Hallingskies

That is excellent!  My old MakNewt was a pig to collimate, you clearly have no problems on that front. The core detail is razor sharp.

13 minutes ago, Xplode said:

This has been possible for over 10 years so it's pretty funny to see people are still deleting images with satellites, the problem is a lack of knowledge, not satellites.

What most people don't think about is they won't see the Starlink satellites unless the sun is lighting them up, since they are so low they will be in the earth shadow most of the time except low towards the horizon or during dusk and dawn.
Still they don't really affect most people doing astrophotography, it's just hysteria because of a lack of knowledge.

You might want to take a look at my image here to see how well Pixinsigh deals with satellites

 

 

Ah, right, so me not liking to see a string of bright, man-made lights streaming across the sky every evening is down to my hysteria or lack of knowledge, rather than my respect for the sanctity of everyone's night sky and my wish to see it remain unspoiled.  Thanks for clarifying that.  I look forward to Coca Cola or McDonalds placing orbiting adverts around the world in low orbits.  It won't matter after all, you'll only be able to see them at dusk or dawn...

The only way Pixinsight could properly deal with Musk's satellites is to shoot them all down IMO.  I'll happily buy the first version that does that.

4 minutes ago, StargeezerTim said:

They are weird... what do they do?

They let Cathy1988 send cat pictures to her friends on Facebook a little bit faster.  Well worth destroying the timeless beauty of the night sky for.

I am appalled.  They are SO bright. Our big corporations have destroyed the earth for profit.  Now they have destroyed our skies.  And no-one can stop them.  What next?  McDonalds adverts flying over the earth a hundred miles out?

On 25/01/2020 at 21:54, mark mc manus said:

Thanks for the response 👍

How did you tune it ?

My alternative is a second hand Skywatcher eq6 pro but its €399 versus €900 and seems such a shame to not use a classic like the GPDX (Which is is pristine condition)

 

Apologies, I have just noticed that I never replied to your question!  By “tuning”, I meant adjustment of the RA worm drive to minimise backlash.  Probably a moot point after all this time, but here’s a link to some instructions if you are still interested...

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=15&ved=2ahUKEwjMzb2lz-joAhXBolwKHYB3CLwQFjAOegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.astrovox.gr%2Fforum%2Fdownload.php%3Fid%3D35590%26sid%3Dfa7fa3cfa2eeababfa0fb7c8c346ea4b&usg=AOvVaw3943DgOd_4TPzAGFHsQe--

I know knothing about Pixielights but shooting bias frames takes out the duff column on my 460.

That looks OK to me, no need to touch that.

Nice shot.  Did you guide on the comet or a star?   I have an OAG and tried a star but the comet looked blurred to me on a 2 min sub, but I guess my fov was smaller than yours.

13 minutes ago, tomato said:

Very nice, the real expanse of this galaxy shows up beautifully, makes me realise how much I’m chopping out with my Esprit 150/ASI 178 combination.

...but then the Esprit 100/ATIK 460 combo, whilst a good all-rounder, is only really any use on the larger galaxies I think.  My effort above is a 70% crop as it is.  Your kit really comes into its own this time of year!  It’s a tough one....🤔🤔🤔

Result of 30 x 600s luminance plus 10 x 300s each (2 x 2 binned) RGB, flats, bias as darks through an Esprit 100 using an Atik 460EX and an enormous amount of fiddling around in Astroart and Paint Shop Pro to beat down some rather horrible gradients and colour noise.

More details in my blog, should you be interested...

This looks a lot better on my laptop/PC than it does my IPad, the latter seeming a bit harsh with an overly dark background .  I have been chasing this object for 12 years and still I'm not quite satisfied with the outcome.  I suppose being locked up in viral quarantine for the next six months might make this a good time to have a think about PixInsight.  But then again...

18 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Here is an image from two short sessions - total of 3 hours and 10 minutes - 1 hour Ha and 2 hours 10 mins Oiii.  I think with a bit more data, I will get a better colour balance, but I see all the lovely images of a blue centre, and I couldnt manage to achieve that so a little disappointed.  Tips and pointers welcomed.

 

Thanks for looking

Adam

I much prefer your subtle handling of this to the lurid blues that seem so prevalent these days.  
 

That is a really good result with only 300s sub lengths.  The huge number of subframes has certainly beaten down the noise - I wish I had your patience!  

1 hour ago, Freddie said:

Interesting. A Ha filter can help to control poor seeing but what were you trying to achieve by combining with OIII?

