Datalord

Here's one of this mount with an RC12.

Congratulations! We're the proud owners of the very last of these magnificent mounts. Even with my beginners problems, I'm so happy about mine. Good luck with it!

I like the uncropped version better! Here's what I meant. I just did one small amount of unsharp mask. Like I said, it's personal preference.

Nice one. I think I would sharpen it up a bit if I were you. The stars are a bit too fuzzy for my liking.

Hmm, infuriating I can't find this exact example I know I had on one of my images a few months ago. I did exactly the side by side and for some reason the drizzled seemed to have better control over the dark areas. Less noise, more smooth. I can't find it now. 😞

I'm a non-Facebooker, so none of that. 🙂 So it seems we have similar performance from the mount. I'm going to keep going with what I have at this point, since I have <0.3" at 2400mm. Any improvement from here would probably hit seeing as a limit, so I'm content.

I am, yes. Can I ask what kind of guide figures you get from your rig?

Yes, just autoslew and PHD. I've tried MLPT, with and without Sequence a few times, but it always ends in tears because of that useless software package. Something inevitably will crash and ruin the night. PHD and autoslew just works.

I often drizzle my images as well, even though I'm imaging at 0.52"pp. Like Richard, I compare the two outputs and more often than not, the drizzled image just looks better, theory or not. Added bonus is that the resolution enables poster size prints.

Spent some time on this iconic nebula. Once again I tried some new techniques using starnet++ to make starless narrowband images before combining with an RGB starfield image. It took me quite a while to figure it out and chose which colours I wanted in the final. I think I'm going to make a Warhol'ish poster with the data in different colour layouts, but for now, this is what I have. Acquisition data:

No, the only way is to try it out under the stars while you try to find your target. I would go nuts without GoTo, but I'm also an imager. For AP, the setups you are looking will only work for planetary. Don't even begin to think about using them for deep sky objects if you want to retain your sanity.

Hope you don't mind I grabbed your image and had a go at it in PixInsight. You have really good data. A few key things: ChannelMatch to move the red and blue channels half a pixel to compensate for the diffraction in the atmosphere. Has to be done on colour cameras. Second, you should colour calibrate it. Here are the processes I used, in the order I used them:

Regulars on the mount page here will know all the shenanigans I have had with my mounts. PTMD (Post Traumatic Mount Disorder) has been strong in me, so after my purchase and setup of the ASA DDM85, I carried the scars given to me by the CGX in the shape of PHD settings. I had been pretty happy (read, ecstatic) with the ASA so far, with guiding stats I could only dream about with the CGX, but tonight I did something on a whim. I increased the PHD interval from 3s to 10s. The mount responded to my trust with this: In case you're in doubt, I love this thing. It is crazy to me they stopped making these and I got the last one they produced.

I have it set up in E-Eye in Spain, so I just log onto the computer from home and roll off the roof and start my thing. The frightening part about this setup is that I'm 2000km away if something goes wrong. And something has gone wrong a time or three. I do only one object per night because sleep and I prefer more data on one object than hopping around.

Yeah, that did push it a bit more into the deep blue. Thanks.

I might be colour blind, but I can't find any purple?

Here's one with more intensity in the blue. Better?

Interesting. I actually toned it down after I stretched it because it felt like the oxygen should be more subtle.

Alright, I finished this one up. Quite a lot of work to gather all this data. I even threw away 30 more hours due to various problems with my setup. On top of that, it was my first time processing HaOIIILRGB. All acquisition data: I processed it in PI, with finishing touches in PS. Especially getting the Oxygen to come forward was done in PS, which is a godsend. The original image is 3 times larger because I drizzled it before processing. I made a HOO for the main image and used LRGB for a starfield which I masked in in the end.

Ok, blended it gently with a mask and did final touches on it. This one I like...

Wow, that's really nice. Good idea. Thanks Vlaiv, I did everything I could "by the book" and somehow it packed the wow I had from the previous, wrong as that one was. Thanks for the reality check.

Pixinsight

Yeah, it has all sorts of nasty gradients, but somehow it appeals to my wife more than the new one. I'm tweaking myself into a depression trying to make something nice of it.

So, I opened my M101 project to try to apply my latest learnings about processing and starsand whatnot. I then realised I made a huge mistake and used the un-calibrated images in my stacking, which I remember gave me grief last time. So, I redo everything. But, I'm not particularly happy about it. My result so far is less appealing than the original, which is full of wrong colour. I haven't done final corrections on the new one, but I'm curious about what the stargazers here think?

OMFG! WITCHCRAFT!