Adreneline

I've been sitting on the side reading this topic with interest and empathy. At the start of lock-down I purchased an RPi3 and an RPi4 to explore the world of Astroberry and to set up an all sky camera. I decided that the pi3 would be better allocated to the all sky and the pi4 to Astroberry. Seven months later I still don't have a reliable Astroberry system I can use with confidence, i.e. set it up, go to bed and get up 'n' hours later and find it all finished and parked. I have lost count of the installs/re-installs on both the pi3 and the pi4. Even when it seems to be working there are certain aspects that have never worked, primarily 'parking the mount' - it can end up literally anywhere! I am convinced there is a fundamental problem which I cannot solve between the iOptron mount and the pi3/4. The only reason that I persist with all this is that also have an original ASIair based on a pi3 and I believe running INDI to communicate with my mount/camera etc. It works faultlessly night in, night out. It is a joy to use. I love it! It's only shortcoming which I perfectly understand and so many others rubbish is that it only works with ZWO equipment - and to be honest why shouldn't it! It communicates perfectly with the iOptron mount. It interfaces perfectly with Sky Safari. It plate solves in the blink of an eye - literally - like on occasion 0.4s! It's the easiest thing in the world (maybe a slight exaggeration) to setup and use. It has PHD built in and it works. It has a PA alignment process that works. Ok it doesn't make tea at 11.30pm just before I go to bed, set the dishwasher or feed the cat but I can't have everything - and if I don't do those things the lovely wife will cover for me. The pi4 is now in the all sky camera - and generally works. The pi3 is sitting in an old biscuit tin with it's associated wires and psu, etc. I should say I only started with Astroberry because I had an Atik camera I wanted to use - I've since sold the Atik - it was easier. Adrian P.S. As an ex-NEQ6 owner I can recommend the belt upgrade although I don't think you'll need the 2" bolster!

Wow! Not sure I've ever seen that before 😁 - the 1600 is my main imaging camera! Great image of M31 - always a favourite. I hope you don't mind but I have had a play with your image. On my screen there seems to be a strong magenta cast so I took your image into PixInsight, inverted it and removed the green content using the SCNR process; I then re-inverted the image and it produced this. To my eyes the background now looks more natural and the colour cast has gone. It must be possible to do something similar in PS but I'm not sure how. I know colour can be very subjective and this may not be at all pleasing to your eyes so apologies if I've produced something you don't favour. Adrian

Perhaps a blend of the two works better @mikey2000 ? The same image on my Lenovo laptop looks completely different to the one I'm looking at on my MacBook Pro. Adrian

Haha - I'm more of a pastel man myself but I can do that! The CEM25-EC doesn't gain any benefit from guiding that I can see at 135mm - 200mm that I use. In fact the benefit of not guiding is that I can leave it running, go to bed, and if it clouds over and then clears again I don't suffer a total hit. I got pretty fed up with PHD2 deciding to stop imaging and park the OTA because it had lost sight of a guide star. Adrian

Thank you Andrew - I'm glad you like it.

Very nice David. I really like the colours. Adrian

This is 13 x SII + 26 x Ha + 34 x OIII, all 180s taken with ASI1600 + Canon 200m, unguided. The plan was to get a lot more SII but clouds and aircraft conspired against me. As and when the opportunity presents itself I might get some more SII, but there again I might not! Pre-processed in APP, starless processed in PI and combined with starfield stretched in PS using lighten layer. As always C&C welcome. Thanks for looking. Adrian

Thanks Ciarán - that’s really interesting. I tried IP several years back but decided not to buy. I too have tried Carboni’s and Annie’s Actions with varying degrees of success. I have found Annie’s star reduction useful in the past to reduce bloat on B and OIII images but since I fitted a Hoya UV filter on the lens (Canon and Samyang) all the bloat problems have been sorted. I certainly like what you’ve achieved with my image - it seems to sit half way between my original and Olly’s approach and I agree the slight sharpening is beneficial as it helps to ameliorate the undersampling - and lack of guiding. Thanks very much for the help and advice. I shall download IP and give it a go. Adrian

I've had a go Olly using your method and this is the result .... ...... using this Curve The Background is my starless, stretched image - the top layer is my linear original image (DBE'd) and then stretched with the curve shown above. When I came to select a blend option I used Lighten. To my eye it seems to have worked inasmuch that the stars don't look 'dropped on' to the image. What's the verdict? Thanks again for your help. Adrian

Wow Olly! That is really helpful and thank you for taking the time to explain the process. I will give it a go and see how I get on. Adrian

I would recommend lots of incremental stretches making constant small adjustments to both Stretch Factor and Black Point keeping a careful eye for the tell tale coloured pixels appearing when you've gone too far. Not that I've used it much but GIMP will let you combine layers in just the same way as PS - and it's free! Good luck!

