All, Been away from imaging for a while, but this week been sent home to work from home due to Corona Virus, so thought i'd use it as a good opportunity to get back into it and start processing some old data. So my old data is is as follows : (15x 300s Lum 1x Binned) & (15x R,G,B 120s 2x Binned) Attempt 1) So from distant memory i recall that different binned subs are sorted out when you register them together. So i initially tried registering all of the 2x subs with each other and then registering the 1x subs and then processing them so that i had my master Lum and master RGB and then Registering those to each other, but that didn't work as it still thinks the geometry is different. Attempt 2) I select my best Lum sub as the Ref image and then registered all other lum & rgb frames to that. I then integrated these, so that i had my master RGB & Lum - All seemed ok at this point, but when i combined the Lum with the RGB - it just turns the image to garbage with all of these colours being really odd. So not sure where i'm going wrong here - What is the recommended process for registering / integrating subs with different binning. Many thanks in advance, Rich.

If it were me in this situation, I would be demanding my money back and buying a Mesu instead.

JTW is not helping itself. They had a bad reputation in the past for Poor Quality Control on Modified DSLR's and now I would say they now have an extremely poor reputation for customer Service. I just hope they dont go out of business before they deliver the goods as something just feels off, not quite right. They really dont do themselves any favours.

The problem i have with JTW, is that they essential sold an idea to people in the disguise of a real product and the proof of this is that the current design bares no resemblance to the original sold design and their price is now pretty much double he original stated price. In my mind JTW has been very unethical in their approach and tricked potential customers into essentially funding the design of a prototype. Lets be honest here, for £5,000 pounds i'd rather pay a little extra and get the tried and tested Mesu mount, a real product that exists and will actually be delivered to you once you've paid for it. I genuinely worry for the people who paid for pre-orders from JTW.

Hi Nova, I hope this is finally the end of the wait for the patient customers who pre-ordered, but I'm still a bit sceptical as there always seems to be another reason why its delayed. Don't get me wrong, I applaud Mark for his integrity and not releasing a design that he doesn't feel is ready yet, but at some point you needs to stop tweaking and chasing utopia as you might never get there. Let's hope he doesn't hit more snags with new version of the absolute encoders Rich.

I don't think it's hot air, they are creating a mount, but essentially selling customers a lie and using the money to fund development of their design and will then use those full paying customers as beta testers. Based on trade description laws, What they have done is borderline illegal and completely immoral at best as they didn't actually have a product to sell. Usually no news is good news but not in this case. They have been very quiet, so this suggests to me that they have hit more problems. Let's just hope they start delivering soon, but I have a bad feeling about it.

To be fair to NovaTJ, the mounts were supposed to be shipping a year ago, and there just seems to be a constant stream of excuses why they haven't shipped yet, and the standard response over the last year is that they are shipping soon, but that always seems to be half past never, so i think NovaTJ has every right to be concerned. In my mind JTW has lost all credibility as mark has made all kinds of promises on pricing and mount delivery times and delivered on none of them, and this coupled with a spotty reputation for poor Quality control and customer service on some of his previous products, then this does not bode well for the future. In all honesty, i'm not even sure why anyone would entertain this mount as the price has crept up so high, i think it's within about £500 of the price of a Mesu mount which is a tried an tested solution with superb customer support from Mesu. Whilst i was rooting for JTW and this new mount, i think the damage is done and personally wouldn't trust JTW, until they start delivery on their promises and we start seeing some positive customer service reviews. Sorry, i know it might seem a bit harsh, but that's just my 2 cents based on the fact 2 years later nobody has a mount in their hands despite what JTW might have you believe.

Yes definitely look at moonlite as an example they do base plate to fit very specific scopes where the new baseplate fits existing hole pattern without requiring new holes to be drilled. I have one fitted on my old SW 200p which I bought to fit their CR1 model.

Danny there are loads of focusers that provide adapters to allow the existing plate to be used or a replacement plate that uses the existing holes, these include moonlite, featherTouch, PrimaLuce Lab to name a few, so not sure why they don't just separate out the main body of the focuser and the base plate.

Hi all, I'm going through the process of trying to decide between 2 newt and one of them is the 10" Skywatcher Quattro. As with any cheaper scope, you invariably always need to change the stock focuser. Queue the Baader steeltrack diamond, which appers to be highly rated for its performance, yet it strikes me as odd that Baader don't do an adapter base plates for common scopes so it's a clean fit and doesn't require drilling. Does anyone know if anyone supplies custom adapters to fit the steeltracks without needing to drill. Not interested in a moonlite as I used to have a CR1 and it was utter garbage. Cheers Rich.

I wonder why there has been so little take up on these focusers ? That said I've seen a few unfavourable post about the electronics on their products being a bit unstable, as well as their customer service not being so hot. Sounds a bit like early days of ASA.

Nigel do you just use a dew shield or do you have a heater on the secondary.

Hi all, I looking to buy a newt for imaging and probably going to get a SW 10" Quattro. So naturally I will immediately replace the stock focuser. Looking at focuser option, I saw a very neat focuser with a built in motor by PrimaLuce called The Estatto. This looked like an excellent option and cheaper than buying a focuser and a separate motor unit whilst looking very neat. Looking on the web I ant find any Reviews anywhere, so I wondered if anyone on here is using one or is there a reason nobody is using them ? Also looking at the focuser it states that it only has 15mm of inward travel, which didn't seem very much. Rich.

Hi all, Does anyone know the required size of a secondary mirror in a newtonian to fully illuminate a Kaf8300 sensor, or know of a way to calculate this ? Many Thanks, Rich

Tha is lenscap, I missed the specification button when I looked. Holy Crap - 102mm on the 12" Quattro, that's crazy big. That sucker will attract a lot of dew. I'm guessing it's too support a full frame camera. For me, I just want a secondary to fully illuminate my Qsi683 (Kaf8300) chip. Obviously the quattro 12s will, but also looking at possibly getting a Orion Optics VX10 or VX12 and they have much smaller secondary mirrors Rich.

Hi All, Does anyone know the secondary mirror sizes on the Quattro 10s & 12s models. Cheers, Rich.

Lens cap, is this based on standard aluminium or a Aluminium Alloys ? as i imagine telescope tubes will use an Aluminium alloy of some sort.

I do have an QSI 683 with built in oag, so have no concerns with differential flex of camera's. It's literally just the tube flexing around the focuses under load that i'm worried about.

Hi All, I'm looking at 2 scopes a SW Quattro 10" and a OrionOptics VX10 as a new imaging scope. I'm leaning towards the VX10, but have concerns about the aluminium tube flexing. Are aluminium tubes just as strong as Steel tubes ? which is stronger Aluminium or Steel ? Cheers, Rich.

I use the Gigabyte Brix no problem running Windows 10 for my setup. Never had any bother with it, and it runs SGP with camera, focuser and shed roof control, as well as Cartes-Du-Ceil and PHD2 guiding with my lodestar. Neat & tidy setup that just seems to work. Mine is set in the bios to automatically turn on when the shed power is switched on remotely. I give it 2 mins 2 fully start up and then just rdp onto it from my laptop in the house and set my job away. I can then just check in on the progress using rdp from my ipad. Simples.....

Thanks David, I've seen Kayrons tutorials but a lot of stuff is out of date from 2015, and some from 2018 but wasn't sure how many of the techniques have been updated for 2019. I'll take a look at Barry Wilsons tutorials and give them a whir and see how i get on. Cheers, Rich.