Erling G-P

You're very welcome Steve; I'm happy and humbled that you like my photos Sounds quite absurd that it would be cheaper to pick it up in person, but Brexit has certainly complicated things in some regards. I buy a lot of books in English, and have bought several items from FLO & other UK suppliers, but with customs processing fees of £20 + VAT of 25%, I'm now wondering where to source things from. Cheers, Erling

It does sound appealing, so something I'll have to look into. Thanks again Gaj & all for suggestions & info

Thanks, definitely sounds like it's worth looking into!

Patience and a fair amount of stubbornness certainly helps.. My camera has one of those mini USB sockets (fits a USB harddrive cable I have), marked 'A/V Out' & 'Digital' - I take it that must be the one to use ? Thanks again all for the comments and suggestions.

That sounds great! How if I may ask, do you connect the camera with the PC?

I am yes, thanks again all for the kind comments Regarding plate solving; would it work with a DSLR, or do you need a dedicated camera for that ?

Thanks guys, Been trying to keep a computer out of the loop, which is probably strange for an IT guy, but as soon as a computer is introduced, a whole lot of "why don't you..." questions pops up, and I have been worrying that the preciously few imaging windows will all be spent trying to get a multitude of software set up and configured. Sounds like it might be time well spent, so should probably take the plunge..

I'm sure many will recognize the kind of session I had in the weekend - when the weather for once plays ball, technology will fight you every bit of the way instead.. Have just had a lot of trees to the SSW & W of my garden trimmed down, vastly improving my field of view in those directions, so itching to have a go at some southern targets before they disappear for this season. Friday I was out for the first time since mid-October. Target the Rosette Nebula. Routine session; good polar alignment and no real problems. Only annoying thing is a gradient in the image I can't remove w

Hi Steve, Sorry, haven't frequented the forum as actively lately, so have only just seen your post. You've seen some of my images already - thanks for the kind comments! I have been very happy with the StarAid so far - it practically is plug-n-play once setup with focus - I just hook up the cables and it auto calibrates and starts guiding. While it guides, I can watch the graphs on my phone, inside too, so have an idea whether all is well. I have not guided the 'traditional way', so can't say how it compares to that. My only other guide attempts were made with a Synguider2, which

Not sure how DSS determines the scores - mine vary considerably from target to target, so I just use them in a relative way for that specific image run - I find the 'bad ones', and based on the scores, I set a threshold to weed out those from the stack.

Library possibly sounds more impressive than it actually is - I just have a collection of darks shot with the same temperature, ISO and exposure lengths I have used for my subs so far. If I use a new temp or sub length, I'll have to add similar darks to the 'library'. Regarding flats; no they should not be dark. If you expose them correctly, they will be quite uniformly light, perhaps with darkening towards the edges & corners (vignetting). Mine are a light amber colour, probably from the modified camera, as all subs seems quite 'red-shifted' directly from the camera. And yes, they s

That's a very nice Rosette - love the colours! Weather's been the same here; not been able to do anything since mid-October. The few clear nights have all coincided with a near or complete full moon, and the rest has been perpetual cloud cover

I use a cooled DSLR, so have made a library of darks at various temperatures & exposure lengths. These I can just reuse over and over, so that makes it a little easier. With my initial, uncooled camera, I typically put the lens cap on the coma corrector and set the camera to take darks, while I disassembled and carried the telescope & mount inside at the end of sessions. At that time I was shooting unguided and thus took 30-sec subs, so 20 darks only took about 10 minutes to make

They can hardly be the same ISO & shutter speed as the darks and lights, as that would require an extremely faint, uniform light source. I take mine on auto exposure, with the lowest possible ISO, to get the shutter speed as slow as possible. Still, with a dedicated flats panel, my shutter speed is 1/250. Getting that to match the 3-minute subs I typically take, would seem nearly impossible. As the purpose of the flats are to correct vignetting & dust bunnies, I can hardly see the need for matching shutter speeds & ISO?

Have you checked if your camera perhaps has a built-in intervalometer ? The Nikon D7000 I started with has one among its more advanced features, which I used initially. Couldn't be used with BULB setting, so longest exposure possible was 30 secs, but presently that would presumably not be a problem for you. If there's no intervalometer in the camera, I believe you can get one with the 'Magic Lantern' custom firmware for Canon cameras. See here for more: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-Time-Lapse-Videos-with-Canon-EOS-DSLR/ Very nice Rainbow image btw.