Stu Wilson

Looks very similar to my f/4 TS Optics which Alicante guided me through a couple of years ago lol. If your at ease with collimation go for f/4 with all these mods including new springs etc, if not go for f/5 but youll still have to collimate alot. HTH

led flat panel with white tshirt over it. The range

had a little go 4 u to see what youd got

M42

Yeah there's that option too. If I can't figure it out I'll try that route. It's been fine for last 5 or 6 years and last 2 session no go 😢

Got yet another night of nearly all clouds and everything going wrong. guide cam all over the place for 2nd night of trying. I think ive narrowed it down to the ST4 cable from guide cam to NEQ6PRO mound but for the sake of a fiver well find out in a few days time when it arrives. Anyway it was still there to the side of garage so i got 27 x 1 min unguided subs of M42 with darks and flats. Took filter out this time to see the difference and there is noticably more colour. Clear skies Stu

And heres my go at the above......

ok heres a special treat. My good friend Jon has said to post his data .TIFF file from star camp 2 weeks ago of the same subject...... It was taken with the same camera but on an edge 9.25 with hyperstar so is f/2 imaging. Ive processed an amazing result but see what you can get...... Not very often you get to share this data. ENJOY!! PS Youlll have to do a horizontal flip to get true orientation due to hyperstar attachment. M42 Hyperstar.tif

I agree. When processing in photoshop use the layers features and bring the original/underlaying parts through and use the gaussian blur to make them sit right. I always think M42 is like trying to process M31 without blowing it all out trying to get the fainter stuff to show. My skills are slowly picking up. The main problem is those 5 months over summer where you forget everything you've learned. Stu

I need to try that out. For the last 5 months I've had the ED80 sitting on mount waiting for cloudless sky. Its done nothing but rain. But if I get the chance I want to try that and without filter too.

Layers and reveal features from layer underneath etc. There's a good tutorial on YouTube. Called something like let's process M42

My initial try outs on layers keeping that at bay

Probably my last go at M42 this year before it dissapears behind the garage. Captured with SW ED80PRO With AA294C ProTec Camera with AA Quad band filter, guided on NEQ6PRO Mount. Consists of 90 x 60 sec lights, 10 Darks, 40 Flat frames. I think its come out very red because of the filter, moon was very close too which wont of helped. Attached is the .TIFF if anyone can salvage anything. The more i try to get out of it the bigger stars are bloating out of control too. Clear skies, cheers for looking Stu Autosave001.tif

And heres a version with a little more blue in it.

I could go alot further but ive only got the jpeg to work with. We need the .TIFF file to give it real justice. ie If you use DSS (deep sky stacker) the output is .TIFF