geeklee

Lovely image. Great colour and the structure & depth to the nebula is awesome. The dark dust is really coming through as well.

Totally understand and I may not have been clear enough. It would be interesting getting the image pre-processed in APP (calibrate, analyse stars, register, normalize, integrate) as you've done but then taking that unmodified output stack and putting it into PI. Then running the default STF against it. See what's there before any work. It may be you already did this with the above images. Doing any sort of DDP in APP then trying more post processing in PI may be limited as the image will be stretched already and non-linear. Apologies if that's still clear as mud 🙂

Two totally different colour outputs - both attractive 🙂 It would be interesting what just the STF in PI applied to the unprocessed APP (without DDP etc) output looks like - see if the wispy stuff is there.

Nice detail and colour in the core area there. Was there more subtle detail that's been lost with the black point maybe being clipped at some point, or noise reduction? Just wandering as the detail you've got in the core and surrounding area could mean there was more around it too. No criticism intended there! 👍

Great image @wimvb especially on Arp 214 and the detail running through the structure. Nice to see these different galaxies. Given your scope and camera, I guess the size is quite small? (not sure if any cropping has been done) - under 10 arc minutes or am I way off?

Woh! What a beauty opened full size. Pin sharp! Brilliant 👍

Thanks @ollypenrice Very interesting video. I had never realised the size of the operation. Some other good videos on Atik's channel too.

Great image Adam. Loads of subtle colour and detail even with the selected palette.

The Jellyfish nebula image is fascinating. There are probably lots out there in the Hubble palette but I'm personally not used to seeing it like that. Brilliant detail as well. Awesome 👍

After not being able to get outside for deep sky AP for most of Jan and Feb I was getting greedy on 8th and 10th of March. With the moon almost full on both occasions I took the opportunity to try and get a short amount of time on targets I wanted to capture earlier this year. Although low integration time, I was pleased with how both came out the post-processing factory given the lack of quality control I applied to pre-processing the subs. Both pre-processed in APP and post processed in PixInsight. Equipment - my SW 80ED with ZWO ASI533 camera. M81 and M82 (77 x 120s) Apart from some poor fringing on some stars, I was pleased with the outcome for just a couple of hours and have spent a good amount of time afterwards looking over this for extra detail. While APP was run on mainly automatic, I spent at least the integration time post processing in PI being careful not (I hope)to overdo it. Double Cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884) (120 x 30s) There's a few hours of M51 still floating about too, but I'm not sure what I'll be able to do with that so it can stay on my hard drive for another day. Further details on Astrobin link in my sig. Thanks for looking.

Nice Adam. You must be pleased with M82 - some good detail starting to come through with the integration times creeping up.

That's coming along nicely @dannybgoode Do you have Deconvolution and HDRMT in your PI toolbox? The latter might be able to tease something out those bright core areas.

Good view. I've tried to replicate with the AZ EQ6. It doesn't seem to clear that gap easily. The threads of the bolt are just engaged here. Width across the wide bit of saddle part of the losmandy is 73.5mm ... which I've double checked but can't be right if yours is 74.7mm...

@oymd I can definitely see how the bolts might just pop off when positioning something on/off the saddle - especially something like a C11. I just had one bolt pop when taking the above losmandy plate off and I thought I was being fairly careful - it didn't even have a scope on it! Be interesting hearing thoughts on this from more users.

I was wondering if your losmandy plate could be slightly wider... but they're a standard right? 🙄 This is the plate in my photo: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/stellamira-universal-losmandy-style-dovetail-bar.html Admittedly I thought there was much more travel in the bolts until I did this test! I usually have an 80ED on a dovetail as well.

No problem. Without an adpater (manual or tracking) it's time consuming as you're trying to move the camera over the eye piece and you're watching on your phone as the exit passes a bit then back again then 90% then 10% etc. The adapter at least lets you attempt to move it into position little by little and with a logical, step by step approach until you're happy. Then it should be solidly in place and you can concentrate on focus and framing. Take plenty of shots like you would with a DSLR and one or two should catch the seeing right too. It always seems to end up looking better with the eyeball though! 😅

HI @oymd Mine are definitely the same size and the bolts catch very late but still have what seems like a solid 5mm left of travel to tighten up. I've attached some photos but I think they just prove we have the same bolts 🙂 Distance after tightening: Bolt against saddle: The bolt has just caught in this picture and it measured ~5mm left of travel but when it was tightened it felt solid.

