david_taurus83

What equipment will you be using?

Are you just using a tripod? Not a tracking mount?

How long were the exposures?

I have both AZEQ6 and AM5. The AM5 would not be a good mount for an Esprit 120. I wouldn't put much faith in its guided performance beyond 500mm but for a small compact setup it is excellent though expensive. The AZEQ6 is my second one. I sold the first a few years ago in a mad fit of downsize fever, regretted it and bought another when we moved house. Works great with my Esprit 100 and now have a 200P on it. I would say that 1000mm focal length is probably on the limit of its capabilities but overall, a solid performer.

Sticking with Orion this week, was awarded a few hours clear sky last night despite the forecast for cloud and fog. Managed to nab 3 hours on this before the moon got too high as well though the nebula is fairly bright itself anyway. Also a good opportunity to get some more testing on the 200P. Have learned from last night that flats are needed each night and PHD calibration is worth redoing after a meridian flip! So far, I haven't touched collimation since it went on the mount! First image from the rejuvenated 200P 45 x 60s each LRGB binned 2x2

Top one is my favourite. Very nice!

Thank you! The top one was the first and only image I managed to process in Photoshop. It took me a few days to get it right. That's one of the reasons processing always seemed daunting as I could go round in circles for ages. Now about an hour in Pixinsight is enough. I have come to believe the less steps in processing, the better and certainly more enjoyable now. The top one, I always felt was a bit too red. Even the latest version, I had to pull back the red channel slider a little at the very end as the dust was too red.

Yes, I don't mind bright stars being big as long as they have that nice outward glow and not those filter induced halos! No, just used the framing tool in ASIAir. I think I bought the Air at the right evolutionary stage as its as good as anything PC based now.

It never gets old, does it?! Been a couple of years since I last took aim here. Last time it was with my Canon 6D, IDAS D2 filter, Altair 70EDQR and AZ-GTi mount. I was impressed with the amount of signal the 6D could produce. Result was this after about 5 hours: This time round it was shot with the ASI2600MC, Redcat 51 and AM5 mount. No filter this time. I shot a series of shorter subs for this as well, 5s, 15s, 30s with the intention of making a HDR frame for Orions core. Turned out I didn't need them as the wells on the 2600 are that good that 60s subs didn't blow out the core. As I said, no filter so stars are a bit bigger but no halos or reflections either. Lots more signal, about 4.5 hours worth of 60s subs.

Geez, who knew a bit of fun thread could turn so pedantic.

I did say if the distances quoted by Skysafari were correct.. And given the scale of the objects we are talking about, in my mind, the millimetre matters!

Just tried to work all this out on the calculator for fun. Assuming approximate sizes and distances on Sky Safari are correct: A 10mm diameter Sun would be 1.060m away and the earth would be a piddly 0.009mm in size, roughly 3 camera pixels wide! If we reverse the scale and make the earth 10mm wide, then the Sun would be 1.090m wide and be 115.631m away. To put into scale the vastness of space itself, if the sun was 10mm wide, then our nearest cosmic neighbour, Alpha Centauri, would still be 296.542km away! 🤯 That's like placing a marble sized Sun in London city centre and travelling all the way to Liverpool to get to the 3 marbles that make up Alpha Centauri!

A cheap SVBony 1.25" one would be fine. I got one for a tenner I think. It passes the TV remote test so works as intended!

Are you using the latest developer version? I had issues this week with PHD calibration. When I'm pointed to Dec 0 I always click on the brain button, go into the guide tab and reset the steps. It usually goes to 500 steps or so but after experiencing issues, mount not moving, PHD hanging etc when I tried to reset as above again, the steps always defaulted to 10000. If I remember correctly PHD offered a recent update to the developer version... I installed the normal version and my problem went away.

I've had both! Both lovely scopes but if I had to choose again I would get the Altair petzval again. Very good correction to edges with a full frame Canon 6D. Better than the Redcat I currently have. Prob one of my regrets of kit I have sold. Edit: You can't use the petsval for visual observing so if that's an issue go with the WO.

