Hallingskies

Might be worth sticking some desiccant in there as well, just to dry out the trapped air.

My LED beanie...

It’s more about conditions than equipment, I reckon. On nights of good seeing, the Avalon will turn in a guiding rms of around 0.5, whereas the best I ever had from the NEQ6 was about 0.8. But those evenings are few and far between. Imaging at around 550mm fl, anything better than 1 seems OK, and the NEQ6 got the job done most nights. The Avalon is better, sure, but not FAR better in that respect. But it is VERY pretty, very quiet, lighter (much easier to handle) and extremely accurate on goto: the alt-az adjustments are much better than the NEQ6 and therefore it is much easier to accurately polar align. In fact, the one upgrade to the NEQ6 I would consider would be this one... The alt-az bolts on the NEQ6 are pretty crude and can chew up the alloy casing after a while. Mine looks ok, but I could imagine that over tightening them could cause some damage - something to keep an eye on with older mounts.

Your concerns about the electrics are reasonable I think, but the NEQ6s seem to be fairly robust old beasts! I have had an NEQ6 for over 10 years. It spent 7 years being wheeled in and out of a garage and a further 3 years in a observatory. I occasionally wonder about belt mods, sprung-loaded worms, bearing regreases etc, but I’m a great believer in not fixing something that ain’t broken... I finally replaced it with a second-hand Avalon but I have no intention of selling the NEQ6. The Avalon looks and sounds nicer and is a more accurate go-to mount, but its astrophotography performance is not hugely better than the 10 year old NEQ6 IMO given my usual seeing conditions.

Each IKI narrowband image selectively stretched/sharpened/smoothed/contrast-adjusted to highlight background nebulosity without burning out the "propeller". Starnet++ run on the three stretched images. RGB combined using Ha = red, 50/50 Ha/SII = green, OIII = blue. RGB star layer prepared from unstretched narrowband data, combination as above, then pasted over starless RGB in "screen" mode. 25% Ha luminance layer added. Image rotated 90 degrees and mirrored to reflect real sky view. Saved as JPEG, 10% compression for upload All non-Starnet++ processing done in PaintShop Pro7.

https://www.ventusky.com/

Absolutely. In the absence of 3 micron narrowband filters, just expect a bunch of background noise if you take long exposures in bright moonlight from hazy suburban skies.

For what you pay for it, I think CO is an excellent service. It’s usually pretty good on the day as far as I am concerned

Whilst I hesitate to give an opinion in case someone sneers at me for being a steam engine enthusiast or something like that, I would say that one thing in favour of both Starlight Xpress and Atik CCD products is their superb (and local) customer service - even for old or second hand equipment. I have no experience of (say) ZWO, but they would have to be REALLY good to match SX on that front....

Thanks for that, and for the link. Very helpful of you.

I've been gathering subs on IC59-63 but there is some nebulosity to the east of that that is nearly as bright, at least in H-alpha... Does anyone know if that little knot of nebulosity has its own designation? I can't find it on any of the maps or planetaria that I have. Please enlighten me if it has...

That would cheese me off, especially on a 20 min exposure. I often wonder why we let our general populace buy explosives to detonate. Recent events prove beyond all doubt that some of them ain't the brightest, and are definitely not smart enough to be trusted with stuff that goes bang. I like fireworks (when I'm not imaging!) but I would always go to a show (once upon a time...) rather than waste good money letting a few pathetic squibs off in my back garden to frighten the neighbour's pets and the local wildlife. Bah humbug....

individual channels selectively stretched and then RGB combined in PSP (HSO = RGB). Image cropped and rotated to match actual sky orientation. Curves adjusted to bring out the red in the nebulosity because that's my own preference: predominantly green or blue emission regions just don't seem "right" to me, but then I am an old fossil... I tried to keep the processing simple and was keen to try and preserve the "swan" at the heart of the main nebula. There is a wealth of data in that central region but I resisted the temptation to over-sharpen the nebulosity as I wanted to retain the softness from visual observations I have made of this summer beauty. The data was so good it didn't really need much else doing to it. Perfectly round, tight stars across the field, so any form of star reduction was simply not required. Almost zero noise or gradients, so very little noise reduction needed (a very mild edge-preserving smooth used at the end). Think I might sell all my gear and just play with IKI data instead!

+1 for a dome! Before that, I used to set up a screen around my observing pad, mostly to block out stray light but it also stopped the breeze as well.

Hi Alan - PM sent.

I have had an owl flying into my observatory through the dome slit twice in the past couple of years, once while I was actually in there! Frightened the living wotsit out of me. Fortunately they only left a feather or two behind....

I use ordinary Thinsulate gloves and button-push with a rubber-ended pencil! Not so easy for anything else though!

Thank you for the information. I did think about getting the “stick” version a year or so ago but didn’t for some reason. Now it seems I’ve missed the boat! Ho hum...

Alan: Thank you for the reply and for your generous offer. I have the V10 already and indeed “manually” lifted the folders from the disc into Win10 on my new(er) laptop and it runs fine for most things. However, I can’t do things like input new comet ephemerides or CCD chip sizes for field framing. I have a workaround where I do that in XP and then copy the whole data file over to Win7/Win 10 - newer versions of Windows won’t let me edit the individual lines directly. It’s a minor thing but I think the V12 loaded and ran directly on 64 bit W10. I suppose the freebies like Carte Du Ciel are out there now, but I am so familiar with SMP that I am loathe to change to a different planetarium programme. I guess I’m just “resistant to change” as the SGL moderators like to say...☹️☹️☹️ SMP as a front end for telescope control under EQASCOM SMP is so easy to use.

I found a few download sites on the web, but nothing I would trust...😱😱😱 If anyone knows anything more I would like to know.

It seems that Chris Marriott’s venerable and excellent Sky Map Pro is no longer available. The SkyMap Pro url now takes you to a gaming website, and from digging around on the web I understand that Dr. Marriott has decided to call it a day. I have used SMP for 20 years, both as a planetarium mapper and as a goto driver for my telescopes, and now really regret not getting a Win 10 compatible version...

Thought I'd have a go. The OIII data was better than anything I've ever got on this object, and highlights my limited processing skills. For this version, I made RGB compositions of the starless (Starnet) and star-reduced data, using Ha/SII/OIII as RGB. I then just randomly messed about using layers in Paint Shop Pro until I found something I liked and that also showed up that lovely OIII data without burning out the nebula - at which I only partially succeeded. There wasn't much SII but it did give a few interesting green bits.

Glad to see I’m not the only one doubting my equipment (or my sanity!). I have been having exactly the same crisis of confidence in my OIII filter just lately, and went for the Western Veil nebula as a test. Needless to say, the OIII-screened photons rattled down the tube and on to the camera, no problem. I think that there has been a lot of high haze of late, despite the clear-looking skies. It happens every early autumn, and yet still I have the same old doubts...

Thanks. I have exactly the same dilemma and these connectors look the business.

That's the problem I had....