jjosefsen

Modded 600d before I went mono. It was pretty cheap to buy premodded and I still dig it out from time to time for comets, etc. Whatever you go for, I will say that modding it will be a massive improvement.

Well all peripherals such as wheels, focusers, etc. Are controlled by ASCOM so they should work. But Starlight Express is in fact not natively supported. It's hard to implement something like that without a test camera, and no developer had one, and SX didn't want to lend a developer one. But it will work with ASCOM..

Hmm I don't know too much about SGP if I'm honest, having only tried it on one imaging session. But setting it up was quite a journey, and I'm an IT guy.. So I would say these from the top of my head: User Interface - In my opinion it is so much better and cleaner than both SGP and APT. Speed - It is quite fast and many things are done in parallel. I'm not 100% certain here, but here goes anyway - I think NINA has native support for more cameras than any other software out there. And as you already mentioned, it is free..

Very interesting (and confusing thread) How would you go about resampling (is that the correct term) to a certain resolution in PixInsight? Example: Let's say I have an image shot at 1"/px and I want to target 1.8"/px because I feel like that is what my skies allow. How would I do that? Hope it's ok to ask in this discussion..

Hi Emil, I use a combination of TGVDenoise and MMT in PixInsight on the individual masters while they are linear, and before combining to RGB. Works quite well! Extensive masking is used - so TGVDenoise primarily targets high signal areas (bright) and MMT targets low signal areas (dark). Don't go too crazy while linear, the final noise reduction will be done after the image has been stretched, and I also use TGVDenoise there.

I haven't had a session in weeks, but I ran 16 without a hitch. I think the latest is fine too, they found the memory leak that was causing issues in the QHY native driver, and now you have to enable loading of those drivers in the options so it doesn't affect every non QHY user. For clarity - QHY are comming with a new driver really soon where it is fixed.

I don't have a v-curve either, more like a U, and with the new parabolic / hyperbolic fitting algorithms in the nightly releases it hits focus very well.

Does this lensing effect happen due to something on the sensor or is it the front glas?

I found that Starnet makes some pretty good starmasks, something i've always struggled with in PI. :)

Yeah that would be good, but it is a massive project to undertake I think. I do believe the next big thing comming is a rework of the sequencing funktionality and with it things like dome control and such.

Glad to hear you had a good time. I don't know what version you are using? But the later versions (1.9 and onward) are running the same autostretch routine as PixInsight, and in general that is the best implementation I have seen. In the 1.10 Nigtlies there has been a lot of work on the autofocus code, with a brandnew detection function (contrast based) and new parabolic and hyperbolic curvefitting functions as opposed to the classical v-curve functions. This is a great improvement to autofocus! BUT the 1.10 nightlies are a little volatile at the moment as there is a lot of new code being put in, so probably best to be on 1.9 or ask around which 1.10 nightly has been stable lately. My last imaging session was on 1.10.16 and that was stable enough for a fully automated night.

No you can just point it to the install directory of PS2 / ASTAP / ASPS / Etc.. Personally I use ASTAP for nearfield solving (it is the fastests solver I have tried) and ASPS for the rare blind solve.

Exactly and then point to where ever you extract the files to here: https://nighttime-imaging.eu/docs/master/site/tabs/options/general/ (Look at 6. ) Generally its a good idea to be on the Discord server for fast help if you need it, it is quite a good little community these days. Otherwise I will try and answer any questions you have, as I am an avid user and fan of NINA.

Also if you ever do get it to work, go for Version 1.9 and not 1.8. It is stable and has some very nice features.

Nice image first of all, and I think the colors are good and what I would expect to see. I do however think the the image has some "mottling" going on in the luminance layer, mostly visible in the low signal areas. This could be a result of the NR technique used, I know that TGVDenoise when applied with the "Jon Rista Method" in PixInsight can introduce this. I target this noise with MMT and heavy masking afterwards (also as described by Jon). It could also be sharpening or deconvolution. When it comes to noise reduction and noise in general I find it really hard to determine the correct amount. Personally I prefer a little smoother or softer image, without getting too much of that oily look to it. But then again some people seem to think it detracts from the image if it is too smooth.