Thanks Geof. The phone is a Google Pixel 2 XL and I had the adpater on the eye piece yeah. It's a tricky thing to use (as it's not the best quality!) but if you take 5 minutes to get the lens fully over the eye piece opening, you can then use the digital zoom to concentrate on focusing as best you can then frame and (before it drifts out of view!), settle, and tap very gently on the "take photo" button 😅 There was some magnificent detail showing that night - these are another two quick crops/resizes from the phone - the detail on the terminator is lovely although not that sharp in the photo! Interestingly, the focus/clarity falls off sharply away from the centre with the phone at the eyepiece (really shows in the second full disc image). Could be user error 😁

This started as an observing session with my Skyliner 200P but when my 5mm eye piece (x240) actually showed a fairly steady and sharp view for a change (I can count on my hand the number of times this eyepiece has been used) I took some photos with my phone at the eyepiece and then put my ASI 533 on the dob (all manual, no tracking so limited stack size and using AOI in PIPP to get frames with target). Some really good shots for me to spend time viewing and comparing to maps after processing. Full Disc (~100 frames stacked) Mare Imbrium - Montes Apenninus, Archimedes, Cassini etc (~75 frames stacked) Clavius, Maginus, Tycho (~75 frames stacked) Below is Clavius again, but through the eye piece with a phone - the visual view was much much sharper (proper "wow" sharp that night)

Ditto.

Not at all and try not to get disheartened. As mentioned by @alacant and @vlaiv include a pre-processing element with a suitable calibration routine - specifically flats to help with the aforementioned vignetting. It's unfortunate that by default, the Nikon D3xxx series does not easily support software control (it's one of the reasons I stopped using my D3100) due to lack SDK support. As already mentioned, the Nikon should have "Bulb" mode where a timed exposure beyond 30s can be done - I have previously used an intervalometer for this. You can set a shooting plan on these then press start and walk away - it'll take X number exposures of Y duration with Z interval between.

Nice image Adam with good framing of Orion too. You're right, you can definitely recognise the flame nebula by Alnitak. Anything in my imaging train usually gets a treatment from a "Giottos GTAA1900 Rocket Air Blower" before going together. I've found this brilliant for clearing unwanted dust and light debris. Not sure if that could still work on a DSLR body and lens (with care!) I've found focus with a DSLR (by itself) very tedious as you mention. Live view helps but I've found continually taking shots as you go up to infinity focus, inspect on camera for best star shape then work back slightly until you're happy. Not exactly a bullet proof approach, sorry!.

Definitely some good data in there. As already mentioned the gradients are strong and hard to remove. Here's a quick 5 mins in PI - purposely overdone to show the data there and some star colour too + rotated.

Brilliant image, love it - framing, detail, colours... I've had the added bonus of revisiting it each time a new comment sticks it on the unread feed - even better 😀 👍

If there's any DSLR users out there that may have had any of the same comedy moments below (you'd think I'd learn to listen to the shutter after the first one!): Getting everything setup including guiding, setting the intervalometer program. Clicking start button on the intervalometer and tip toeing away. Wait for the initial interval time and peek out and think the lights on the camera etc are all looking as they should. Pop out after the plan should be finished (lets call it 2 hours to be kind to me) and realise I didn't actually press start properly so nothing happened. As above but on a different occasion, but when I pop out after the plan should have finished, I realise this time I hadn't switched the camera to "Bulb" mode after using shorter exposures for focusing. So, again, nothing happened even though the intervalometer tried! I was very glad to get a dedicated astro camera even with the extra complexity it might bring - at least I could see on the computer that things are actually happening (The above was with an older camera I had that couldn't be connected to a PC) 😅