Marmo720

Welcome to the forum Neal. Where in West London are you based? I used to live in Wandsworth (so SW) and now in Croydon. My first scope was a Mak 90 (which I still have) and enjoyed exploring the Universe with.

Welcome to SGL @Chris60! How clear are the skies near you? Have you got the Dob already and what are you looking forward to seeing the most? I think the hobby is significantly more fun the more it is shared with others and I have received plenty of help from members here so don't hesitate to ask any questions. Clear skies!

Thanks @carastro and @Laurin Dave. I was worried about the LED lights being to one side but glad it works for you both so I will try it. My Achilles heel seems to be getting the Flats right. I think I am getting the correct Lights after some trial and error and advise from @RolandKol. Same with Bias and Darks. But every time I stack in DSS and check the image, I see either some dust bunnies (which are mostly removed now) or half the image being completely white compared to the other side. Hoping a better approach to Flats will give me that elusive first proper DSO image

I am currently dithering too and also taking darks so in same position of preferring to use the darks time to do lights if I don't need to do darks with dithering. Just to check for those that don't do darks - do you use bias frames instead of darks in DSS? And leave the darks as empty? Not seen this in any tutorial and I am still learning. Thanks, Mo

Hi All, I have been using the white t-shirt with iPad method to try get flats but I have continuously had issues with getting them right. My last session seems to have resulted in half the frame being washed out with white light for some reason and I believe it might be due to slipping iPad (which has in the past dropped on the floor from my attempts at flats!). So I am looking at creating a lightbox and already bought the tracing lightbox below from Amazon. I just wanted to check if anyone has used similar before? I can still return mine if there are better methods/tools. I opened the box to check and the LED lights are on one side of the panel (where the USB plugs in) and thought that would an issue even if dispersing the light with a few sheets of white paper? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brightness-Adjustable-Ultra-Thin-Sketching-Animation/dp/B07GJBF4P3/ref=lp_3063633031_1_9?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1575888195&sr=1-9 Thanks in advance for any advice and assistance.

Thank you for sharing. It is interesting to see the huge difference stacking makes. For the min LP, is that from using a LP filter (which?) or post-processing?

That would be great. No rush though. I just wanted to see what to expect from my own images pre-stacking/processing

Very nice! I prefer the 4th/5th pictures although the 5th has a slight dark halo around the galaxy? Really nice images either way. Would you mind sending me one x30 sec sub when you are free so I can see what one sub looks like before stacking? I got all my equipment setup for the first time this weekend and as soon as I was ready to image - the entire sky was cloudy After I packed everything up and made a brew, the sky was completely clear. Didn't have the energy to setup again. Try again this weekend!

I am looking forward to it!

Ah must have been fun though. Once you start looking at the Universe, nothing else can compares right?

Very nice. I went neck deep without actually doing any observing/imaging. Bought HEQ5 Pro, got camera, now shopping for scopes. Blame @RolandKol ? As far as midlife crisis goes, it was between astronomy or paragliding. Missus seems happy with astronomy so paragliding has been postponed to next year! What is your next target?