Adreneline

I really like the colour you've brought out in the galaxy. Adrian

Thank you. There's no doubt the clear, dark skies round here help. Adrian

Yes. Having got the best position with the BM it was apparant there was still room for improvement with the vane diffraction spikes. I'm focussing manually as I haven't got around to fitting a focus motor as yet although I have got a 3D printed bracket to attach the SW motor to the Baader Steeltrack. Adrian

Thank you Lee. I had the reducer on so the effective fl was 1070mm according to the ASIair. I usually use Affinity to draw out colours but this time I decided to stick with PI - still struggle to get the blues though. I focussed with the BM last night but then refined the focus with the vanes on the scope which helped with the detail. I imaged right up to the flip but then couldn't be bothered to realign and get some more - it was too cold! I'm always reluctant to do a flip (attended or unattended) with the RC on the mount - if it goes pear shaped the imaging train will definitely hit the tripod. Thanks again. Adrian

Thank you Tristan. I'm sure the accurate PA with the Polemaster helps and being really careful with the balance, although I just could not get it to balance perfectly in DEC last night. When I get it right the mount is absolutely silent in operation, unlike when I try to guide when it is clicking away like mad all the time - sounds like it's fighting with itself. The dark skies here help a lot. Adrian

This is 40 x 120s using my ASI294MC and StellaLyra 6" RC unguided on my iOptron CEM25-EC. For whatever reason I struggled to get balance in DEC last night but that said the tracking still held up even though I am pushing this mount toward its weight limit. Totally processed in PI from start to finish. I'm still learning how to process OSC - it's a tricky business. As always C&C welcome. Thanks for looking. Adrian

To my eyes the beauty is in the image as a whole and I'm not going to go pixel peeping at individual stars. This is an amazing and thought provoking image - the more you look the more you see - the more you see the more you think and wonder. Brilliant. Adrian

This is a really nicely framed image with some great detail and really good star colours. The filaments on M82 show up really well. Looking at it on my monitor there is a significantly green/blue cast to the image; I sampled the background in Affinity and the G and B values are quite a lot more than the R over most of the background; maybe it more accurate to say there is a lack of R! Whatever, I removed the green in PixInsight and it really enhances the galaxy colours. Which software packages did you use tp pre / post-process your image? HTH Adrian

Excellent Lee. I love the detail you've revealed across the galaxy - amazing. Adrian

I use Polar Scope Align Pro for iOS when performing a quick PA using the mounts polar scope (so a visual alignment). I find the resulting PA to be very good and with my CEM25-EC I can easily achieve 120s plus unguided exposures with no trailing. As an aside: I sometimes use the PA routine built into my ASIair which uses the main imaging scope; works very well as I assume my scope is well aligned with the mount axis. I generally use a PoleMaster with associated PC software to get a very accurate PA; unguided exposures up to 300s give no trailing. I've had mixed results with SharpCap probably due to poor alignment of my guidescope with the mount axis; I've not used SC with my main imaging scope. Hope this answers your question.

Nice image Francis - I like the structure of the IFN showing through. I found @gorann's advice to use EZ Star Reduction in PI to be advantageous with my IFN attempt. (I also tried using EZ Noise Reduction but I couldn't get it to work). There is no doubt that IFN imaging is a real challenge. Adrian

Thank you for your generous comment - the Iris is a favourite of mine too. This was my third target of the evening and at this stage I had given up on guiding completely. I tried M3 and that was just "rubbish" and then I tried the Whale and stopped guiding after a few frames. I ditched the inital frames and the rest were useable but not enough to do it justice. I've decided that provided I do a really good PA and balance really carefully the CEM25-EC copes pretty well without guiding. One less wire! Thanks again. Adrian

Well I think that is stunningly good - I would be well pleased if my attempt had worked that well. Really enjoying looking at the structure in the IFN. Thanks for sharing. Adrian P.S. When it comes to mosaics I'm an APP fan. I couldn't agree more! APP has never failed for me with mosaics and everytime I am impressed with how well it works.

I really like this Stu - it's framed up a treat. I took the liberty of removing the green tint (which is quite dominant on my screen); this is a really good image considering the amount of data you managed to get. I love M82 and the filaments. No shortage of detail here! Thanks for sharing. Adrian P.S. I used SCNR and a little stretch to reset the black point. M81M82_ABE_sncr.tif

Thanks Lee. I’m really pleased with the 294; it’s a lot easier than the individual filter approach with my 1600. We just need Mr ZWO to invent the OSNB camera 🤣 Adrian

Thank you. It’s one of my favourite objects too. Adrian

Thank you Adam. I'm still getting to grips with the RC and the challenges of controlling the stars - I'm not convinced the collimation is 100%. The ASI294MC osc processing is also very different from NB. Lots to learn! Adrian

Thank you - it was worth staying up for and given the problems I was having turned out better than I expected. Thanks Tristan. North from my backyard is pretty much totally dark, albeit restricted. It was a late night but it paid off in the end I think. Adrian

This is 20 x 60s + 20 x 120s + 15 x 180s from ASI294MC - StellaLyra 6" RC combination - unguided because I couldn't get the guiding to work. Pre-processed in APP and post-processed in PI and Affinity. As always C&C welcome. Thanks for looking. Adrian

Hi Vlad, I was careful not to mix things up but I agree that the -10C trial may not have been a good idea. I normally image at -20C but decided to give -10C a go whilst I was trying to sort the guiding. I repeated the calibration, etc. in PI and got essentially the same result which at least confirms that there is little to choose between APP and PI when used by me with my level of knowledge. As for the guided/unguided trial aspect there was virtually no difference between the two as far as star shapes were concerned; the CEM25+Samyang135+ASI294 does not seem to benefit from guiding other than some slight reduction in background noise. That said the RA guiding was not as good as I hoped; DEC guiding was much better. Try as I may I could not get the same/similar RMS in RA as in DEC when using the ASIair integrated PHD software. It was also frustrating how long it took to recover from a dither perturbation - far longer than I remember my NEQ6 + PHD2 taking using the exact same guide scope setup. Adrian

Thanks for the feedback. I used a master flat, dark-flat, dark and a bad-pixel-map in APP to perform the calibration and subsequent integration so I was surprised the BPM didn't sort the hot pixels. They were also all new calibration frames taken yesterday as I had decided to use -10 in stead of -20 degress to take the lights. I'll have another go at calibrating, etc. in PI today and see what I get. Thanks again for the help and advice. Adrian

Thanks @vlaiv - I thought I had it set but I’ll check tomorrow. Adrian

I've been trying to get guiding working with my ASIair + CEM25-EC + EvoGuide with 120MM-mini - it's proving difficult. Whatever last night I managed to get 10 x 120s guided and dithered and 10 x 120s unguided (no dithering) of M101 - the target was not relevant. The result was not what I expected. The guided and dithered clearly has a lower background noise level but what's with the hot pixels?! Hot pixels are not present in the unguided version at all - and there was me thinking dithering was one way to get rid of hot pixels. I've done my best to pre and post process both images exactly the same in PI. Am I doing something wrong? Any help or insights would be appreciated. Thanks. Adrian

Best to check the centres would still be aligned when mounted on a bar - I fear they may not Good luck with the Samyang - it's a great lens. Adrian

Or both! If you get one you'll wish you had the other I look forward to seeing the results of the modded 6D. Good luck. Adrian