Wanted to try M51 or M63 the other night as they are the kind of targets I am hoping to do but they were way too low still so opted for M81 to test. I used the previous nights flats but they haven't worked. Can only assume a mirror has shifted slightly so I guess it will be flats every session as well. Guiding was poor as well but so was the seeing and transparency, had to throw out a handful of subs but most were OK. Star shapes look OK to the edges so I guess collimation isn't far off at all.

No, quite the opposite with the GPU. I have a normal 200P and I fully expected to have to drill the ota and move the cell up the tube. I was surprised to find the GPU moves the focus point out quite a bit. The Steeltrack is at focus at around 25mm out! It looks relatively clear here for a few hours hopefully so will maybe try a more demanding target and see how I get on.

Nothing to be improved? I suppose the true telling will be when I try a smaller fainter target. Surely you recognise above?!

New-old territory for me. Like many others, I started off with a scope way to big to handle for a beginner getting into imaging! The venerable 200P. After downsizing a few years ago and going through a number of refractors I am back again with another 200P ready for galaxy season, hopefully! This time round I have made a few upgrades. Have cleaned (and scratched!) the mirrors Have fitted a mask to the primary to cover the clips Tube is fully flocked Baader Steeltrack focuser Collimated with an Ocal collimation camera GPU coma corrector DIY flocked dew shield Managed a short first light last night for some testing. One good point is I simply took my imaging kit off my Esprit flattener and fitted straight to the GPU coma corrector and focus point for main camera and OAG remain the same. See below test images. Single 60s sub, master flat, 20 x 60s stack and quick process up to non linear. Apart from a couple of wobbly stars which may be improved with some tweaks to polar aligning and guiding, is there anything that jumps out to the experienced Light Bucketeers that says collimation issues or anything else? The OAG shadow on the left is an issue but I'm reluctant to move the prism as its perfectly in focus and can crop out if concentrating on smaller targets. Any help or comments appreciated!

How would you translate gain value to PHD anyway? Pretty sure it only goes up to 100. Is that 400 in real terms?

Have a look here: https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?threads/unscreening-and-re-screening-recombining-stars-with-starless-images.18602/ You don't want to use the stars image generated by Starnet (or StarXterminator) You should create a copy of your image and run the star removal process on it. You then use this to separate the stars from your original image and they should have the same colour (if OSC) and intensity as the original. The Pixelmath function is: ~((~original)/(~starless)) Once you process your starless image and want to add them back in the function to use is: ~((~starless)*(~stars)) This is the best method I have found to work.

Looks good to my eye Steve, well done!

A first for me. The unthinkable from a Bortle 6 location. Imaging without a light pollution filter... 18 months ago this would have been impossible from my old address with 3 bright orange sodium lights permanently peeping over the garden wall. As luck would have it, no streetlights invading the garden here and a good view south. Imaged over 2 nights the other week when we had the cold snap. Spent a few hours on main Orion area (yet to process) before moving up to the Rosette for a few hours. 115 x 180s subs (5 hours 45 min) Redcat 51 and ASI2600MC Looking at it zoomed out you would be forgiven for thinking there is some weird gradient going on but I think it is dust. Lots of it!

I have the AM5 and though it's a cracking little mount, I'm not sure it would cope with a large scope. I would say your GT81 would be fine if you were imaging at 2 arc seconds per pixel but I think anything finer than this and you would start seeing oblong stars. I use mine with a Redcat 51 and 2600MC so 3" resolution and its fine with this. I use the ASIAir to control and guide it and it usually guides within 1"RMS but I've always thought the Air guiding stats are a bit optimistic.. My main setup is an AZEQ6 mount on a pier and it's a great workhorse. I appreciate your concerned about the weight and will be setting up on a tripod each time but for larger kit, you can't beat a tried and trusted EQ6 class equatorial for reliability and performance for the price.

Thanks all, I've just left it on charge in the shed until its needed again. As long as I can get a full session out of it, I suppose it'll be OK.