Laurin Dave

Amazing stuff.. be careful though or you’ll have run out of targets by Xmas 😉

That’s nice, I particulary like the bowl structure level with Sadr and above the Crescent.. Dave

Been there done that ! Same thing happens if (as I also sometimes do) you try to slew before unparking in Sitech

Hlvg. Is Hasta la vista green..

Nice one Rodd.. I’d guess that the white bits are where it’s saturated.. have you measured the levels there? As they say the Oiii is very strong here Dave

Hi Gordon He might also try the Newbury society, "George 47" on here is their chair.. the next Basingstoke Astro meeting is November 14th 7:00pm at Cliddesden, its a practical meeting so it'll be cloudy! Your son would be more than welcome to come along and meet us. Not sure I'd be too keen on being alone in some remote car park in the wee hours.. Dave

Hi Gordon I live in Swallowfield (7 miles south of Reading) and image from my back garden observatory, unfortunately I am not familiar with any sites.. its pretty dark (by local standards) around here and in the strip between Basingstoke and Reading … even darker the further west you go. Is your son a member of Reading Astro group (I'm in the Basingstoke group most of whom image from their homes) maybe they know of some sites, I was a member many years ago and we sometimes went up onto the Ridgeway to observe. Dave

That’s nice Alan.. you’ve caught the reflection nebula and the dark patch is real.. Dave

Interesting, you'd expect them to be the same but there's probably some obscure setting in BPP that's different to how you'd set in manually.. I gave up with BPP and do it all manually so I know what's happening... Kayron Mercieca's tutorials on his "LightVortexAstronomy" website are also pretty good..

Yes that was Pixinsight Alan... just search Pleiades Astrophoto Pixinsight and it'll pop up.. not a particularly intuitive piece of software though Dave

Yep looks like a sky gradient.. very minor though (he says jealously).. Here it is after a quick gradient removal (Dynamic Background Extraction DBE) in PI.. Dave

Very nice Soap Bubble Lee. SGPro doesn't do co-ordinated dither but the developers have it on their to do list . (although not with high priority) .. I run two instances of SGPro on the same laptop to control a CCD and a CMOS, I dither on the CCD (which are 10 or 20mns subs) every 2-3 subs and only lose about 7-10% imaging time on the CMOS compared to the CCD. Dave

Your stars look good so hopefully nothing to do with the glass.. remember though that surfaces do not necessarily reflect all wavelengths the same so the issue could easily be different on different filters

Looks too large to me to be from a filter and wonder if it’s a reflection from a surface or one of the elements within the Redcat.. suggest you use the dust donut calculator to work out how far away it is (just google dust donut calculator, I’d estimate at least 80mm from the sensor) also take the camera off and look through the scope at a bright light and see if there are any shiny surfaces that need blackening.. or whether it needs to be returned..

Can you see the motor rotating ? If it is then maybe change the step size to something larger (100 or so ) and try again Dave

The top half of a work in progress.. Two panel mosaic of the Heart Nebula showing Melotte 15 and the Fish Head Nebula in HaR_OiiiG_OiiiB captured between 17 Sept and 23 Oct. Esprit 150/SX-46 with piggybacked Esprit 100/ASI1600, Ha and RGB through the 150 Ha and Oiii through the 100. 12hrs Ha 1 hr each RGB and 4hrs Oiii per channel.. Thanks for looking Dave

Like being at a Disco... not thatI can remember !

Nice.. I always forget so made my self a powerpoint reminder... they are taken from the page on Bob Franke's website "Creating Hubble Palette Colours" Hubble Palette Selective Colour Adjustments.pptxHubble Palette Selective Colour Adjustments.pptx

That's what 5 times as many photons per pixel gets you.. brilliant.. literally!

I asked the vendor this question when my unmounted Astrodons arrived.. the response was that it doesn't matter Dave

Excellent choice Adam, pleased you got the necessary reassurances regarding your mount being able to handle it. Mine worked perfectly straight out of the tin with my ASI1600 using the ZWO spacers. Dave

A great mount at a great price and don't be put off by the reasons the vendor has put for wanting something different.. It'll work perfectly as others will attest to. Dave

The owner says so in his ad I think.... This mount ticks all the boxes for me apart from two... No homing, initial pointing needs a blind solve.... They are using it remotely and I assume want these functions.. That doesn't mean they cant be used remotely, I saw a few being used remotely on my holiday in the Haute Alpes

Indeed.. I'd second that!

That's looking rather nice.. won't be long now till first light, how exciting