philhilo

Interesting you say blue tinged nucleus, I was getting green in last nights images along with some others, suggestions it is off gassing CO2. Didn't see this in previous images.

Took the whole family over to the Long Mynd and after some scary clouds was rewarded by a stunning couple of hours of the comet, and this was basically upstaged by the noctilucent clouds. Wow, what a night.

Great video

Taking the family off on a drive to a big hill tonight, fingers crossed.

Good job and lovely shots. Alas I think I was too late at 4am, had the clear skies but too bright despite my wanderings around the garden and peering through doors and windows to get the angle. Will defo try again Thursday/Fri am.

Very interested in this thread as I have a 200PDS with all of the above issues - has to be said this isn't a £1000 or multiple ££££ OTA, more like £200, so giving it a hard time seems a little unfair. However, I have all of the above issues, D shapes, ugly spikes etc. Am considering if it is worth spending ~ £400 on upgrading it, flocking, focuser, dew/light shield, clip cover, cheshire collimater (I have a laser but it rocks about in the aperture which makes it useless). Other option would be a better OTA, but I don't see any options that give me the reach or speed (live in Bortle 8 so need speed if images are going to be done in less than a week of good weather!) at less than a snip under £2k?

Evening all. I have a WO66 as a widefield OTA and a SW 200PDS (f4.5) on an HEQ5 Pro (groan). The mount copes as long as there is no wind, but an EQ6 R Pro will arrive at some point along with a mono astrocam. Imaging with a modded DSLR. Currently producing images that please me (not good). I want to improve my long fl images (I like galaxies). As far as I can see any new OTA at a similar 908mm and as fast (I am in Bortle 8 so I need lots of light to produce images) is going to be £1500 or more - refractors are going to be mega bucks to get the speed and fl, something like an SCT would be my best bet, a Celestron Edge HD for instance, for the future. Am I correct or have I missed some unknown OTAs? Bearing this in mind I am thinking of improving the 200PDS. I have figured out the light leaks (currently tinfoil, but upgrading to light proof material), it will be flocked and any shiny bits painted, a dew/light shield (not for windy nights!), I am going to get a Cheshire collimator as my laser collimator rocks around hopelessly in the OTA. Then comes the expensive bit, a Moonlight or some other focuser - this allegedly gets rid of the ugly offcentre diffraction spikes and solves focus slippage - which I don't appear to suffer from. All this lot is going to come in at around £400 and some hours of messing around. Will this be lost money when I do finally upgrade i.e I wont be able to sell it for any more, or is there some alternative OTA that will be noticeably better at £500 - 1000? Answers on a postcard to....OK, on the forum, and I have attached one of my better results (I have quite a few data sets I don't seem to be able to get anything decent out of but that's another story), M63, 7hrs of 120sec subs.

Amazed you got any red at all with an unmodded camera and the D2. It is designed for use with a modded camera. I have used it with both and there is nothing left of the red in the unmodded camera. It's back a long way even in the modded dslr. Interesting you get reflections as I was planning on getting the 135mm to complete my travel rig. I have an Asiair but it is powering it that's an Bottom for travel, and I figure using the 14, 50, or 135 isnt going to need tracking so best keep it simple, and I am not sure the sw sa is ever going to track or guide well enough for long exposures.

I am trying to get the hang of the collimation tool in APT - obviously this uses the camera in situ utilising the live view mode and an out of focus star. Had a play the other evening but done more research since. Similar view with PA and all the kit. This I think is why guiding around the zenith is poor with the 200PDS. Lots of flexure going on. Out of interest I can hear the mirror (or something heavy) shift when I move the OTA, do you get anything like this? I do use a laser collimator but it doesn't sit flush on the focuser and rocks about so is pretty poor.

Guiding on the SW SA with a SWED72, very nice. I didn't think that would work, but now I can see it does. Had 1st try but couldn't get an image from the qhy guidescope/ZWO120mm combination. Really need another guidecam as taking it off the other rig tends to result in grief.

Thanks to Vlaiv for those explantaions. Will read them again after some cloudy nights (my wife is beginning to think I have given up sleeping). Off topic, but its my thread, a guy contacted me about meridian flips - please contact me again, sorry, I started a reply but now I cant find your message despite hunting through many different messaging apps (not helped by another long late night, one more to go then zzzzzzz).

