david_taurus83

My effort with a combination of Pixinsight and Photoshop.

Mild crop of all frames to take black edges off.

Skipped DBE with this as I felt it gave too hard an edge and not enough fall off from edge of galaxy to background

Pixelmath to combine Ha and Red (ha*0.8)+(red*0.4)

Combine (Ha/R)GB

Colour calibration / background neutralization

Repair HSV Seperation

Mild RGB ArcSin stretch

Further histogram stretch

Histogram stretch to Lum

Combine LRGB

Move over to Photoshop.

Mild levels, curves

Carbonis Astronomy tools increase star colour, star reduction, contrast enhancement

Mild colour saturation

Back to PI

Another round of mild star reduction with Morphological Transformation (with star mask)

Couple of mild iterations of dark structure enhance to bring out some of the central structures and spirals

Range mask over the centre and some tweaks to hue and saturation.

Thanks for the data. I normally struggle with LRGB but really enjoyed working with this!

9 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

QHY all the way, steer clear of the AA cameras...👍🏼

Bad experience? I'm on the FB page and don't see many issues reported. They are also quoting their version of the IMX571 cameras as having lowest read noise of the bunch.

The EQ6-R is the much better option, if you can find one. Are the astronomy shelves in Oz as bare as they are in the UK right now?

8 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

Good luck.

Just remember AP is very frustrating. 2 steps forward 1 step back. Keep at it and you will get the WOW moments. I have only been imaging for about a year (actually I only got my first scope in January last year). Don't expect miracles but the results will come with some persistence.

This is mine from a few weeks ago so it shows what can be done from 'nothing'.

That's a really nice M51!

I currently use NINA with my mono camera. It's very good but takes a bit of getting used to. It has good automation if you want to just set up a sequence and just hit go, as it doesn't need much user interaction if you have it set up well.

 APT is also very good and is better suited for a DSLR user imo. It's not as 'automatic' as NINA and needs a bit more hands on approach but the UI is easier to navigate for a beginner. It has a Live View function just like your DSLR so handy for focusing. NINA lacks this function, or at least a decent frame rate Live View I find anyway.

PHD2 is pretty much the benchmark for most people who use guiding. Follow the on screen prompts to do a dark library for your camera,  make sure you have the correct focal length for your guidescope selected, run a calibration and then use the guiding assistant to give yourself some settings to start off with. Dont be disappointed if results aren't great at first, things can always be tweaked and improved.

I wrote a tutorial on setting up platesolving in APT a while back. I haven't had any complaints yet so it must work for most people!

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/334568-setting-up-platesolving-in-astrophotography-tool-apt/

It's up to you, but before you spend your money you should try first with your current camera and see how you get on. A standard DSLR can image galaxies and brighter DSO's. The mount is also the most important piece of kit. No point having a super duper camera if it's imaging wobbly stars!

How do they calibrate your lights? Have you tried?

Is your PC USB2? When I bought an ASI1600 I had some issues with dropped frames, connectivity etc. It turned out to be my laptop (Win 7 USB2) didn't like USB3 devices. I bought a new Win 10 USB3 laptop and the issues went away. 

You might want to rethink the size of that picture, in case a few stowaways might take a fly by one night!

1 minute ago, el_hop87 said:

Almcl - thank you! very positive at least to know that it is in the right position and there somewhere! Is the image you attached one that you've taken? Thank you for your advice! 

Pete_81 - thank you for this. I would love to take longer exposures but seem to get star trails around 22seconds using the same equipment - I know guiding is the next step but not in the position to invest in this yet (plus I feel I need to consolidate the basics!) 

Sounds like you are building a very useful tool to help there, great idea and am sure many will appreciate that (myself included!). 

 

That looks like your picture!

How have you polar aligned? You should be able to do better than 22s.

This is a bit of a damning report for the Esprit range! Are these issues apparent with new scopes or is it a collection of experiences since the Esprit was released? I've seen a thread where recent Esprit 80s had issues.

Try sliding the left slider to near the bottom of the histogram in Levels. Or in curves drag the centre of the line down a little. What you don't want though is the histogram all the way to the left. I used an app on my phone to pull the curve down on this.

Have you tried to slew to a target using the list in APT? 

You sure you've not selected the Experimental PHD in the guide tab? The one used for syncing 2 instances of NINA for dithering?

Can't say I've had any issues with it myself. I usually connect everything with the power on button in NINA. The only bug I've come across is if I clear the calibration within PHD, it gets ignored if following the sequence in NINA and will usually just start guiding regardless. I have to manually reset and start calibration from within PHD if I want it.

I had the Altair 102EDR. Was a very nice scope. I bought it for visual but inevitably stuck a camera on the back lol. It got good praises about how sharp the views were when I brought it to the astro club one night. Also had a 70mm quad from Altair and currently now use the 80EDR for imaging. The only niggle I have with them is the locking ring for holding 2" nosepieces. It can be very hard to tighten without turning the focuser as well. But it's just a personal niggle. Can always stick a Clicklock or thumbscrew adapter on there. Altair are UK based and cheaper than WO and TS as far as I can tell from browsing.

Wow!

Looks great Adam! What's the bit at the back for?

Have a look here

It's on the APT website. There's a list of compatible cameras. Apparently the D90 needs a serial cable? Don't know what a DSUSB is!

The blurb says the D90 is compatible but you need a serial cable or DCUSB, whatever that is? 🤷

14 hours ago, barrie greenwood said:

Thanks ill give it a go tomorrow I'm using a nikon d90 that I can't connect to the apt program as there is no lead that will work apparently so if I set the delay on my intravoltmeter to allow the move and settling afterwards it may work 

Regards 

Don't think that'll work. APT needs to know when the picture has been took. You can't time it.

Both APT and Nina can do both, albeit with different input. Nina has the advantage of a framing wizard where it loads an image of your target and you position your FOV where you want to image, add it as a sequence and away you go.

Are you using a wedge? How have you polar aligned?

In the Guide tab set it to APT Dithering. Then set the frequency between images and the distance. Try 12 for distance to start with. You don't want it to move by a huge amount but it should be fairly noticeable between subs. Keep the settle time something like 5 or 10 seconds as it will give the mount a chance to clear any backlash in RA if its present. Make sure you have the correct focal length entered in the Tools tab as APT will need this to calculate the number of steps to move the motors.

You can practice this during the day. Try and focus on something far away ( like a tree) and setup an image plan. Get it to dither every 5 frames. It should take 5 images (short exposure during the day) and then it will move the mount slightly before starting the next image. If you can focus on a tree or something for away you should see the tree drift slowly as the mount is tracking but every image after a dither should jump slightly to a different position and then repeat for 5 frames again. That way you can tell its all working and your ready for the next night out. 👍

Hi Barrie

You don't need a guide setup or PHD2 to dither. You can still do this with APT but it does need to be connected to your PC so EQMod or similar. I done a project a while back with 30s exposures, no guiding and APT set to dither the mount every 5 frames or so. Works very well.