Laurin Dave

Snap!

I’d look at your files and check the fits header to see if gain and offset have changed

Another possibility would be some kind of light leak affecting your darks .. maybe compare current ones with historic

Maybe experiment with adding a Pedestal in Pixinsight when you calibrate to avoid the black clipping.. and see if that helps ..

Assuming you have Pixinsight then in the process menu got to Image Inspection .. Subframe Selector and run it on the unstretched stacks .. good luck tonight.. cloud here

Clearly even better Goran.. what increase in SNR did you get, it looks quite significant.. well done.. Do you run more than one system at the same time? Dave

Don't hold your breath, I think it'll take a while! Dave

Lovely Richard.. have just started a two panel mosaic over IC348 and NGC133 based on seeing this the first time around.. it’s a fabulous area.. Dave

A tripod, see what improvements that brings, then have another think .. there’s no rush, it’ll all be back again next year and as others have said stuff is in short supply and maybe QC has dropped

I asked SX about it and they said it was normal for that sensor, so now I do them every 6-8 weeks.. overnight when its cloudy so plenty of opportunity !

Very nice Goran, your dark skies must help with a OSC.. that object lower right is a jellyfish by the way Dave

I have found that with my KAF16200 chip I need to refresh my darks about every 2 months or I get noise pattern issues on Lum and Ha, but never on RGB, probably because they're never stretched hard enough to show.. unfortunately I only found this out after having the camera 18 months.. I seem to remember Brendan reporting that he'd seen something similar with his 16200 camera, which was what put me onto it.. Infuriating! Dave

Yes its all very mysterious, how can a dark have a higher level than a light? Who knows but on occasion they do. Was that with the 460, you've mentioned before how dark the background is with that camera so maybe its pretty close to clipping even on LRGB, clearly your skies are too dark! In Pixinsight you can use PixelMath to add a small pedastal to your integrations which will move the histogram to the right. Dave

Very nice Olly, maybe try adding a Pedastal when you calibrate to prevent black clipping. ASI1600 users have to do this (well I do) to prevent the same. It's there in AstroArt somewhere. Dave

These are the settings I use with my ASI1600, matched Darks, no bias, a pedastal of 150 (to avoid black clipping) and optimisation turned off.. I dont use the sccript and dont know how you'd put these settings in.. When I first got Pi and my ASI1600 I used the BPP and couldn't get it to work so went the manual route... Not saying it cant be set up to work properly I just couldn't figure out how to. Flats calibrated the same way with a Flat Dark HTH Dave Image Calibration CMOS.xpsm

Terry- What calibration settings , darks etc and camera do you use? Dave

Aha your last picture explains my mystery... it fits inside the drawtube! I couldn't figure out from the photos FLO posted how it fitted on to the scope, but I see now its an M74thread. Dave

I have APP, Pixinsight and Photoshop and use all three for various aspects of my processing workflow. As Adam and Spongey have said APP is great for integrations and mosaics and certainly easier to use for that than Pi. Photoshop is brilliant for its layers approach - GIMP does similar and is free I believe so get that. If I were to choose between APP and Pi it would have to be Pixinsight, looks complicated and to some it is, but it is extremely powerful. Again as Spongey has said the books Mastering Pixinsight ($20 for a .pdf and money well spent) and Warren Keller's Inside Pixinsight are great resources to get you up to speed with it. Dave

Thanks Wim... That's down to Photoshops "Shadows Highlights" adjustment.. only discovered it yesterday ... also got RBAs mastering Pixinsight (a lifetimes reading no doubt!) yesterday on your recommendation and thoroughly looking forward to investigating that and finding all sorts of new tools, so thanks for that too,, Dave

Thank you Goran.. I give most of the credit to my Esprit100, shame about the "peripheral lens adjustment screw" spikes but I've seen much worse and Gamma Cass is mag 1.6 or so. Dave

The Ghost of Cassiopeia and Olly's Breaking Wave imaged between the 28th Oct and 6th November when it was clear but as usual in the UK the Moon was about. 25 hrs Ha through the Esprit100SX46 and GT71ASI1600 and 1.5hrs each RGB. Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop, Ha added to Red in Photoshop blend mode lighten after removing the stars with Starnet++. Thanks for looking, C and C welcome Dave

Whatever dual scope you choose make sure the adjustment saddle (JTD or whatever) can handle the load or you’ll be in differential flex territory .. although short CMOs exposures will help mitigate this

Its been down a few days according to the SX Yahoo group.. they're working to get it fixed maybe email Terry/Michael at SX direct .. email is in the Manual or pm me if you can't find it Dave

Great image Skipper! Lovely colours and lovely stars... Dave

An even better fov match would be an Esprit 80 plus an ASI1600 or better still ASI294mm for slightly bigger fov higher QE and no microlensing... this will provide excellent NB performance.. and might fit your dome better