Awesome, thank you almcl. Once the clouds come back and I catch up on my sleep (although I hope I finally have automated meridian flips sorted so can get some zzzzz) I will get back on Startools. I did use Gimp for very quick stretches and dark backgrounds, but using the preferred settings in DSS for Startools made them impossible to process in Gimp. Inspired, cheers.

Not sure if DSS gives me the option on selecting the value of sigma (good job I have a qualification in Lean 6 Sigma, a quality and efficiency tool so I have some idea around this even after 2 nights of 2am...….and another 2 to go 8-) ). Will check it out.

Aha, somebody who has won prizes and uses Startools. That's a good thing to know. Currently everything ends up looking like abstract art, in a fog, with pepper ground over the top.

Very useful granular info - 16 dithered frames for the sigma kappa clipping. 200 should be sufficient be ok then.

Yes I am using sigma kappa clipping - not much choice with starlink at the moment. Certainly not got a perfect camera (hot pixels like stardust) and guiding is OK, but yes there is certainly a natural dithering effect.

Very similar set ups (visual but got sucked into the astrophoto hole?). Bortle 6, that'd be like being in a dark cellar compared with here (in a best Monty Python style). I had hoped to do away with some of the gradients by creating a 'dew shield' for the OTA, sealing the bottom of the OTA, tinfoil and gaffer tape on the view finder. Helped a bit but it stills looks like I have headlights beaming across my stretched images! I have no walking noise as far as I can tell, hideous gradients and lots of noise yes. Startools user, very interested. I have been trying to use it as the easiest processing software, but I cant seem to find a good tutorial on an up to date version preferably with some demo data. Is my data good or bad, I have no idea, put unknown data into unknown process and see what happens? Did you just play with it or is there a really good tutorial, so often they say do this and look at the change, but it looks the same. The wipe module baffles me presently, I hit the big buttons to see what looks best.

Last night was a great night, camera out all night clicking away on M101, awesome. But when I look at the subs this morning I only end up with 4 hours or so of images out of a potential 5 hr 30min (lost 1.30 due to leaving APT on pause, doh). So where did all that time go? Dithering is a big time loss. Living in a bortle 8+ area I can't run subs of much more than 3 minutes (even with an IDAS LP D2 filter) with my DSLR set up, and last night I ran 2 and 3 minute subs, dithering between each one. So my question is, do I need to dither between every sub? And with the suggestion that if you dither, darks are not needed, does that mean that if I do use darks (can be shot on cloudy nights) can I do away with dithering? My set up is a Canon 700D, 200PDS for galaxy season, HEQ5 Pro guiding at around 2 arc seconds when its playing nicely. all run by APT and PHD2. Bortle 8+area so even using a harsh LP filter (IDAS LPD2) I can only do 3 minute subs at ISO800. Appreciate any suggestions or comments. Cheers.

Concur with John, go EQ6 for the mount, its not a huge amount more but will be suitable for imaging (which is a black hole you are likely to be sucked into).

Oops, just found the huuuuuuuge thread on the beginners forum - going to take a while to read 30 pages but it should provide the info.

So with a lot of travelling abroad this year I took the plunge and got a SW Star Adventurer Pro (already have a bigger fully guided etc home set up). Is there any good source of info on getting the best out of it with a lens (Samyang 135mm on the way) or a small OTA? I have just got back from the Med and appear to have an image of Barnards Loop (processing in progress) using a very cheap 18-200mm lens on a modded DSLR so pleased with progress, but it really is a different game to EQ mount, OTA, software etc and hoping to save on some of the experimentation regarding effective payloads, best tripod arrangements, top dollar PA, tracking and guiding (it does have an ST4 port so it will track).

Ok, that's pretty and answers the question - yes a travel set up can produce worthwhile results. Use the big aperture of the samyang to reduce the exposure time down to a point where guiding isn't really needed (I know the staradventurer will guide but it starts to become a bit arduous as a travel/ holiday quick hit rig, had wondered about a Asiair but that needs power). Cheers.

I have no doubt the lens is good, but was more wondering what the results were like when used on a travel mount such as the Star Adventurer with its limited tracking/guiding ability

….. and my home rig is guided.