Laurin Dave

What do you intend to image Steve? Based on my experiences with both an asi1600 and a kaf16200 based camera I'd say the asi1600 or qhy equivalent for narrowband and a kaf 8300 based camera for lrgb. Be aware that with brightish stars the asi1600 will likely show microlensing.. a bit of a faff but maybe get an asi1600 and swap cameras with your wide field rig depending on what you are imaging.. However if you're planning on getting an FSQ106 then you'll need a full frame camera and there's mono full frame cmos on the way from ZWO and QHY.. if you're not going to get a full frame camera save a bundle and get an Esprit 100 Dave

Very nice result, excellent dust lanes into the core and quite something to do that with a big SCT on an HEQ5 Dave

Concur with Adam.. microlensing is worse on the ASI1600 with my Esprit150 (f7) than my Esprit100 (f5).. I got fed up with it and got a 16200ccd based camera.. it also has microlensing - but only apparent on the blue channel on mag 2 to brighter stars .. In a separate thread on here regarding the ASI1600 with integrated fw FLO said they were expecting the ZWO full frame mono camera early next year..

Looks to me as if both photos on your website are of 183s

Steve, Any news from them on when their much heralded full Frame Mono camera will be available .. so we can start saving/dreaming Dave

Looks good and that the filters are even closer to the sensor thereby reducing vignetting for fast scopes.. shame there's no 7 position filter wheel though Dave

Hi Dave, Nice one... second image for me and yes its a tiny bit green... a dose of SCNRgreen in Pixinsight would sort that out, is there an equivalent in AstroArt you could use? Also I think that if you get the chance adding more luminance data would beneficial. Dave

Ah confused myself .. second M13 is indeed good Dave

Maybe subtracting bias twice is the cause .. maybe experiment by just stacking the lights, or lights darks and flats, lights bias and flats and see whether the ‘smoke ring’ is still there .. Dave

Hi, given that it looks fine on the Ha I'd take a look at the other filters and make sure they were clean.

Nice Alan, especially M57.. DSS puts the master dark and master flats it generates back in the folder it found the individual dark and flats subs in ( at least it does on mine).. always worth having a look at them to make sure they look ok.. there’s a trial version of APP which I’m going to look at as a result of Richard’s endorsement Dave

Thanks Gav..

Thanks Alan.. I use SGPro's framing and mosaic tool and plate solving which makes quite easy. Yes Olly's words are quite correct.. when I started a couple of hours in total was all I did.. now its 30hrs or so .. automation is what makes this possible for me.. and being retired Dave

Very nice Goran, well done. Dave

The middle of September brought with it many clear nights to Berkshire (as usual starting with the full moon) and during it I captured 3hrs per channel RGB, 19hrs Ha, 7.5hrs Oiii and 5hrs Sii (total 41 hrs) on the Elephants Trunk Nebula (quite a lot of whilst asleep). Equipment used was my Esprit 150/SX-46 with piggybacked Esprit100/ASI1600mm on a Mesu 200 all controlled through SGPro. Guiding was by OAG with dithering on the Esprit 150 every 3 or 2 frames depending on whether it was taking RGB (10min subs) or Ha (20 min subs). Exposures on the ASI1600 were 5mins and about 15% were lost to dithering and autofocus on the Esprit 150. Processing was done in Pixinsight and Photoshop with the StarNet star removal tool in Pixinsight used to remove the stars from the narrowband images. Starless and starry narrowband images for each filter were then blended in PS to produce images suitable for combining with the RGB as HaR_OiiiG_OiiiB or on their own as SHO. Ha was then used as luminance over both. StarNet was then applied to these images, PS heal brush used to remove artefacts, channels split and combined with lightly stretched and split RGB (Photoshop blend mode lighten) for tight stars. These new images were then blended with Ha as luminance and the non star removed HaLum_HaR_OiiiG_OiiiB and SHO for the final result. The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth. Thanks for looking, c and c welcome Dave

Hi Steve, does your guidescope have the "non rotating helical focuser"? if so then I'd check it for slop/rotation as I had a 60mm Altair guidescope and the helical focuser on that had a load of slop and caused guiding issues. I replaced it with Altairs "precision autoguiding focuser" which eliminated them. Dave

Hi Richard.. if I remember correctly I downloaded it from sourceforge.. unzipped it then copied all to the Program files/pixinsight/bin folder.. then opened Pixinsight.. opened the Process menu.. at the bottom of which is "Modules" click on that to open "Install Modules" search the "bin" folder for Starnet and install.. I did find out how to do this from a video somewhere but it was a few weeks ago now and no longer in my (or my pcs) memory Dave

Hi Richard, I'm afraid not but I'm not sure you need one.. I just downloaded it from Sourceforge into the Pixinsight directory then installed it in Pixinsight.. called up the process and applied it to a stretched image at its default setting of Stride 128 and hey presto a starless one was produced. Worked well on both mono and colour images, I then used PS Heal brush for repair around obvious artefacts HTH Dave

Thanks Gorann.. these were imaged between 30 August and 20 September.. its taken me a month to process them! Dave

Thanks Darren Thanks Steve Thanks Richard Thank you.. My Esprit 100 has an ASI1600mm on it so yes in part, an Esprit 150 with an SX-46 was also used. Interestingly in Ha, where I have collected on both, the ASI1600 on the 100 seems to be at least as sensitive as the SX-46 on the 150 Thank you Carole Thanks Steve Thank you Thanks Olly, third time round processing these as I wasn't completely happy with them when looking at others renditions.. it was a post of yours I read last week about suppressing the Oiii into green that got the Blues for me.. and of course the use of the soft eraser (oops should I have mentioned that?) Thanks Roger

Thank Souls Thanks Gav.. Yep many marvellous processing tricks learnt at Les Granges especially the Photoshop layering and suppression Oiii to green to get a nice blue. Better than Hogwarts for sure! The HSVrep ArcSinh MS stretch is one of Barry Wilson's tutorials on his website (the Arc Sinh was I believe developed by Mark Shelley) Dave

Having come back from a certain Mr Olly Penrice's establishment where we imaged the whole of the Veil I thought I'd have a go at the Witches Broom (NGC6960), when I saw how that came out I decided to do the Network Nebula (NGC6992) as well. So here they are, imaged from deepest Berkshire through my Esprit 150/SX-46 with piggybacked Esprit 100/ASI1600mm on a Mesu 200. Ha and RGB through the 150 and Ha and Oiii through the 100 as follows: NGC6960 Esprit 150 2.5hrs R, 1.7hrs G, 1.5 hrs B Esprit 100 9hrs Ha, 6hrs Oiii total 29hrs.... NGC6992 Esprit 150 1.5hrs each RGB 7hrs Ha, Esprit 100 8hrs Ha, 7.5hrs Oiii total 27hrs. Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop, in particular I used StarNet to produce starless narrowband images which I then blended with the starry ones and layered over the R G and B in photoshop using blend mode lighten, Ha to Red at 100%, Oiii added to Blue at 100% and to Green at 50%. RGB was processed using Pixinsights HSVrep process then ArcSin stretch then Masked Stretch as this gives good star colour. Thanks for looking c and c welcome Dave Network Nebula NGC6992 Witches Broom NGC6960

No expert here but two thoughts.. maybe there’s a setting in the Mount driver that needs changing or maybe it’s a setting on the Platesolve tab.. eg Attempt to Center? Dave

Excellent images very nicely presented in the video. Dave

Mine was definitely over the door Gav, I went in and took a look when it was chucking it down.. maybe you could try it with the shutter at 180 deg from the door Dave