Hallingskies

That’s a great effort. I’ve never been able to tame the stars and retain the nebulously details as you have done.

It’s not just me, then! I must admit I stick to Baader film on the front of the frac on the rare occasions I do any solar observing or imaging. First off, it’s cheaper than a Herschel wedge, but mostly it’s because I really am not all that comfortable with the idea of funnelling 100w or so of solar heating down through frangible precision optics....😱😱😱🔥🔥🔥

Are wedges really safe to use with compound refractors? All that energy is pouring down the tube and must surely be warming things up, especially if there is another set of lenses back from the objective, as in a Petzval. I thought I once read somewhere that Herschel wedges couldn’t be used on Petzval-type refractors for just that reason? Just a thought, I kno knothing....

From last night, 25 x 300s in Ha, Esprit 100/Atik 460, processing in Astroart/PaintShop Pro. I find the moniker "Pac-man" rather hackneyed - it actually put me off looking at this one until last night, my first clear night for a month. Seeing was awful - I could see the focus star flexing and pulsing and it was really difficult to pick a focus point. Guiding was all over the place, RMS around 1. The subs weren't all that, but I was surprised how well it all scrubbed up in the end. Now I wish I'd stuck at it and got some OIII as well. I think this orientation (north to the right) draws one's eye to the dark lane and makes this object a lot more interesting to look at, but that's probably just me...

That is really good. What “fiddling around” did you do to you get Starnet to work without PI? I tried it a while back and got nowhere, and assumed Starnet wouldn’t run without PI.

Big business pollutes the planet for profit and for the greed of the few. It's no surprise that they are now doing the same to the skies. Until national governments become immune to the influence of these polluters, nothing will change.

If you are leaving your grass mats down then watch out for worm casts. I have a temporary path I put down the garden to my obbo in winter and the worm casts come up through the slats and can make it quite muddy if you don’t brush them off regularly.

I vaguely recall that the one time that I sold something on here, I think I had notifications turned off in my profile setting or something like that. It may be your would-be vendor made the same mistake and would not see replies unless they opened their own ad to look for them?

I must admit I tend to refocus between filter swaps anyway. The optics on my Esprit 100 seem to be spot-on though and I don't see much of a difference between narrowband OIII and Ha to date. Would the same apply to RGB, do folks think? As the OP says, it would save a lot of time. I've not tried out pure LRGB unbinned with the new scope yet - and given the UK south-east autumn weather, it may be a while....

I’ve been a tad disappointed with these rings as well. The felt doesn’t grip, it came unglued and I had the sticky hinge problem as well. I replaced the felt with strips of butyl rubber and lubricated the hinges after giving them some “exercise” and all is well. Shouldn’t have needed to with a so-called “premium” product though. But they do look fantastic on a red Avalon mount. Daft, I know, cos the kit is in the dark but if you have already spent a shedload of money then it may as well look good as well!

Think you’ve nailed it Neil, it looks just fine to me now on the I-pad. That Optolong filter really looks like it does the business....

NO-ONE knows how autoguiding works. It is all done by magic. Just look at the number of threads and opinions on autoguiding. If there were any science there it would work for everyone, first time, straight out of the box....😃😃🤪

Can’t say I noticed any improvement on guiding when I swapped from a guidescope to an OAG, but then I’m working at a fl of 550mm so guiding accuracy isn’t that critical. The reason I switched was that at some orientations near the zenith, it was difficult to get the main and guidescope both pointing through the slit in the obbo dome. The OAG greatly simplifies matters. There was a big weight saving as well.

If I had the money I would buy one just to look AT it, as well as through it. It is drop dead gorgeous....😍😍😍

If you look closely you’ll see the graininess of the “wings” where I really pushed the curve. I then had to batter down the bloated stars and smooth the result, though only over the masked bit. The wings really are faint and I think it needs dark skies to do them proper justice.

After several attempts with ever-longer exposures and an age trying to process the results, I finally managed to wring out some evidence of the faint outer shell of M27... This was a combination of 300, 600 and 1200 second Ha/OIII exposures with my Esprit 100/Atik 460 combo, plus a bit of binned RGB for star colour. Details (if you are interested) here...

Thanks for the info, Neil. I assume the "mod" is the removal of the on-chip IR blocking filter. I use my 450D for too much other stuff so I wouldn't want to mess around with it, but it looks like that Optolong filter is giving you excellent results with your set-up. They must be a boon for OSC cameras. Might keep an eye open for a second-hand OSC...

Sorry, Neil, what’s an “L-Enhance”? And is the 450D referred to a Canon 450D? Because if it is, I’m definitely going to have a go with my old 450 with whatever an L-enhance is!

Forgot to mention big moths and the occasional stag beetle getting attracted to the light of my laptop in my pre-observatory days. Don’t seem to get the night-time insects so much these days, though.

I quite often hear the tawny owls at night in our nearby woods. A tawny owl once landed on the end of the scope whilst I was in my observatory. It certainly made me jump. It didn’t seem the least bit bothered that It had company and I had to shoo it off. That sub got rejected, needless to say. Fortunately, the wee birdie chose not to lighten its payload over my optics... Over the years I can also testify to the night-time surprise factor of hedgehogs, rats, cats, foxes, deer, badgers and low-flying bats. And in my garden, you have to be careful not to tread on massive slugs, frogs, toads or newts at night. That can be rather traumatic (more so for them, obviously) - and slippery...

Exactly the same for me - it was Ian King who pointed me at the venerable SXV-H9 when I first got into serious astroimaging over 15 years ago. I got far better results with that straight out of box than I ever did with DSLRs. For what my advice is worth (probably very little, but...) I would tell anyone getting into astroimaging to buy the biggest monochrome CCD camera they can afford - if they have any cash left after buying a decent 80-100mm refractor and a solid, guidable mount (HEQ5 or bigger) to bolt it on to! Master monochrome on bright DSOs before you venture into the madness that is LRGB or narrowband...

I wonder how many trivial copycat complaints this will spawn? The Mail just loves spreading misery...

A lot of folk don’t seem to like Lenovos but I think they are good solid machines and we have a couple around the house plus the one that does obbo duty. I get them second hand as well, from these guys, the “Grade B” ones are fine (or have been, touch wood!)... https://www.tier1online.com/refurbished-laptops/ Sorry, off topic a bit I know, but there is much in favour of older versions of Windows that can’t be connected to the internet and “updated” (aka “rendered unusable for AP”).

Same with mine, too. I use a prehistoric Lenovo laptop with Windows Vista (anyone remember that?) and it all usually works fine, but it seems to need to settle down for a few minutes before Artemis talks to the 460. And yet the Pegasus hub fires up straight away and gets power to the camera from the off because I can hear the cooling fan start.

I wish I could plonk my kit down somewhere secure and cloud-free and just fire it all up over the wires when I fancied doing a spot of AP, with someone local in attendance to hit it with a big stick for me when it played up. I couldn’t care less if anyone called me a “cheat” for doing so. But then I can’t get my IT to work reliably when my gear is only half-way down the garden, let alone half-way around the world... ...and just popping over to Spain or wherever is just about to get a whole lot more expensive and difficult...