mackiedlm

I'm guessing that you are saving non linear images as 32 bit tiff. If you save them from PI as 16 bit tiff I think you'll find they open alright. You could also try converting to 16 bit once you've got them in PS but I can never get that to work properly. Let us know if that works.

Thanks for that. My daughter sees an aggressive biting rat with blue ears pulled back flat on its head. ! David.

If I were in the running for a mono the only one I'd want would be the 2600mm - the mono version of the 2600mc. But with the need for larger filters and the extra cost of the camera, it's in a different price bracket to the 1600mm. It's very lucky for me that I'm satisfied with the osc.😀

Just to add my agreement to what's already said, if you have lots of clear nights then mono may be a good choice. I'm in west of Ireland where clear nights are like hens teeth so I went from DSLR to 2600mc on the basis that I did not want to capture one filter then wait weeks before getting another. With the 2600mc even if I only get 3 hours then I should have a reasonable finished image. For all the reasons/theory you have listed, I think we will never win the argument that osc is now as good as mono. Those with vested interest in mono will use the theory to shut us down. However, for me at least, the 2600mc is much more than "good enough". And +1 to what @tomato says v/v Nb. But again you'll have the purists who will tell you it's not real NB and that you should not be using your l-enhance to do that because "that's not what it was designed for" 🤣 Ive been told that several times on a forum that shall remain nameless. I'd also say that the 1600mm is old now, does not have the backlit sensor and is prone to the "micro lensing" issue. For me the 2600mc is a much better camera. But you will get plenty who will tell you any mono is better than any osc.

I use L-eNhance. I've never used the "both mono" . Not sure I see what value there is in it. I have tried the "both colour" but find it to be pretty uninspiring. I've often used the extract Ha and extract Oiii then recombined as HOO or sometimes mixed some Ha with the O. The APP blurb says the extract algorithms produce better less noisy mono images than stacking as normal then pulling out the channels. I have found that to be the case. Most of the time!

Thanks Ciaran, I appreciate the comment. I think it was the toughest thing I've processed so far. I'm about 25 km east of Galway, pretty rural. The map say Bortle 4-5 but theres a dirty great sodium street light about 20 yards from my scope. The scope has it has to be there to avoid a LED security light that comes on at random times. I set up a blind to shade the scope and that, together with the L-Pro seems to do the trick. The light dome from Galway is quite low to my west.

Hi Peter, thanks for that. I did this using Platesolving in APT connected to stellarium. In stellarium you set up an "Occular" for your sensor and scope which gives you a frame - confirm the orientation of the camera and put that in too. Then fit the frame on the image in stellarium and send the co-ordinates to APT and then Goto those co-ordinates. A couple of "Aim and goto++" and you are there. Which is just as well because there was absolutely NO SIGN of it in the 180s subs. Platesolving is like magic!!

Thanks for the positive comments folks - much appreciated.

Thanks for that Adam, much appreciated.

My first effort with the L-pro was my Dark Shark (final result posted in "Imaging-Deep sky") But straight out of the stacker (both APP and Pixinsight - same result) the image has a very severe colour gradient yellow to blue purple. I've never seen this before so it must be related to the L-Pro - has anyone else seen this with the L-Pro. It seemed to be quite easily removed with both ABE in Pixinsight and "Remove light pollution" in APP but I'm concerned that such broad brush gradient removal could be impacting on faint nebulosity in images like this. Additional information Bortle 4-5 but with a sodium street light close but blocked No other local light pollution and no moon on that image Flats (done with LED panel ) also show the same gradient so its not external light anyway Dark flats are not showing any light leak Its not the flats that are causing it because the gradient is there on a stack done only with darks and no flats/dark flats Any suggestions for mitigating this problem - even if its just to say "dont worry about it, gradient removal will deal with it without causing data loss" would be greatly appreciated. Thanks David.

After over 6 weeks without a break I finally got some clear sky. Also no moon so decided to try my very first Dark nebula. The weather did not really co-operate and between passing clouds, me forgetting what to do and some technical issues because of a new imaging PC this ended up at only 3.5 hours. I think it would need at least double that to start bringing structure to the nebula. But at least its a start and some of the nebula is showing. Not sure why the brightest stars are bloated? SW Evostar 80ED, ASI2600mc, NEQ6, Optolong L-Pro, 70 x 180s C&C Appreciated

Thatrs a really nice image, well done.

Cracking image Adam.

Thats a beauty. Great colour and detail.

My understanding is that the calibration masters will be applied to all the different algorithms. I have used the Ha Oiii colour, extract ha and extract oii with the l- enhance. If I do them one after the other, when I change it in the 0 tab APP will tell me that I need to redo normalisation but it happily uses existing masters. And I've never seen any issue with the output doing it this way.

Thats lovely - nice detail and colours.

Great write up, thanks. Ime really interested in this but currently I use stellarium and I don't know if there is a way to place more than one frame at a time and then export them all. So I may have to install hnsky just for this. Thanks for the info.

I think it's really interesting to see how many people are confirming the rationale for OSC in our sky conditions. When I was doing my thinking about my options and reading a lot, the overwhelming advice was mono-centric. Maybe not on here but for sure on another forum that will remain nameless. Anyone asking about OSC or mono was directed very strongly to mono. The arguments were,; "just mix up your filters and you get a full image in one night anyway, You WILL end up going mono anyway, mono is faster" etc. But I really just didn't buy it and I have no regrets about my choice.

I gnawed for weeks on the mono/osc question and finally chose the 2600mc for all the reasons you give, I'm in the west of Ireland so clear nights are like hens teeth, the thought of getting only one filter worth of data then closing down possibly for weeks just did not sit right. So while I get all the arguments for mono over OSC it was just not a fit for me. I've had the camera for about 8 months now and have absolutely no regrets. It's an amazing camera as you image above proves.

I've done some trials with this, head to head with starnet++ in PI and I have found that it is much much better. No halo artefacts where bright stars are removed - the main reason I gave up on starnet was simply not there. He has already updated the AI to address a couple of small issues. Personally I think its a vast improvement. But I agree 100% - it's a lot of cash for a one trick pony.

I recently got a refurbished machine for processing. It's an i5, 32gb ram and 1TB SSD, so similar to the one you show very slightly more expensive. I find it handles my 50mb images (ASI 2600MC) very well. It blinks 200 images in PI with no jitter and calibrates and integrates those 200 in a time that for me is acceptable - less than 1 hour. All of that was beyond my older machine which would sulk for days if I asked to so any of that😁 However, I still find it is as! slow as a wet week end with Startools. That was always my main issue with startools and really why I gave up on it, it would take an age to do any of the post processes where APP or PI would do them more quickly. If you could stretch it you may be better going up to 32gb ram. But if you check what the max ram is on the machine you could always hold off and add it later. Good luck and do report back.

After interminable weeks of bright sky and clouds I finally got some decent imaging weather. This is the first output from that. Not as much integration as it needs but nights are still short. This is just under 4 hours with the SW 80ED, ASI2600mc and the L-eNhance filter. Processed 2 ways in PI, first as just standard coulour and second with channels seperated adjusted and recombined as HOO. I like to hear thoughts on which works best.

Fantastic image, great colours and detail.

That is an amazing image - beautiful!

Thanks so much, Youll be delighted with the 2600mc - its an amazing camera.