mackiedlm

That is a truly fantastic image. So much of the backrounf HA showing through.

Thanks Steve @FLO

But, everyone, can I kindly request that this thread does not become another tit for tat about the relevant merits or otherwise of the various brands. If you must do that can you start another thread please.

Can we please keep this one on the topic of hands on experience with the Altair 26M. if there is none then thats fine too.

Thank you.

15 minutes ago, Adam J said:

Just trying to help and or save you money. Hence, I asked someone on astrobin who owns multiple branded cameras with the same chip for you. Look at the comments below the image.

https://www.astrobin.com/3fwody/?q=Altair Hypercam 26m

""I also have the qhy268m and use all 3 for capture. They are all great cameras. In terms of build quality the QHY feels like its made better and it has the most efficient cooler of the 3. If I could only have 1 and I had to rank them it would be QHY, Altair, ZWO. The Altair cooler is also a little more efficient than the ZWO.""

I highly doubt that you will find anyone on here with one, I dont recal ever seeing someone having posted an image from one, but I could be wrong.

Adam

If I wanted to hear comparisons of the three thats the question I would have asked. If I wanted to save money thats what I would have asked. What I want is to hear if anyone has hands on experience with the Altair 26M, that therefore is the question I asked. If no one has that and I therefore get no feedback on hands on experience with the Altair 26 M then that itself answers the question.

I had already done the search on Astrobin and seen that image and a few others. I have done much research and digging and now what I want to know is how the Altair 26M performs in the hands of people who have one. Thats all.

12 minutes ago, Adam J said:

You say you dont want to hear it but ill say it anyway. The rising cam is the same thing exactly and much cheaper.

Adam

Why would you do that?

The reason I said that is that those discussions have already been had over and over in other threads and I dont want this one to go that way with 3 pages people arguing it is or is not the same. I just want to hear if anyone has hands on experience with the Altair 26M

Does anyone have hands on experience with the Altair 26M camera. (Please note I'm only interested to hear about the Altair version, not the ZWO, Rising Cam or others and only the Mono - not the colour version)

Thanks for any feedback you can provide.

David

These are great images Lee. The top one is really fantastic.

23 minutes ago, simmo39 said:

Hi and thanks for the reply. I will up the ADU next time. I have had a play with the image and removed the green cast, still looks a bit washed out but there is a little colour there. I dont think this was the best target to do a test on but it was forced on me by the Moon and Xmas lights! lol

I recon if you do a saturation boost in CurvesTransfomation youll see the colour coming out. How did you rmove the green?

At least you had some clear sky to do a test!

With my ASI 2600MC  and APT flats aid I set target ADU to 35000. So your 20000 is a bit low but I don't think it would  make them unusable.

Depending on what I'm using for flats, (sky or my led tracing panel with various layers of white t shirt) I've had flats exposures from 0.5s up to 5s. Everything I've read about the 2600 says actual flats exposure time is not that important.

I think you have plenty colour in there and if you got rid of the green cast it would start to show well.

If you wanted to share an untouched stack I'm sure someone would have a look at it for you.

Good luck. It is an amazing camera and I'm sure you'll get it working for you.

Another image taken with the L-eNhance filter and processed 2 ways

This was only about 3.5 hours before clouds came in and it could definately use more integration time.

70 x 180s, SW 80ED, ASI2600MC, L-eNhance. Moon was around 90%

First a regular processing of the OSC data

Then processed as HOO

C&C Welcome.

Thats really nice Richard. amazing detail.

Update :turned off norton firewall protection and it downloaded without issue. Dont understand why all other downloads went without problem.

14 hours ago, scotty38 said:

All fine with me too, I can't imagine they're wrong but are your repositories correct and updated? Also does the doc file show in the installed updates screen?

 

Thanks for this. Yes the repository is in there and the refdoc.zip file shows also. It then starts downloading but stops before completion and states download failed as shown below. Im goin to look at firewalls etc but it never been an issue before.

I've installed the new -11 pixinsight. Mostly no issue but it fails to download and install the documentation file from the PI repository. All other updates were downloaded and installed no problem. I've tried it several times - it identifies it as a new update each time I start up PI but it fails every time. No details of why it failed are provided.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

David

thanks for the comments folks!

The second half of my Sunday night.

This was about 4.5 hours of 180s subs with the ASI 2600 MC, SW 80ED and the L-enhance.

Again same data processed two ways;

Straight RGB

Then as HOO this time keeping the HA more red

C&C very welcome

Wow, Fanatstic detail!

Again what Richard said - first class.

4 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Very nice, you did well to get anything considering the how bright the moon was.

Thanks Richard. Yes moon was bright alright - but the sky was pretty clear so that helps. You know yourself, any high haze with that much moon and its as well to pack up. And without the l-enhance I'd not even bother setting up.

The weather has been so awful here I was not sure I'd remember how to do this AP thing!

But I got out last Sunday and got a whole night - split between 2 targets -of course the moon was nearly full! Is it ever any different?

So this was about 5 hours of 180s subs with the ASI2600MC, the SW 80ED and the L-eNhance. Framing is not brilliant but I wanted to get both M52 and NGC 7538 in the image and could not be bothered faffing around with rotate/platesolve/rotate  - that always take me about 20 goes to get it right 

First as a straight RGB image,

then processed as HOO

C&C Very welcome

+1 for W & W Astro, they are the best made heaters I have and service is second to none.

https://dewheater.com/

This is a fantastic small company in UK supplying what I consider to be the best Dew Heaters available anywhere and at a very fair price.

They also provide a service level that is second to none. Recently I made my first post Brexit purchase from them (I'm in Ireland) and Barbara could not have done more to be helpful in face of the difficulties of sending outside of UK..

I cannot recommend highly enough.

Thats a stunning image - beautiful

This is a really good image, nice details and I like the subdued blue.

That's a super image. Nice collaboration folks.

Ok, thanks so much for that, I really appreciate it. One of lifes great mysteries then. 😁

I wish I had even a loose understanding of such things but I'm a biologist so no hope!

Thanks again @vlaiv