geeklee

Ditto - like a lot of the more complex sets, there are some clever bits that I wasn't always sure where the build was going but came together at the end of a section etc. I haven't got round to the lunar Lander yet though. Is that two Saturn Vs or just different placement 😁

Yes 😁 Just tell yourself they're really a set 😉

Absolutely lovely @James. The full size version is a treat. Good story too with hard won data!

Was a great marathon to follow @paulastro and some cracking images along the way 👍

Nice capture. The big bright star in the top right has an unusual profile - did you resolve all your Esprit 80 challenges?

Great image. Thanks for posting here as I wanted to see it at higher resolution and quality than the mag!

Nice capture in the cloud gap. I was really hoping to capture this event as I really enjoy the double cluster (both visually and a few goes imaging) but sadly cloud looks like the dominant factor.

I'm not familiar with the Infinity software, but SharpCap also has other tools like focusing and Polar Alignment that make that price tag even more attractive if you're already looking at that as a candidate. I currently use SharpCap Pro for Polar Alignment, Lunar imagining and have dabbled in some live stacking (with live stretching etc) for EEVA.

SharpCap has the option to save all the frames you're live stacking if you want. That way you can take them away and work on them later if you wish. https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/features/live-stacking Worth a read to get a feel for the full live stack feature set but down near the bottom it says: " It’s also possible to save the individual frames that go into the stack – this can be handy to do a full re-process of the imaging session later. " If you have a good camera already it sounds worth a punt to get SharpCap Pro ( it's only £10) and give it a go.

I liked the originals, but really like and prefer this latest revision. More appealing colours to me and the crop is great too. I guess you can play about with the colours and produce all sorts of versions with this type of data?

Awesome 😀 Must get this to accompany the Saturn V (built) and Lunar Lander (still not built).

That's a good catch @vlaiv On reading this again, captions on images are the primary question. I'd misinterpreted this and thought it meant information alongside the image. For me, typically, nothing on the image is good and detail alongside it is helpful (for me).

Well deserved. 😁

How addictive will it be when the new moon comes? If you've done almost a whole month, why not keep going... two months... a year...😅 Good work on the streak though especially with the cloud.

Agreed. Perhaps a post in the APP forum might be the next step - Mabula and Vincent seem pretty good at helping out and working with data if you supply it.

Absolutely stunning. Love the colours.

Found this, which seems to indicate the master frames should/will be debayered. Not sure if you interpret the same way? https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/tutorials-workflows/debayering-handling-fits-color-frames-in-app/

Interesting, I was starting to think I was getting a sight red cast with mine. What about doing half and half with a debayered Flat, but undebayered Dark? Apologies that most of what I said was stating the bleeding obvious! Is that where the MF-1, MD-1 and BPM-1 shows against each light in the file list? This seems to happen as soon as I load the Lights & Masters and try one l-calibrated view. Thanks for the info above though. I'm going to sit down with a beer this evening and search the APP forums and also look again at my Darks and maybe to the half/half above...

Great read again @Ships and Stars Sounds like you managed plenty of targets but still had the time to spend on each one. Looking around with the binos must have been awesome too! There was a comedy picture of a Skyliner 200P next to a tabletop Dob recently... it's how a picture your 500P next to a 200P 😁

As the error suggests, I believe this is where the issue is. I've seen this before when I've not checked "Force CFA" for the Master Flat. Now your lights are force debayered but your master flat won't be according to APP. At least this is how I understand it as, funnily enough, I got this error when I tried to do some workflow BEFORE debayering as I'd read this was better. As an aside, If you've created your masters already, what is the Calibrate command doing in this workflow? To keep things simpler (in my head!) I build the masters separately then load all lights + MF (Bias subtracted with Flat Darks), MD and BPM. Then Analyse, Register, Normalize & Integrate. Of course, APP is smart enough to throw everything into the mix and let it do everything in one go. This lets you use APP's "linear" and "l-calibrated" view on the subs before you start too, which is cool. I feel loathe to hand out advice when I'm very new to AP and APP so hopefully there's something in there that's useful 🤔

I haven't done it that way, no. I sometimes restart from the home position a few times repeating the normal approach - I wasn't sure if even this was making a difference. I'll definitely do the iterative method you describe above - thank you for this info 👍 (I forget that, of course, SC is plate solving to do its polar alignment work as well)

I only called out SharpCap (SC) as you mentioned it for Polar alignment. Agreed, there are many applications out there for all the various functions - including apps that do all of it (or most of it anyway). Two game changers for me on the learning curve were electronically assisted Polar Alignment (SC in this instance) and Plate Solving. I spent 60s kneeling down behind my polar scope before I thought "There has got to be a better way than this" (I had already read that there was, but wanted to - initially - do it all manually). I hooked my laptop up to the guide cam and did my first polar alignment in 15mins with SC... this is now down to under 5mins usually. I don't find it as accurate as reported although I do work to get it under 20 arc secs in SC. PHD2 guiding assistant reports ~1-4 arc minutes usually. Next up on my learning curve is drift alignment to tweak it further. For plate solving, this was a big wow moment, especially where I have it now. I'd read up a lot about it before hand but it only really clicked in the workflow when I had the equipment hooked up. Initially I was working with a DSLR (no computer control) so I did plate solving with the guide camera in SC to get close then tweaked with EQMOD control and manually ran some exposures on the DSLR to check framing/position. This was still a huge step forward compared to manual alignment for me. When I got a camera with computer control it all came together especially with PointCraft in Apt. Goto++ with the main camera and scope - it's a beautiful thing 😁 Really! I've found myself loading an image from a previous evening, chosen solve, then Goto++ and just carry on capturing the exact (within a few pixels) same target. I look forward to more game changers for me in the future - auto focusing comes to mind. Good luck! Update: If you haven't already, have a read through this excellent document https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/

Providing it matches your mount (guessing it must as you've quoted a specific one) then yes, this will allow mount control from a computer. While guiding commands can come via the guide camera via the RJ11 (ST4 port) you wouldn't need this with the cable above. Guiding would be guide pulses sent straight to the mount from the computer (via guiding software and ASCOM connection). I've not used Stellarium so I don't know how the software itself needs setup or whether it can connect to ASCOM by default. Any programs in particular? 😅 SharpCap will let you polar align, focus, capture, plate solve and live stack (plus many more things). PHD2 will primarily let you guide but also polar align with a few methods. I'm sure you have a few more apps you're thinking of!😅 To get connected up and control the mount from the computer - the ASCOM platform and the EQMOD packages. Fundamentally, yes. You have to be within 5 degrees of the pole and be able to see at least 15 stars. There's a few other requirements - here's a good overview: https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/features/polar-alignment Hope this helps, there will be more knowledgeable folk along too I'm sure. I've recently gone through a lot of this stuff so it's mainly fresh in the mind 🙂

The author, forum moderator and some users are usually quick to assist in the APP forum as well. I've read plenty of posts where a user has supplied data that they can't get calibrated, coloured as expected and the above have taken a copy and - usually - got the expected result, explaining what they did. Or they explain why something couldn't be done.

Great post @MarcusH Some really good info in there. As a beginner, I can relate to the preparation steps and workflow. I've worked toward reducing setup time and thinking of ways to make it easier/more efficient.