geeklee

Don't worry, the STF is never "applied" to your image. It's a view into what it will look like when a certain stretch is applied. It is never actually altering your image like, say, the histogram transformation process. If STF is still enabled when you apply a normal stretch of any magnitude you'll typically end up with a white image in your view! At any point you just click F12 and take the STF off. Remember, the STF is always being calculated on the current image at that point in time so changes if the image changes and it's reapplied. For example, a later application of it after say a DBE or noise reduction would produce a different stretch. The difference viewing between a monitor and modern smart phone is usually staggering on any image - pixel size and density, screen quality etc... Linear image, STF applied: Histogram Transformation applied, with STF still enabled: F12 pressed: STF applied again, although you wouldn't usually have a reason to do this when non-linear:

Excellent images Adrian. I'm finding my OSC shots with the Samyang that seem well focused with a mask are out of focus in Red. Much more so with an L-eNhance. I'm keen to get my mono camera on it even though more focusing will be involved. For the RedCat I have tended to refocus every 60 minutes in a sequence. That's good info on parfocal filters, thanks 👍 (So far, I've only used Ha and OIII and let autofocus do its thing)

I use the original PPB (before the new micro) alongside a generic powered USB hub and so far so good. Although there's a power port from the PPB powering the USB hub so there's always a trade-off. The only thing about the PPB Advance is the number of USB ports. If you have a camera without an internal USB hub (like a ZWO has) it might not be enough (e.g. mount, camera, FW, focuser, guide cam). Also only 3 of the 4 can be USB2 (may not matter). All in one solutions are always tempting though!

If you haven't got one already Adam, I can definitely recommend a "rocket blower" (I.e. bulb blower). This will get rid of debris/dust first before going in with any wipes. Alternatively you may find just using this is enough. It's also handy to use inside the filter wheel and flattener etc. Agree with @tomato that I've read similar as the reason for the crater type appearance is from the dust moving slightly between lights and flats (although if uses the filter movement you mentioned is also possible and something to keep an eye on) I try to think any prevention is better than cure especially if you tear up and down like me. Start as clean as you can within reason and where possible keep that image train sealed.

Lovely Geof! Excellent detail and Alnitak looks stunning - so well controlled. Absolutely agree and it's always great seeing them pop up here.

That's looking great @Mr Thingy I think you can safely say that test is passed The core is tough - there's some tricks in post processing to help, but generally adding a set of much shorter exposures to the mix seems to be the way it's usually tackled.

Sensational Emil 👍

That's come out great Charles. Lovely fine detail showing in M82 (and M81) and as mentioned already, really light touch on the processing.

Great images Mike. That full disc is stunning - loads of detail and contrast.

All cracking images @masjstovel Really like how you processed IC1396 - lovely!

That's a great start, no wonder you're pleased. Without shorter exposures for the core, it's always tricky to balance the processing on M42. Some lovely detail coming through in that region.

That looks great @Rustang. Well worth the late night!

That's a great image Brendan. Lovely subtle colours coming from the edges and the central star colour too 👍

A last batch of scruffy data from the early morning at the start of the week. Targets for a 135mm lens after midnight are getting challenging with the view from my back garden so I'll need to spend some time investigating further if I'm running this rig during the early hours. Here's a wide field look at the Leo triplet and a 1:1 view of just the triplet. In the wide view, click through and look far left for NGC3596, top for NGC3593 and far right for NGC3666. 2 hours, 30s subs with the ASI533 and Samyang 135 @ F2.

Agreed, both are excellent. I really like the second, wider field - great view of the dust surrounding and in front of the Pleiades.

Here's the other method (outside PI) that was described by Olly a while back. If you have PS, GIMP or Affinity Photo you should be able to try

Sorry this didn't work out to your liking @endless-sky - there are compromises using something as simple as the above method. I've seen some tutorials that utilise the "max" function (e.g. "max(starless, stars)") but you can get harder edges on your stars if done as simply as this. I didn't think the two examples above (esp option 1) had lost a lot of nebulosity - although it was reduced a little due to the rescaling. Perhaps work on the starless one a little more before blending again? There are ways with more complex methods & expressions to blend the stars back in as well which I'm sure you've seen. Without rescaling, you will get a very bright image as it'll just add the values of each pixel together so that's definitely expected! Definitely look at Adam Block's method next.

