mackiedlm

22 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

Very nice M51, you had a very fruitful weekend.

Thanks Richard - yes it was a great week-end and I had both rigs out for the three nights. . First time I've had 3 nights in a row since I started imaging. Still got 3 short fl images to processBut I saw your Iris Mosaic was spread over some of that time too so equally nice down your way I think.

48 minutes ago, Gerr said:

Your M51 looks great. Nice and sharp details in the spiral arms with lovely colour. Nice bit of dusty stuff too.

Your stars appear to have dual colours. Not sure what the cause of this is?

Gerr.

Thanks for that Gerr,

The dual colour stars are  (I believe) part of the coma effect of this 20 year old SCT -(the old model before before the Advanced Coma Free ACF was invented) and a Meade 0.63 FR which is known to be pretty poor at the FF part.  Unfortunately there is not much I can do about it and just need to live with it. Which, when I can get the main subject as well as above I'm OK with - until I get around to (can affort) some more, newer FL.

I usually explain in my posts that there is still some coma after I have cropped out the worst but was getting bored doing that so did not mention it this time.🥴

Another from the easter week-end.

This is the old 8" LX200 on its wedge again, EOS700D, 53 X 180s ISO800.

Strangely my go to stacker APP made a hash of this for some reason that I dont understand, so I tried stacking in PI using the WBPP script and it did a great job. Post processing also in PI

C&C welcome.

that a beautiful image of a rather unusual target. - One to add to the list.

Thats the ONLY way I can see an ape also - great image too, - you don't often see real star colours in this image.

That is a fantastic M81. So much structure in the arms and fantastic colours. Brilliantly don.

11 minutes ago, callisto said:

Cheers for that...I was too lazy to check for myself 😁

 

Mark

🤣 your welcome! It was a good exercise for me as its something I've never done before but Alladin/Simbad made it  pretty easy.

45 minutes ago, callisto said:

Lovely images 👍

What's the faint fuzzy to the left?

 

Mark

Thanks for that. The faint Fuzzy is (I believe) UGC5086 which is a dwarf elliptical - I'm not sure if it is technically a "satellite" or not.

Redone to darken background as when i looked on my main screen it was too grey.

Another from the easter week-ends unprecedented 3 clear nights.

Again with the 8" LX200 @f6.3 on its wedge and the Canon EOS700D 50 X 180s

The good old coma showing through on this one again despite the crop but I can live with it as its the only large FL I have.

thats a fantastic Image - great detail.

thanks for all that @geeklee - I'll take a look at it. I'm not rushing into anything just trying to work out options.

I could defork the LX200 and the NEQ6 would carry it but honestly it would not  feel right - like ripping the doors off a vintage car I guess! And also its an old UHC model - before Coma Correction was invented so coma is awful - even with the Meade FF/FR.  If I could correct that then perhaps I'd consider deforking. But i'm so cack-handed I'd probably end up wrecking the thing!

BTW, I just noticed your location. Although I'm in Galway now, my mum was Aberdonian,  I grew up in Perth Studied Glasgow then lived near Stirling before leaving home 25 years ago now.

I had an extra Weetabix for breakfast so I could lug the venerable 8" LX200 GPS and its wedge out in honour of Galaxy season. Strapped on the canon 700d (the 2600 was in use on a widefield set up) and give it a whirl.

All things considered, and after cropping out the awful coma, I think its not bad for a 20 yearold scope, on a wedge and a 8 year old DSLR

C & C welcome

Thats a fantastic image Lee. super detail and your stars are great colours.

I'm mulling over more FL to go with my ASI2600mc and was thinking about a RC (possibly this very one) but am slightly put off by the talk of collimation. How do you find it with that scope?

That's a nice I age. Great definition and colours

A nice galaxy and a Planetary in one widefield.

This was around 3 hours with the Evostar 80 ED and the ASI2600mc

Nice as a wide field ;

But holds OK a quite a tight crop too;

C&C Welcome as always.

Thats come out really nice. I love that target.

Thats just superb!

I had some issues with windows 10 sending USB ports into suspend, (not with PHD2 but with APT) this resolved the issue

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/73187-turn-off-usb-selective-suspend-windows-10-a.html

I am in bortle 4 and I use an l-enhance. I have used it successfully on both a DSLR (1100d and 700d both astro modded) and recently on a cooled dedicated astro-cam. In my opinion the L-enhance is a fantastic tool. With it imaging nebulae during bright moon becomes possible and that has been really important for me this winter when clear night have been almost exclusively around the full moon. Alsoby separating out the channels it is possible to produce very pleasing false colour (HOO) images.

I have not used an l-extreme so cannot speak from direct experience, but I have seen references to it being difficult to use with a DSLR.

Good luck.

31 minutes ago, geeklee said:

A substantial improvement @mackiedlm  It's hard to believe the second image is from the same data set (except the framing).  

Unfortunately, I think it is definitely possible that good data is perhaps not being used to its potential.  Highlights a good reason to hold on to your data and revisit it later with fresh knowledge and fresh eyes!

Let your ASI2600 loose on the same area  

Thanks lee. Yes, I cant wait for the summer /autumn nebula to come back so i can the let the 2600 at them.

The data for this image was captured back in September and despite my best efforts at the time the output was pretty poor. So much so that I did not bother to post here (I think!). I put it down to just very poor data.

But six months of learning and reading made wonder if it may have been more down to processing - particularly pre processing. I had become aware that the 700d sometimes shows some amp glow at the edge and also learned about the potential problems of using bias frames and scaling of darks.

It was 4 hours of 240s subs with the 80ED and the 700d with the L-enhance. So I went back to this and did a full re-pro from first principles, without bias and without scaling and with a more aggressive cull of poor subs.And this is what came out.

Now, its still not fantastic but I do think it is significantly improved from the first two versions: here the original done in PS

and this my attempt once I started using Pixinsight and clearly showing the amp glow problem

So for me this has been quite instructive as it has shown me that it is easy - especially for beginners - to jump to the conclusion that your data is poor when the data may be usable if you take care in your processing.

Really enjoyed reading that! Technology has moved so fast in only 20 years that ot can be hard to believe. Thanks sharing.

21 hours ago, Starflyer said:

I gave up trying to keep my prolific adapter working, I'd apply the the fix and then a Windows update would break it again at some point in the future.

Yes it breaks every now and again for me too. I check it now every time befor I connect and change the driver as required.

How do you keep your scope connected if you dont keep the prolific adapter working ?

If you are getting the "PL2303 phased out" message in Device manager then either of these will get you going.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/user/Hitecastro_EQMOD_Win8.pdf

http://wp.brodzinski.net/2014/10/01/fake-pl2303-how-to-install/