I was really trying to see if OIII offered any detail improvement over Ha (answer: no).  As I had the data, I then thought I’d try and produce a colour image from it, using the same methods I use for deep sky.  I think I got an accurate result, i.e. not very colourful.

Details here...

From the evening of March 6th...

Esprit 100 and Atik 460 combo, 100 x 0.001s through H alpha plus 100 x 0.001s OIII, aligned, stacked and waveletted in Registax, then HOO combined in PSP.  Not much colour - the cleaned-up Ha and OIII stacks looked identical...

1 hour ago, tooth_dr said:

I think the three grub screws are for attaching the Atik OAG directly to the EFW2 base plate. 

Indeed they are, as I found out when I went down the OAG route!  Unlike Starlight Xpress cameras, I don’t think the ATIK range has any means of adjusting for off axis tilt.  You’d need an additional adjuster in line, like this one...

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-m48-t-tilt-adjuster.html

I managed to grab 12 x 600s of luminance data for the M81/82 pair on the night of the 20^th, before the inevitable clouds rolled in. In the absence of the RGB and Ha data I was after, I thought I’d have a play to try and bring out the wisps of IFN that could just about be seen lurking on the calibrated monochrome stack (20 flats, no darks, hot pixel removal in Astroart instead).

To tease out the background integrated flux nebula (IFN), a copy of the processed luminance stack was histogram equalised in PaintShop, given a thumping great Gaussian blur, layered back over the original at 10% density and the bright galaxy areas then carefully erased to give this rendition. 

Yes it’s a complete fudge, but it does give a hint of the IFN that can be found in the region. Either that or my flats are really bad...

Have a chat with the scout master, but from my experience in a previous life with giving talks to younger teenagers, you can treat them as you would your adult audience.  If they are smart enough to want to hear what you have to say, they’ll be smart enough to understand it, or to ask questions if they don’t.

Only thing was that I never talked to the coerced - attendance was on a voluntary basis.  I got the odd querulous sceptic (my subject matter was environmental management at modern power stations!) but no real trouble makers.

Not sure they’ll be too many flat-earthers among the scouts...

Yes, it works.  I am not particularly mechanically gifted but I had no problems with the actual fitting.  The hard part was tuning the mount to get the backlash down to acceptable levels for guiding purposes without the RA motor stalling. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TJW-Rechargeable-Flashlight-Fishing-Hunting/dp/B07CVGWGR7/ref=asc_df_B07CVGWGR7/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=394256153971&hvpos=1o6&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16584086144994120580&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045021&hvtargid=pla-838780295726&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=87474905171&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=394256153971&hvpos=1o6&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16584086144994120580&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045021&hvtargid=pla-838780295726

Rather useful.  You’d need to red tape the LEDs if you were at a star party, though...

On 30/12/2019 at 00:23, carastro said:

I have had weird things happen in the past when my EFW2 thinks it has filters up to 100.  I spoke to Atik about it at the time, but I can't remember now whether they offered a solution, or whether it just rectified itself.

I also find sometimes my Artemis software doesn't find the filterwheel and shows no filters at all.

It’s not just me then!  I like Artemis a lot but it seems to be a bit random sometimes.  Shutting it down and restarting it seems to work most times.  It seems to be a lot better when not anywhere near Windows 10....🤞🤞🤞

Check that the nozzle outlet on the dehumidifier is not blocked (I poked some wire up mine).  I once found a dead beetle in there that must have crawled up the pipe.  Also check that the nozzle isn’t cracked and that the pipe is fully pushed on it.  I assume you have made sure you have a downward drop away from the dehumidifier.  Your pipe run looks quite short so I can’t imagine it’s kinked, but check anyway.  Seems really weird otherwise.

I had a manual filter wheel and had the same problem as you.  I wrapped it in ali foil held on by an elastic band, problem solved.

We need to get into space and break our ties to this planet.  If Musk can do that then we can’t begrudge him a bit of CO2.  Airlines do far more damage.  But he will never be forgiven for destroying the night skies for profit with his wretched satellites...

Perhaps off-topic but I see the dropping of support for Windows 7 to be a huge opportunity.  I have just bought a cheap second hand Desktop with Win 7 Pro installed as a backup to two other PCs I have (Win 7 and Vista) that are imaging-fit.  I had exactly the same issue as the OP when using Win 10, which occurred after I inadvertently allowed it to update.  I could not sort it and went back to my old Vista laptop, cursing Mr. Gates and all of his latest retrograde works as I did so...