Adreneline

Apologies for the mistake. In that case I cannot remember who I bought them from - I'll have to see if I can find something amongst my records. Adrian

In my case I presume it was just flexing of the cable connection to the heater element eventually gave rise to a short circuit and with no effective current limiting it took as much current as was available from the supply - mine will potentially supply 12A at 12V. I have now bought some in-line connectors so plan to fit an in-line fuse.

One might ask why dew heaters are not supplied with inline fuses in the supply cables? They all seem to come with a phono plug for direct connection to the controller.

The 365Astronomy strap I have draws 0.48 amps at 12.5 volts so R must be around 26 ohms. The HA controller does not contain any fuses (it was my first thought when it stopped working - I opened it to have a look!) and although I am no electronics expert I think it uses triacs to limit the current. If it does then it doesn't limit it enough otherwise I would not have had two straps fail in this manner. A strap melting around a metal dew shield is one thing - a strap melting around a plastic lens hood is quite another. Adrian

I've had this happen twice in the last 3 months - both times where the cable attaches to the heater element. My 3" heater actually caught fire as I ripped it off the scope - the 4" just got very hot and started to smell but I noticed it before it actually burst into flames. I was using them with the HitecAstro four channel controller. I then started using a 365Astronomy element with the HA controller and that suddenly stopped working as well - it just didn't heat up. The led indicators came on but the heater didn't warm up irrespective of which socket I plugged it in to. I contacted HA and they asked me to send the controller back for repair (at no charge), however, I received a message from HA saying there was no fault to repair - I am still awaiting return of the unit to try again. So I am now using the 365Astronomy strap connected directly to a 12.5 volt supply and hoping it behaves itself whilst wrapped around my Canon 200mm! Adrian P.S. I cannot remember the make of the heater straps - I think I bought all three from FLO a couple of years ago. The weakness in the design is definitely where the cable atatches to the strap - the strain relief is completely inadequate.

An amazing result adam for such a limited time. I really like the brown dusty regions and the star colours. Adrian

Good luck! I'm hoping I can start a project! It's looking good so far - I look forward to seeing the finished image. Adrian

I really like this image Steve, and I like @Laurin Dave's idea of a mosaic to include the Heart & Soul. I am really interested to see the results other people obtain with the Samyang 135mm and in particular star shapes at the extremities of the image. Next time we get a clear night (in my dreams) mine is ready to go with my Atik414osc alongside my Canon 200mm and ASI1600. I'm hoping to catch Lum and/or NB with the 200/1600 and RGB with the 135/414 and play at combining the two. Thanks for sharing. Adrian

Hi. I've just installed PixInsight 1.8.8 for Windows and reinstated the Starnet++ files in the /bin subdirectory. I've tried to install the starnet++ module without success; it worked fine with the previous version of PI but not with 1.8.8. Has anyone else had this problem or am I doing something wrong? SEE BELOW. Adrian P.S. I ran the command line version test and it works just fine so I'm sure the tensorflow.dll is compatible. P.P.S. I'm all sorted and up and running. My SourceForge download was incomplete. I now have the missing dll.

Thanks Wim and sorry for the slow response. I don't understand why I get notifications for some of my posts and nothing at all for others; I am afraid I did not notice your comment until I stumbled across it just now. I will have a go at your suggestion and let you know what I find. I've been playing around at trying to do identical post-processing with masters produced by PI and APP to see if I can deduce anything. Along with taking new calibration frames it gives me something to do on the endless cloudy nights! I'm half way through doing new darks right now with unity gain and offset 50 (my new ASIair - which I love - does not allow for any adjustment of offset - 50 is the default so I thought I would redo my old 56 offset darks, etc.). Thanks again for your help and advice. Adrian

That is a really striking result and inspired alternative and more worthy name. Thanks for sharing. Adrian

I like the understated colours Adam - just a hint of blue and realistic coloured stars. Very nice. This is a target I have shied away from so far cos' I'm sure I will never do it justice. One day - maybe. Adrian

Thank you Rodd. I did set out to get OIII and maybe SII but the weather went down the pan as the moon came up and that was that! I know it lacks detail but I really enjoy the wider field view that the 200mm/1600 combination offers. I also like to see these targets in relation to one another. I really value your positive feedback on the images. Thank you Adam. I know some feel Orion is a bit over-imaged but it can be so rewarding. I will have to revisit it on a clear moonless night (laughing out loud) and try to get some OIII and maybe some SII. In my dreams. I'm really pleased you like the images. I am just loving my current setup. The ASIair is great but the star of the show is the iPad app that controls it all; it is an absolute joy to use - and all from the comfort of my favourite chair in front of the fire. Marvellous! Thank you again for the kind comments. Adrian

