Seanelly

I feel for you. During the twenty years I've owned my Meade Dob, six of the earlier years were spent with it idling in the bedroom closet because our growing family forced (please don't tell my wife I used the word forced) us to find larger, city accommodations, which were great for the kids, but terrible for my observation needs. I almost gave it up. I can't begin to count the times over those six years my wife said I should just sell it. A 10" Dob takes up a lot of closet space. I'm glad I didn't, as time worked to my advantage. Finding a place to store/use gear away from a family home sounds so impractical. My totally unsolicited advice would be to store your gear in the bedroom closet (haha) and wait for the Heavens of the future to favour you. Perhaps I'm overstating it, but at 53 you've still got a lot left in the tank, and despite your gloomy (for astrophotos) outlook, you never know what's around the next corner. Okay, glad (that's not the right word) to hear the slug population is not entirely just on my property.

I've finally succeeded in squeezing ten+ decent hours out of six sessions into this image, with my first NGC showing satisfactory detail, and overall what I think is a pretty picture. 10h 37m of 3m subs, with 75 calibration frames each, from DSS to PS, taken with the modded T6i and gear listed below. Please, suggestions or comments would be most helpful for this rookie.

A marvelous image.

No tips, no critiques, just admiration for a job well done.

I too preferred the second image without knowing why, and now I do know why.

You've presented this very well.

How do you like the Ioptron mount? I almost bought one to start off my imaging venture with the DSLR, but in the end decided to go with the HEQ5, et al, mainly because of my experience with upgrading my Dobs several times until I was finally satisfied with the 10".

Well, i'all can offer a warm welcome to SGL from one settled North American to another on the go, and can say from experience that this is definitely the place to satisfy your curiosity and any tech problems that may arise with your gear.

This came out very well.

It's been all Messier so far since this fascinating photo-venture began for me 11/18, and I really like the colours in this M29. I had three hours of data to work with, but I found that rather than enhance the object, the total data did little to bring out the cluster and rather washed it out somewhat with the more vivid surrounding star field, so I settled on eighty minutes. This is the first time I've found less to be more, but it's only my impression. 1h 20m of 2m exposures at 800i, taken with the modded T6i and gear listed below, with 50 each of darks, flats and bias from DSS to PS. My PS skills are slowly coming around, I believe.

You could be right. I spun together about ten versions and probably went too far on this one. I'm such a fan of this pretty little gem.

Originally a test subject for my guiding issues, I collected about twelve hours of subs on this and thought I'd throw a few hours of the better ones together. Total 3h 46m of 3m subs with 50 each of dark, flat and bias with no stretching in PS, only level and contrast, taken with the Canon T6i and gear listed below. My goal was to get both central stars noticeable to some degree and some details in the ring, and this at least was accomplished.

Originally 10% 'and it continues to grow', haha.