Here are a couple of examples applied to your image - not saying they are better, just options you can try quickly to see if they work for you and give you a couple of ideas for earlier in your workflow. There are so many ways to do this, doing it right at the end on a JPG isn't the best one! Steps: Duplicate your image. Take the original image, apply StarNet with defaults in PI. On your duplicated image reduce the stretch using HistogramTransforrmation - adjust this to taste once you've tested. Run StarNet on this but with "Create star mask" ticked. At the end you'll have three images - your original image starless (A1), your duplicated image with a reduced stretch starless (A2) and the star image from this less stretched one (A3). Option 1: Open PIxelMath and enter "A1 + A3" without quotes and replacing names of images where applicable. Tick "Rescale this result" and "Create new image". Apply. Option 2: Take A2 and using some range mask effort, re-stretch the things you care about. My sloppy run on the resampled JPG below. Open PIxelMath and enter "A2 + A3" without quotes and replacing names of images where applicable. Tick "Rescale this result" and "Create new image". Apply. You can also just run StarNet on your original image with "Create star mask" and then reduce the stars and add them straight back with the addition "+" above. Check closely for any artefacts you don't like and adjust. As I mentioned above, I've seen so many methods/tutorials for performing this and I adjust depending on the target and the type of stars present (or not use StarNet at all). With a recent tutorial, I took it out of PI and into Affinity Photo to do. Check out Adam Block's website and Youtube - with Starnet his method is more straight forward to execute and very effective in it's approach (very different to above). https://youtu.be/3DdSDoJfjM4 I certainly find stars an extremely challenging aspect in my images and often fail to process to my liking. Hopefully the above gets you started, if not finished!

Lovely image - really striking colour and detail in the Flaming Star nebula. Serious integration time too - well done persevering and adding more and more over the past few months 👍

It really is. I'm mulling over options for always having it running while doing other projects (maximise that clear sky!). As always, most options = varying £ It's definitely been bad here but there's been the occasional glimmer here and there. Clear outside had me falling off my seat yesterday as it predicted Sat, Sun and Mon evening as clear! That's returned to normal now of course and mainly red What a great description Just convince him he'll get his day and to hang in there!

The image above was a mixed bag with intermittent clouds, but the worst subs were removed. I just found 14 subs (each 180s, also with ASI533 and L-eNhance) I took in another part of the sky - Heart and Soul in Cassiopeia - before I gave up for the evening. Hopefully this gives some hope that even with a cloud dodging effort of 42 minutes, this lens can still produce... something. I know, it's not great, nor any sort of finished project but it's fun in between the bigger stuff. Most of the subs had cloud of some sort if I remember right and a few might even include a telephone wire! Examples: Very quick run through PixInsight after being pre-processed in APP. Clear skies.

A first try with the L-eNhance filter on the ASI533 and Samyang 135, wide open at F2. I wanted to test the signal at F2 and F2.8 but this was a bit of a fire and forget mosaic that I set off on Saturday evening so I didn't get a chance. The L-eNhance has quite a wide band pass, but I'm not sure if I was still being impacted by loss of signal due to shifting at this speed. Anyone else using this filter at F2? I see a variety of filter combinations on the mono cameras - from a typical Baader/ZWO Ha to wider Astronmiks and even the high speed Baaders. I'd be interested in any opinions on this - especially at F2. Anyway... this is a 2 panel mosaic with a wide overlap. Around 1h 45min per panel (180s subs).

Brilliant, thanks so much Steve for adding this extra detail and diagrams. I'd been following this battery and box across this thread (and I think another) and the "under the hood" images and wiring diagram completed the picture in my head of the final product.

Absolutely fantastic result. A Sunday evening talk on the methods described in that post would be interesting too 😃

That looks great Steve (as does @SMF's version!). If you're OK with it, can you show a peak under the hood? How straightforward is it to wire and physically fit the additional terminals and switches? I really like your previous box with the Nevada supply in it too and wondered a similar thing about adding the connections to box shell itself.