The moon was bright and clouds intervened anyway but not before I grabbed a couple of images with the Canon 200mm and ASI1600MM-Pro. Still getting to grips with the ASIair but so far it works like magic with the EFW and EAF via the iPad. NGC1499 is 19 x 120s Ha; Orion is 20 x 30s + 20 x 60s + 20 x 120s of Ha, all unguided. All processed in PI with a little bit of noise reduction in PS. Star shapes are not too bad in the extremities of the image. All the indications are the 200mm + 1600MM are an effective pairing. As always comments and criticisms are welcome. Thanks for looking. Adrian

Excellent! Really interesting to see the different filter combinations revealing different aspects of the nebula. Thanks for sharing. Adrian

I have a ZWI ASI1600MM-Pro, ZWO-EAF and ZWO-EFW and now control it with a ZWO-ASIair and I am loving the the ease of connectivity and control via wifi. With short focal length lens (200mm) and current mount (CEM25-EC) I am able to image without guiding, certainly for subs up to 180s; even at 300s I get no star trails.

I've played around with Starnet++, Straton and AAA and the success with the latter two seems to be a function of just how non-linear the image is when you extract the stars. Starnet++ works really well as a module in PI on a PC but needs to be used in Terminal via a command line prompt on the Mac. I really like the gif - very revealing. Great job with the Eastern Veil - looks like your Epsilon is working out really well. Adrian

Take care Alan. I did too much too soon and paid the price - not pleasant. The stars will shine bright another night! Adrian

It certainly was for me Alan! I tried it with limited success and much frustration. As Carole says if your set up is permanent then that obviously helps but mine isn't and I reckon that two cameras is 2^2 problems - it might even be a cubic relationship! I don't use APT so had to run two instances of SGPro and although the PC could cope my brain struggled! Focussing two lenses meant using two focussing systems, plus an additional dew heater and associated usb and supply cables for the camera - it all got a bit messy for me. Good luck though! I hope you have more success that I did 🤞 Adrian

Thoughts abound! I've been actively taking part in this hobby now for three years during which time what impresses me has changed significantly. Suffice to say that what impresses me now is people who achieve impressive results with modest equipment in challenging circumstances and demonstrate tenacity in so doing. Perhaps a separate aspect is what "inspires" as opposed to what "impresses". I am neither inspired or impressed by Hubble images - with all that spend I expect amazing results that are 'out of this world'. I guess it would be interesting to know what impresses the editors of the two popular magazines (neither of which are scientific journals) to inspire their readers. Adrian

IC1396 with Sh2-129 maybe?

That might well work but then best not to upgrade at all. Of course one day my MBP may pack up and if I buy a new one it will come with Catalina installed and I will not be able to install PS CS6. Furthermore an old OS on a separate disc may not be compatible with the newer hardware. It seems to me you have been placed between and rock and hard place.

I don't particularly want to upgrade, although being able to use my iPad as a second screen might have it's advantages. The point of the post is that upgrading will stop a much used and popular (for AP) application from working and I for one think that is a pretty poor deal when you've spent good money on it in the first place. I have an iMac which is stuck on El Capitan simly because if I upgrade it all the music hardware I use (and apps like Cubase and Wavelab) will need upgrading and why should I have to spend more money on new version simply because Apple upgrade their OS without regard for third party applications and the investment people like me have made in them. A poor deal in my view, especially as I can run the same apps on my Win10 machine in compatibilty mode. Adrian

Compared with the NEQ6-Pro I find the build quality much higher and the robustness more than adequate for my intended use. iOptron Commander is easier to use than EQMOD and needing to use the handset is not a problem for me. HTH Adrian

I know this won't affect averyone but for those running Photoshop CS6 (and I presume earlier) on a MacOS machine you might like to be aware that upgrading your OS to the latest Catalina will stop PS from working. At the time of OS upgrade you will receive an on screen notification advising you CS6 (in my case) will no longer work and asking if you wish to continue with the OS upgrade. I was in one respect fortunate inasmuch that I spent the last few years of my employment in Education and so was able to purchase the full extended version of CS6 for Mac on an Education licence for just £160 - a bargain compared with the retail price of around £900. Neither Adobe or Apple have any intention to continue support for CS6 under the new Catalina OS; not only is there no support it won't even load or run. I for one cannot understand why this can be allowed to happen and I would be well p****d off if I had paid the full price - I am fairly p****d off having paid what I did. At least PC's have a compatibility mode which more often than not comes to the rescue. To add insult to injury I emailed Adobe asking if I could exchange my Mac licence for a PC licence and was advised they don't offer such a service. Affinity looks more and more attractive - although I am still really struggling to see how I can use RGB channels in the same way as I can so readily use them in PS. Adrian