geeklee

Nice image and good structure and colour tones in and around the nebula. What camera and filter did you use? Agreed on plate solving being a game changer. PointCraft in Apt is brilliant.

Thanks Craney. The 533 is just standard at the moment (except for an IR/UV Cut filter). As mentioned above, B33 was a little messy coming out of integration (gradients, mixed colour correction, obviously noisy with low integration time) but the end result looks so much better (APP and Affinity Photo get the credit 🙂).

Thanks Adam, both images needed some additional colour adjustment coming out of star calibration in APP, especially B33 - turning the Ha red instead of purple mainly. M106 started to show some colour with a little saturation after star calibration. You're right, the 533 is one of the new batch from ZWO - entry level one. I must have had one of the earlier shipments as I got it from FLO early to mid December 2019.

Over a couple of nights (30th and 31st December) I captured around 6 hours of data on M106 and a quick couple of B33 (couldn't resist having a first look). I wish I'd switched that time around now as there was either poor focusing on my part, poor seeing, some cloud or a combination of all the above to produce a mixed bag with iffy guiding at times & bloated stars - especially in the M106 image. Thanks for looking. As always all comments or feedback welcome. Equipment - Sky-Watcher 80ED DS Pro, 0.85x FF/FR, ASI533 MC Pro. Software - PHD2, Captured in Apt, integrated and processed in APP and Affinity Photo B33, NGC 2023, NGC 2024 - 45 x 180s (calibrated), -10degC, Gain 100 (unity) & Offset 70 M106, NGC4248, NGC4232, NGC4226, NGC4217, NGC4220 (some of these are being generous saying they're in the picture😂) 116 x 180s (calibrated), -10degC, Gain 100 (unity) & Offset 70

Awesome images - loved the close ups - especially Mare Serenitatis. All topped off with the huge high res mosaic. Inspiring stuff for someone looking to get that sized mosaic in the future. Thanks.

What a cracker, and even better full resolution. If I remember right, it can be tricky to balance the exposure so nothing is blown out or too dark - looks like you have it spot on. Thanks for sharing.

That is definitely the best version - really nice - good colour showing in M82. I also liked your mono version as it showed what was going to be possible with some RGB.🙂

Hi Andy - I've primarily been using the ASCOM driver in Apt at the moment (a hangover from having initial issues with the native driver). If you use the native driver, I think you just set the Gain in Apt in the bottom right (see screenshot below - top box). Using the ASCOM driver, I click Settings in the bottom right (see screenshot below - bottom box) and I get the ZWO ASCOM dialogue box up which lets you select some presets or manually adjust gain (and offset etc). Hope this helps.

Looking good 👍 Some nice detail coming out in NGC 2023 as well.

Hopefully that makes a difference. Here's the section I mentioned above about camera setup, calibration steps and calibration step (ms) The advanced button brings out the calibration parameters that you can check and then the step (ms) can be entered into the first screen (I'm not sure if it should auto populate, but mine doesn't) If your calibration is taking about 11-13 steps (has 12 above) then it should be on course to complete as expected. Here's a recent one from a similar mount (AZ EQ6) although slightly higher Declination than I should have used...

Hi @chriscoles. Is the guide speed on 0.1x on purpose? This is usually the default being pulled from a standard EQASCOM mount configuration. PHD2 recommends at least 0.5x. There's a great best practice PDF document here, that might be worth a look: https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/ Apologies if you have this set on purpose 🙂 It just looks exactly like my first PHD2 session and once I'd upped the guide speed a lot more, the calibration (at least) looked much better. Secondly, did you use the brain icon to ensure your guide step is matched as per your camera settings? The calculator options gives you a guide step in ms to enter.

Nice write up @vlaiv As always, look forward to hearing about your experiences and output on this setup when it's used 🙂

Those are great @paulastro. Love the difference with a wider field and the clouds. Lovely crescent.

Thanks Brian. It was stretched and denoised to within an inch of it's life so perhaps isn't a close representation of the data 😕. Here's two more - one a low level DDP from APP and one working with Levels and Curves and few minor tweaks (thanks again "Making every Photon Count") in GIMP. While showing less, they've had no serious noise reduction, stars are tight(ish) and there's still some nice structure in the top left. Astro Pixel Processor (APP) - 10% BG, 5 Sigma, 0% Base. GIMP levels, curves, false luminance layer

Just before Christmas, I managed ~3 hours of data of IC 443 (threw out some subs due to cloud). I was planning more data but I made such a mess of my first meridian flip that I started getting paranoid that the flipped images wouldn't be any use... so packed up 😕 Of course, some daylight (warm) reading and testing proved APP (and likely all other software) deal with these flipped images no problem 😄. Equipment - Sky-Watcher 80ED DS Pro, 0.85x FF/FR, ASI533 MC Pro. Software - PHD2, Captured in Apt, integrated and lightly processed in APP and Affinity Photo. IC 443 55 x 180s (with Flats, Darks, Dark Flats, BPM), -10degC, defaults in camera - Gain 100 (unity) & Offset 70, Bortle 5/6 While showing more Ha structure, it was getting really noisy with some additional curves, so back tracked a bit. While it's missing loads of structure from some others, I really like the top left of the "jellyfish" and the "folds/curves". As for Eta Geminorum, it's a lost cause for my processing at present 🙂

Yeah, the core might be blown out a bit, but there's so much other great detail to concentrate on in the image. It looks brilliant. 😀

Great tip @ollypenrice Thank you. Here is a quick (little OTT) low res comparison. While the main area is obviously richer, it was nice seeing more of the surrounding Ha. Thanks again.

Mmm 6 panel mosaic sounds interesting... look forward to seeing that.

Thanks for sharing, that's a cracking image. When you said 35 minutes of data, I couldn't believe the image that appeared as a I scrolled down (gives me hope!) The full size version just seems so clean as well. Nice one 🙂

Awesome 😃 Various pop science books, another Apollo 11 one and an interesting approach to solar photography...

Well, as a novice and someone who loves that palette, I think it's superb. Chasing 34 hours of integration over month(s) is admirable 👍

Nice wide field North American nebula and also cool seeing IC 1396 wide field and "close up" . Some colours I haven't seen before in these targets too. 👍

I really enjoy imaging clusters. Coming from the observation side, it's fascinating seeing the deep, rich star field view of imaging.

Thanks Olly, I've definitely come across Selective Colour in Affinity Photo (and I'm sure APP has a similar function). I'll pull out the old stacked data and try this out ... and also keep it for future sessions too.

Yep, that weather sounds about right - especially recently. Tag me if you end up hitting the same targets with the 183 - be interesting with the smaller pixels and wider FoV. Should turn out lovely. Agreed on the jump from a DSLR (admittedly not modded). One of my frustrations was the lack of computer control as it was an old, entry level Nikon. Lee