Mr Green

Evening All, In a bad habit of sharing my images on this thread, if there's somewhere else I should be doing it, please feel free to give me a telling off and direction as to where I should do it. (Perhaps there's a thread for beginners to post on). I managed a couple of hours on Bodes Galaxy after a failed attempt on the Witch Head which I think is a no go from my bortle 7 garden. I struggled with this one mainly because I had an awful gradient that I think I tackled pretty well. Hope someone appreciates the image and as always, I'm open to constructive criticism 🙂

Thanks for doing this with my data, this looks great!!

Not a bad idea!! I just used the L-extreme filter for this image. I'll get an Sii/Oii filter at some point soon and hopefully have better results.

I've messed about trying to edit scripts in Siril and didn't have much luck. I'll no doubt have another crack at it though.

I'll have another image to process tomorrow hopefully as currently imaging the Tadpole Nebula although a little on the small side. Definitely not a bad shout to run the images through Siril for green noise reduction.

Had some clear sky last night for the first time in a month and this is what I got. Tried hubble palette but struggled and this is the result. Struggled to fix the gradient but relatively pleased.

Going back to my question with regards to achieving hubble palette with the Optolong L-extreme, I'm now tempted by the below instead of the Optolong Sii 6.5nm as I'll also get more Oiii data. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/askar-filters/askar-2-colour-magic-c2-duo-band-siioiii-filter.html Any thoughts are welcome.

Happy New Year and thanks for the reply to my thread. Keeping it simple is definitely what I've been doing so far with regards to registration and stacking. I've used Deepsky stacker for all of my images so far and have only used Siril for initial stretching, background extraction & minor colour calibration before using Photoshop. Moving forward, I planned on processing stacked images entirely in Photoshop. Blue channel always seems to be the noisiest therefore thought that using a stacked image with the Sii filter might create a better final image along with the ability to pull out more colours. Maybe I'm trying to run before I can walk, just wanted to know if my idea had any logic to it I guess.

Flats definitely work without bias or dark flats for me with regards to removing dust spots and vignetting... Maybe I'll try my next target with dark flats as suggested and have another crack at using scripts in siril. Still want to know people's thoughts on whether the sii optolong filter is worth using with the l-extreme....

I think the reason why I struggled with scripts was that I don't take bias frames with the 2600mc pro, I've read in a few places that at most, you only really need flats & darks. Siril seems to demand bias frames for the scripts to work and the other scripts that I found online that can be manually added to siril also require bias frames. The askar Oii/Sii is a good shout but if the optolong sii 6.5nb would do just as gooda job, it'd save me a fair chunk of cash to go towards something else. Will see if anyone has used this filter and can confirm I guess.

I've not been able to get my head around scripts (via siril) so thought my best bet was to use 3 separate images in photoshop for each colour channel. I almost went for the Askar colourmagic filter but went with the L-extreme instead which is frustrating. Is the Sii filter I highlighted not worth it?

Hi All, It's been 3 weeks with literally no clear skies where I am which is depressing although used the time to read up and practice on image processing therefore time hasn't been completely wasted. While I still have tilt issues after spending roughly 8 hours over 3 separate nights at the beginning of the month messing around with the tilt plate on my camera, I've now acquired the SkyWatcher Flattener/Reducer made specifically for the 72ED therefore hoping this will provide an improvement over the StellaMira Flattener I have been using. I'm also in the process of adding Astrodymium Rotating Tilt Adjusters via Flo that I hope will be easier to use than the tilt plate on the 2600mc pro. while Ive been practicing image processing, ive been really wanting to have a crack at hubble palette and was wondering the best way to achieve this. I have the Optolong L-Pro & L-extreme filters and was wondering if it was worth getting the below Sii filter. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/optolong-filters/optolong-65nm-sii-narrowband-deep-sky-imaging-filter.html My thinking is to use the subs from the L-extreme in red & green channels and Sii in the blue channel when processing via photoshop but wanted to know if this would be worth while or not. Perhaps the L-pro could work and save me some money? any feedback would be much appreciated as always. Jon

Thanks all for the help and support, it's much appreciated. I've spent way more than I should have done the past month therefore won't be buying anymore kit for a while. I think I'll take the advice of cropping images for now and do my best to focus before taking any images. I was half tempted to mess with the screws on the tilt plate and keep a mental note as to what I've done so that I can undo any mistakes..... what's the worst that can happen as my images are naff anyway.

I've had a set of spacer rings arrive today. There's 0.5mm, 0.8mm & 1mm in the set. Will adding one or two of these help do you think? I really don't want to mess with the tilt plate on the camera as I'd have no idea what I am doing and will only make things worse.

Had a response from FLO and turns out that I do indeed have sensor tilt which is pretty bad luck as fixing the issue is way beyond my limited skill set. I had a couple of evenings on the Iris Nebula this week and the images stacked fine but the tilt makes the stars look dreadful regardless of whether I am focused and guiding is running smoothly. Is sensor tilt really that common or is it worth sending the camera back and ordering another one?