Haha! Now I find Curves are tricky things as well! I have to say I've never really embraced Curves in PS - I think I'm intimidated by them. Just to be clear are you suggesting applying a curves transformation to the image once it has been 'recombined' or just to the star layer before recombining? Adrian

Thanks Olly. The plan was to grab some OIII and SII when the UK weather permits. Now Starnet is very accessible within PI using a Mac I've started partially stretching the image, removing the stars, and then stretching the starless image a little less than it could go. I then combine the starless versions. I've found putting the stars back proves to be tricky though because the finished result tends to look like the stars have been 'dropped' onto the image and any sense of 'depth' is lost. I've tried various methods including your luminosity layer approach but it never seems to look right. I think I must be doing something wrong! Adrian

You could try making a duplicate of the image and stretching it using ArcsinhStretch to bring out the star colours. You could use HistogramTransformation on the original copy. You then have a number of options for combining/blending the two including the likes of PixelMath or another application like Photoshop, etc. Or you could use Starnet in PI and remove the coloured stars from ArcsinhStretch and replace the stars in the original image. Lots of fun to be had! Adrian

You let it out of the box! Things can only get better - enjoy!

Hi Lee, yes it is and it is my second! I sold the first one with my ED80 thinking I'd never need it in the future The little red mounts are 3D printed - I didn't want to spend more money on the mini dovetail system from ADM when I had a perfectly good spare vixen bar. It is! I'm at the realistic limit for my CEM25-EC and so went for the manual filter approach which also lessened the weight c.f. the EFW. I've since printed a mount for a SW focus motor because I found manually focussing was quite a challenge! Good luck with your RC! Adrian

Printed my own supports for the top rail so I could use an existing bar to mount the guidescope. Since upgraded with the Baader Diamond SteelTrack. I got mine at the end of July but it's not seen much use to date although I was very pleased with my first images. Now with Baader. Adrian

Well the tension is at a minimum and the amount of rotation is also minimal. The WO tube ring combined with the ZWO camera support make the whole thing very rigid all the more so because I have a reasoable amount of seperation between the two support. I have glued a toothed belt to my Samyang to pretty much negate backlash and provide excellent repeatablility but I've not been able to bring myself to take that step with my Canon lens yet.

This is 26 x 180s of Ha taken with the Canon 200mm + ASI1600 + Astronomik 6nm Ha filter - unguided. Testing out my revised setup - the WO mount can be made to snuggly fit the 200mm as well as the 135mm Couldn't resist adding a starless version. Adrian

Very nice indeed Richard. I might have to give this one a go myself although RGB from here is pretty disappointing. Just looking on Sky Safari I think it might be better suited to the Canon 200mm rather than the 135mm? Thanks for sharing. Adrian

Very nice collection. I look forward to seeing the next one in line! Adrian

Haha! 6mm! Trust Astonomik to be different. I'm afraid Astrodon and Chroma would require me to dig far deeper than the bottom of my pocket! I also have the Baader NB filters but was never happy with the 8mm OIII, hence the change to Astronomik. I rarely image in LRGB because the light pollution round here is so high. Again I stress I am not that discerning - I can live with the dodgy stars in the corners and the minimal vignetting - at the end of the day I usually crop them out as part of the alignment process in PI. I try to put what I am imaging in the middle of the frame and if others are more interested in the corners of my images (as some clearly are) then that's their problem and not mine. Just as an aside I have also used my Canon 200mm f2.8 lens with the same setup and get just the same amount of vignetting and dodgy stars in the corners. I am confident I've got the spacing right - it's just the way it is. HTH in your deliberations. Adrian

I use the Samyang 135mm (at f2.8) with the ZWO EFW (8 position), filled with 1.25" Baader LRGBC and Astronomik Ha, OIII, SII filters with the EFW attached directly to the ASI1600MM-Pro (set up as in photographs above). I find there are no problems with vignetting that flats cannot sort. FLO sell the ASI1600 packaged with either the 1.25" or 31mm filters so I guess that is some sort of endoresement that the pairing works. I am very happy with the results that I get but then I am not as discerning as some. Adrian

Set up my cobbled together all sky camera last night in a hope I might catch a glimpse of a Draconid. I was capturing frames from around 10.00 p.m. through to 6.15 a.m. with significant periods of partial and total cloud cover during the night. This frame popped up just prior to dawn breaking. Clearly shows something but not quite where I expect to see it. North is at the bottom of the picture - Pole Star pretty much dead-centre. I have to say my limited experience of imaging meteor showers is prepare for total disappointment, either due to a lack of meteors or 100% cloud cover. Adrian

Hi Francis. Nice set of images. Can I ask if you have made any adjustments to the collimation or are all your images so far just as the scope came straight out of the box? Adrian P.S. I tried to image Mars with mine last night using an old IMX225. My first attempt at planetary imaging turned out to be far more difficult than I imagined and no way am I posting the results on here! It was a good learning exercise!