Fegato

Yes, agree, getting the best out of that first image is the thing - like many of the "narrowband" nebulae, you get a really different result with broadband - maybe lose some of the detail in the emission areas (and contrast of different gases), but gain dust and reflection areas. Maybe just gentle curves to bring the nebulosity further away from the dust / background - GHS is a good tool for this, although I prefer using Curves direct. Quite tricky, as the contrast is limited - I guess you have a fair amount of LP, using an LP filter? Pretty good broadband result though. I shot the Heart a couple of years ago, and when I revisited the data last year, I found that my background was not quite right. Gradient removal can have a huge impact when there's lots of dust around - easy to get it wrong. Second time round I used DBE on a starless image, and it was much easier to get it spot on (remove stars with Unscreen Stars not ticked, run DBE with normalize ticked, add back stars with a simple addition in PixelMath, before you go on to colour calibration etc.). Result on AB here - https://astrob.in/pk7cpz/B/

Nice! I particularly like the Rosette... but then I always seem to prefer the redder colour schemes with narrowband. re: location. I don't have an observatory, but I do wheel my very heavy rig out a small distance to the same location every time. It is blocked roughly 45 degrees to East, West and North by trees and my house. Probably down to about 15 in the South due to a hill. Key thing for me is that I have direct sight of the meridian all the way from the Pole to that 15 degree horizon in the South. That means I have sight of every possible object at its highest point in the sky, so as long as I take an annual view of things, everything is possible! Do you have a spot like that? If not - think of that meridian line, and work out the best compromise?

Not that I've noticed, but to be honest I haven't used this set up a lot, the RASA just hogs my mount these days 😀

Yeah well, I do have lots of cloud out West, but I also have Bortle 3 skies, so I suppose that does play into things in the mono / OSC debate. I shoot more broadband than anything else and my OSC camera works very well for that, and it's OK with a widish (10nm) dual narrowband filter, if the moon's not too big. Mono and very narrow filters are going to be more desirable in highly light polluted skies, but I guess I'm lucky not to have that dilemma. I guess you mean flats for each filter change? Indeed... that all sounds horrendous. I do like my sleep! I very occasionally change my filter between clear / dual narrowband in a session, but mostly try to avoid it.

Have to agree with Elp - I absolutely love the speed, it's such a blessing in our climate, and it certainly was my choice! I readily (if not always happily) accept the downsides (wires in front of the corrector, no mono, dialling in backfocus / tilt). So far I've found no other rig that I'd rather have here for DSO work at a decent FL (620mm in my case). Back to the mono - I should have added, I don't really hanker after it. I'm thinking over getting a 135mm travel rig, but I'm sure I'll choose OSC. Not the money, more just that it's easier / I'm lazy...

Sky's always covered in cloud... sadly that's what makes it feel like a race to me! Anyway, like you, I can't use a filter wheel, and I'm not doing manual filter changes through the night, so that's that!

My settings are: Step size 500, Overshoot, IN 2200, OUT 0 I guess the actual numbers are going to be focuser / autofocuser dependent. As I say, I eyeballed everything to make sure that the final move was anti-clockwise, ensuring the backlash was cleared with the mirror moving inwards. I agree, I think one of the numbers should be zero.

I have a starlight microfocus motor on the focusing shaft - the autofocus motor moves the mirror, so locks are just left off the whole time. If you stick an additional focuser on the back, you can lock the mirror. edit: not on the shaft, on the starlight microfocuser...

Yes anticlockwise, that's what I used to work out which way was which in NINA

I remember having this problem with my 8 Edge (Starlight microfocus motor). In the end I had a backlash figure of 2200 IN. IN, OUT? Did I get it wrong? Might be using it again sometime soon, so would be good to have it right! My notes say: NINA - focuser IN means lower step number values. So setting IN overshoot means final movement will be OUT. (I remember eyeballing everything and being fairly sure this was correct)

Here are Sharpess 2-205 and 206 in Camelopardalis, roughly situated between the Soul & California nebulae. I guess the two Sharpless objects are fairly nondescript, but it's a fairly busy area of stars and emission nebulae, with some dust, dark and faint areas of reflection nebulosity around too, adding to the interest. I chose this as an early evening target (started in November) to utilise the time before my main targets in the South were in position. Stars can be a bit splodgy with the RASA, but StarXT normally handles these fine. However, I had issues with it failing to remove a particularly splodgy one, and in the end, in frustration I just removed the whole star, as even with masking it was turning into a bit of a monster after processing the starless image. I then felt a bit guilty, the whole image is a fraud.... poor star. To the extent that I looked it up - HD 26020, a yellow-white star, 3.9x more luminous than the sun, mag 8.5, 350 light years distant. So the light I captured left around 1675, the year of the establishment of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and the appointment of the first Astronomer Royal... and then I deleted it! I then looked on Aladin, and thought it looked a bit splodgy there too! Perhaps I'll put it back. Anyway, enough of that. It's a 2 panel mosaic, broadband enhanced with Ha from a dual narrowband filter. RASA 11 v2 on CEM120, ASi2400MC Pro, 255 x 30" (2h 7' 30") and 200 x90" (5h) with IDAS NBZ dual narrowband filter

Don't normally struggle with left and right etc... but I meant RA! A small bar and 2kg weight is presumably not intended to balance with an 8kg plus OTA, just compensate?....

Nice one! The easiest way of managing stars is to remove them during processing using StarXTerminator or Starnet. This allows you to process the nebula without affecting the stars, and then add the stars back at the end. Obviously this depends a bit on the software you're using - I think StarX is only available for Pixinsight or Photoshop. Not sure about Starnet as I stopped using that some time back.

Yes definitely number two - looks good. Some people do process a lot of blue into m31, but I think it's predominantly more orange-ish, with just some blue in some of the fainter fringes.

Just reviving this thread... I'm also thinking about HEM15. It's appealing to me as it could double as a travel set up (Samyang 135) and an additional mount at home for my 8 Edge HD primarily for solar system use. For planetary I could perhaps get this down to just over 7kg, but ideally I'd have some bits and bobs on it and it would be over 8kg. Anyway - with the counterweight, is it necessary to balance Dec, given that it isn't balanced in the first place? Or is it just some additional compensation for the weight? Comments above suggest the latter, but I just wanted to double check. And any other feedback welcome too!