RolandKol

This is RolandKol Dairy: Linear Fit Clipping stacking started on Monday at 10:30... 2013 Light subs in total. (Lucky, as I have all master Calibration subs.) Question N1: how long it going to take? - My guess: 5 hours probably... (PC is quite slow... Need a new one...) Question N2: some subs were a bit cloudy... How many will get rejected by Pix script? - My guess: around 300 probably... (I need a DYI cloud sensor to save HDD space for sure.... will google about it again)

Just check your very first dark taken during a daytime... In my case, - if camera is on the scope, darks are not completely dark even if the whole rig is covered and etc.

Also, I think it is worth to mention, - if I recall correctly, Mo did Darks and Bias via APT on Windows, Lights and Flats, - via EKOS/Kstars on the RaspberryPi.

Also, try to take more of them... 100 - 150. And what about DarkFlats.... Have you managed to collect them?

I just stretched the initial "Autosave.fits" file to show as example for audience. No crop. This one is autostreched on pix without any background adjustments: The second, - Background Subtracted only: The third, - Background Divided and Normlised, later Subtracted. I would say, - not perfect, but good enough.... P.S. Mo, is this one the same, - from the cloudy night? Asking, as on my Office PC, - after background extraction it looks even better than at home .

It will take around 30sec...

Glad to see you are getting it back to normal As per desiccants, - in case you will run out of them They can be dried in the microwave and used again

Thanks guys for the compliments But I am not yet happy, - especially with the stars... Will try to re-process next week.... Plus, few clear nights are in the forecast for this weekend... maybe I will end up with 4k of subs to play with (insane...) Sadly my new Ha filter is not yet delivered

Hi guys... I am struggling to image in LRGB from my location due to the Light Pollution.... Bortle 8-9... London.... So I decided to go for a short exposures (15 and 30sec) and gain 200 to reduce noise and influence of LP. Ended up with around 2k subs (62.4GB of data) to Blink/Stack and etc... I thought my PC gonna die... At the end, almost half of the images went to the Bin And sadly, I lost most of the Green Channel due to the clouds.... You can see the result below... Heavily cropped due to the LP artifacts. Not sure if I want to go through all of that again But if you have any suggestions how to optimise the exposure/gain settings, - Would be very grateful. 2k of images to blink is not a joke! Data: L 435x15sec, R 337x30sec, G 69x30sec, B 298x30sec. 130PDS+SW CC +ASI1600MM + Baader LRGB P.S. How do people get that "brownish" background colour? I tried to add a bit of Red without any acceptable results... P.P.S. Did something wrong to the stars...

Hi hi, I would suggest to keep Flats longer than 0.3sec with ASI1600, and just in case, take around 40 subs per filter. ADU 30k (+-2k should be ok). I used gain 200 this night, and tried to do Flats on the sky using white T-Shirt... Was made to place 3 of them bent in a half (6 layers) to get Flats longer than 0.3s on Luminance and ~30k ADU value.... If you use bias subs, these also should be done at 0.3sec or a bit longer (0.31 - 0.32), - and if you want to get perfect results, avoid bias, take darkflats instead.

Hi Guys, Another M57. I had some CC spacing problems and suffered from heavy coma. This one was the test image after some corrections been done, - only R and G filters 30min each at 30sec (blue failed to autofocus after SGP upgrade... ). I have stacked them as l was curious if l can get any colour from 2 channels only Hope to add some data some day.

Hi guys, I been struggling to get a perfect spacing on my Skywatcher 130PDS + ZWO ASi1600MM + ZWO EFW + Skywatcher Coma Correcter. I do get quite good spacing using Baader derlings, but anyway some stars at the corners are a bit "coma damaged". I want to get it perfect during the summer. I am thinking to try a Variable Locking Extension, but not sure which will fit At the moment I am looking at these two, - 1 ) T2 Variable Locking Extension Ring 2) M48 Variable Locking Would be happy to get an advice on which one would fit without any additional adapters. If you have any other suggestions, I am more than happy to see them Kind regards,

