Grierson

^^^^^ ditto ^^^^^

Thanks for the pointer. A bit of a shame he ran out of time!

Thanks Dave, that is the measurement I am using. In the back of my mind I remember reading that the measurement should be from lens to sensor and the sensor in this flattened sits c. 10mm in from the face. Clearly I’m trying to add an nonexistent problem. Thanks for taking the trouble to provide an image. John

Having recently acquired an OSC and been disappointed with the focus of the resulting images (probably down to my own incompetence) I got to thinking about back focus. I have a SW flattener/reducer fitted to my SW ED80. FLO gives the back focus requirement of the flattener as 55mm. As there is nothing on the flattener to indicate where the 55mm should be measured from, i.e. where the lens is in the flattener I have always measured from the rear end of the of the body. I wonder if someone could confirm, or otherwise, that this is correct as there seems no easy way of measuring from the lens. Many thanks - John

Not a pain James but when each of them produces different results the underlying question is still ‘which one is correct?’ Then at least one element can be discounted when a poor result appears on the screen! - John

I wonder if anyone has to hand the Matrix for an ASI294 camera required by Pixinsight. I’ve tried RGGB with some odd results. Thanks - John

Do you have a cooled camera? If so, and in my admittedly limited experience, you can do Darks at any time providing the camera is cooled to the temperatur, exposure and gain used for the imaging session. I have made a library of Darks at various gains and exposures. Saves a lot of time! As far as Bias is concerned there seems to be a debate around whether they are actually needed with a dedicated Astro camera. Depending which side you come down on again your Bias can be made at any time without cooling the camera.

'My ambition was to get rid of the many cables - USB and power - between my imaging rig and the outside world.' Yup, it's the only way to go. ?

Yes, I find the same but although I’m not a perfectionist I worry about how the cast affects the final image!

UNIT IS NOW SOLD - John

Chris, l ran APT, Stellarium and EQMod on the unit together with Windows Remote Desktop. Although I had only Windows Home on the computer in the house the Minix had Windows Professional and so was OK for Desktop. I only ever had issues with APT which used to ‘hang’ on occasions although it did exactly the same on my laptop. I never got round to guiding over WiFi as I never felt the need with the CMOS camera. Yes there is an SD slot and all my images were saved to a card. I have read that range can be an issue but I have not had a problem in my small garden. - John

Thanks again Wim. (Apologies for the earlier spelling error)

Steve this was Niall Saunders response which is not a million miles away from that of Win above. (Thanks Win) You are not doing anything 'wrong' as such. Perhaps you could adjust your exposure times slightly higher - but it wouldn's make a huge difference. Fundamentally, your EL panel is NOT producing 'white' light, at least not as far as your imager is concerned. But that alone, isn't really too much of an issue either. It would seem to be 'white enough' to do the job. And the 'orange cast'? I always used Background Color Correction to get the 'neutral grey' that I wanted from my Master Image (after Crop and DBE, and before Color Calibration). After that, it was a long way diwn my list of noise removal and range compression steps before I ever considered trying to enhance the colours that I knew would still be lurking somewhere in the depths of my image. However, if you just want a rought idea of what your image contains, then just remember to unlink the sliders in the STF window before applying an STF to your image.

As I slowly migrate to ASIAIR I have for sale a Minix NEO Z83-4Pro mini computer. Genuine Windows 10 Professional pre installed. 3 USB2 and 1 USB3 ports. Micro card slot. Internal 4GB DDR3 and 32GB eMMC memory. Ideal kit for remote control of the mount via Team Viewer or Windows Remote Desk Top, etc. Purchased new by me in April 2018. Current Amazon price £179.90. Comes complete with cradle but NO PSU. (Standard 12volt units freely available. Please note also that the picture appears to show paint on the antenna. It's actually sunlight!!) I'm looking for around £100 or something closely approaching that figure. Postage to be agreed although prospective purchasers are welcome to come and examine/collect. (York)

Thanks Steve, I'm not sure. I've had a different response from a member of the PI forum which I need to give some thought to as well. - John