Hi Mate, you will also need Canon adapter to connect the DSLR to the coma corrector Carole mentioned, something like https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/skywatcher-dslr-m48-ring-adapter.html As per HEQ5, - it will be ok for 150PDS and close to the weight limits, but it will not fit for 200PDS, you will need NEQ6 as minimum for it. As per Canon, - crop sensor will do the job, - I have not tried full frame as they are more expensive. Ignore Barlow, - it is not used in Astrophotography (at least with DSLR). You cannot calculate back focus easily as it is related to the camera you use, with Canon it is 55mm, the ring in the link will get you to the correct distance to get in the focus. You will also need a Bahtinov Mask, to get a focus correctly. Once you get your second hand Canon, - remember, batteries do not like to work in the cold... especially the used ones... So get more of them or, - check for the power adapter to feed camera during the session. Something like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AC-Power-Adapter-ACK-E8-DR-E8-Battery-coupler-kit-for-Canon-EOS-550D-EOS-600D/391307738791?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D226064%26meid%3D6384728fcc8f4ee5847adfceca3bf1c3%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dsb%26sd%3D164137136423%26itm%3D391307738791%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv5PairwiseWeb&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851 Just keep in mind, these adapters are model specific, - be careful.

I thought a lot about it... I woud stay between 2 options: Horizon vs Hypercam, - as 383L will be quite old and not so reliable... Both with 36mm Filters due to backfocus... On another hand, you can wait for ASI1600 + 31mm filters... I do not think you will lose in quality with any of them as they use the same panasonic sensor, - just the different amount of £££ can be used for joy as the different sizes of filters are needed....

I am in the list of people who were not able to get a correct spacing with SW CC+ASI1600MM on 130PDS... Standard ZWO rings were very close, but coma was present... With delrin spacers managed to reduce it, but not completely... I guess, it also depends how primary is colimated... Full in or Full out and etc... Not yet figured out...

Nice Just in case, - maybe you will find it handy, you can save your Frame/Target details in the Object list on APT, so next session simply select your object from the list and use Goto++.

Hi Ed, It's is a bit different... Imaging software like APT or NINA do not control the mount directly. The real control is done, in your case, by EQMOD, which is the main software which controls the mount, it is the main engine, the rest are the steering wheels, breaks and etc..... EQMOD calculates how fast mount has to rotate and into which direction, current position and etc and etc. Software like APT and NINA and even Stellarium, can send commands to EQMOD to change the position/target, - and EQMOD does the rest. Platesolving software (any), usually interacts with imaging software, which almost immediately passes the command/coordinates to EQMOD and to Stellarium, but only EQMOD does the rest (adjusts the position and etc), Stelarium will show the result based on the data from EQMOD. In other words, - if you managed to make EQMOD to control your mount, don't forget about it, read and learn more about it, as it is the backbone of the whole system you building around. P.S. And yes, platesolving works as you described. It is a VERY handy tool in our hobby. As I can see you even have DYI newtonian, so you probably know about the cone error and etc. Platesovling, removes all that headache... Once meridian flip is done, - if mount missed the target due to the cone error, - platesolving will adjust the targeting. All up to date Imaging software has Automeridian flip option, but it will not work if that option is not enabled/ticked on the EQMOD. Also, if you keep camera on the rig, you can do several sessions on the same target with almost ideal framing, APT and NINA both have options to record/save Framing coordinates, which you can re-use next session for re-targeting with the help of platesolving. However, there are different ways imaging software "speaks" to EQMOD, for example, in order for Platesolving to work on SGP imaging software, EQMOD has to be set to work in the "Dialog Based" mode. For APT, if I recall it correctly as have not used it for a while, EQMOD has to be in the "Append on Sync" mode.

hmmm, nope... I got Samyang 135mm F2 for a very nice price and piggybacked it on my SW 130PDS... So Evoguide was always busy... :(

I cannot recall the article or forum thread, but I do remember someone like @vlaiv explaining, - color has no effect on Flats. @vlaiv, if it was not you, - my apologies.

Have you tried darker paper? Grey or dark blue? I never tried myself, - but it should help... I think...

Plenty of time to clean the glass! Once cleaned, do some flats to check if that major one has gone away.... I do recall you had it previously and it was on the sensor.... P.S. Happy to see, things have much improved and you actually are very close to create the nice and clean image

Happy new year! just curious @Barns, any luck? I hope you have managed to sort it out

Bag clips are quite good for leftovers !)

if histogram was around 50%, that will do the job, - but simply make more of them... not 5 but 50.

result is even more insteresting... have you moved your camera since the last sesion? P.S. stacked iPad+LightBox with 1 sheet only. Flat still looks underexposed... Next time use Full ligh on the lightbox and 2 or Max 3 sheets. if it was already on full power, stay with one sheet and increase exposure a bit. Light box RGB histogram channels were concentrated in one peak nicely, - iPad was spread. I would stick to the lightbox.