AstroMuni

+1 for Polar clock App. Mine is set to show the clock view thats in my Skywatcher reticle

Good point. And same goes for understanding the capabilities of your equipment & the related mount, camera management software. What is not clear to most beginners is that capture, guide, platesolve etc. is a small part of AP The difficult and not so cut and dried bit is in the processing and we learn it the hard way.

Thats the route I took as well. Simple scope, camera, good mount and jumped on the AP wagon. After a year I bought the guidescope. So IMO you are on right track I reckon its a bit like moving into a new house. Only when you live there for a few days you realise what else works well with it.

Each website has its own ways of storing & downloading the images. A lot of the websites compress them so when you download it comes as JPGs. Also your choice of downloading on different devices could result in different sizes. A mobile phone is considered a small format device so images will be in a reduced quality to suit the device. As an example take Flikr where a lot of astro folk store their images. I think if you upload in any other format besides PNG you end up getting JPGs when you download.

If it doesnt come with a built-in polarscope, you can add that to help you do PA. Or better option is do it with software ! So if you plan to use Sharpcap, Ekos or NINA then these allow you to take a few images and help you do the PA.

The high spec (expensive bits) are the scope and accessories, not the laptop itself

Be careful when you screw the fish-eye attachment (picture attached) as if you screw too tightly it might scratch the sensor. The fish-eye attachment needs to be removed before attaching to scope and replaced with the nosepiece adapter (picture attached)

I would remove the barlow and try to get focus (as already suggested). When I first got my ASI224, I pointed the scope at some distant trees to help focus and at night street lights, moon should help too. I figured that the leaves stand out in different colour so more easy to notice. But given the season we are in, you might struggle to get such candidate trees Good luck. Have you got it working with the all-sky lens provided with the camera?

In your images the artefacts are not just around the stars, so suspect there is another culprit out there. Good luck

If its not something thats due to filters or can be corrected by flats, it could be reflections similar to what I am facing. I get similar artefacts when I image in a certain part of the sky and narrowed it down to a street light thats causing reflections in my scope. Plan to put a dew shield on and see if that helps.

Its all to do with are you getting the best out of your current equipment IMO. This is how I would go about it - by checking the following: - Is my mount capable of handling the weight of the scope etc.comfortably - Can I improve areas like backlash etc. by doing any upgrades to mount OR do I need to change whole mount - Are there improvements I can make to the scope (eg.focuser, collimation, flattener, Coma corrector) - Is guidescope of correct size etc. - Are my cameras suited for the objects that I wish to image - Will filters help me (UV/IR cut, specialist filters for enhancing nebula etc.) - Do I need to upgrade my processing software HTH

Over and above all this hardware you will need a decent laptop/RPi and software to manage and process the images. Half the challenge is post capture

Its to do with the bandwidth of light they allow/not allow through. If you look at the graphs from each vendor you will see subtle differences and if you search on this forum you will find discussions which cover these. But at the end of the day (as others have said) its what you wish to spend vs how much noticeable difference you will get in your images given the fact that we have so many other factors which are at play besides UV/IR.

Glad its all sorted now

Hi Ash, What are your interests in astronomy? i.e. are you interested in whats out there, more interested in the science behind it, how to observe/photograph etc. That would help us in recommending appropriate reading material.

I use an RPi too... If you are unfamiliar with Kstars/Ekos do a bit of reading up and try it out using the simulators. I tend to run Kstars on my laptop (linux) and connect to RPi where I just run the indiserver +drivers. My workflow is: setup mount, polar align using the polarscope on my HEQ5Pro mount, attach scope, adjust focus (I dont have autofocuser). Optional - run polar alignment assistant in Ekos. Select object and do alignment (ie. platesolve). (You dont really need to calibrate the mount as everytime you do an alignment it uses that data and refines the mount model.) Capture image to check if all is well. So depending on object I get scheduler to do the align, track, guide, capture. I use PHD2 on RPi or the internal guider. have created a set of sequences in Ekos for 30s, 60s & 120s so I can choose right combination for each object. Good luck.

Do your flats have this halo too?

Looks great. Try a bit of deconvolution to make the stars more crisp.

Over and above what has been said above, get to know your equipment so you can use it to its fullest potential. You will soon realise its shortcomings (nothing is perfect) and then can make informed decisions on what to purchase. In the scope such as yours the common areas for improvement that will be suggested are an upgrade to a steadier mount and the eyepieces. But learn first 🙂

Here is a screen shot of what it could look like. I have applied Photometric calibration in Siril to your uploaded image @GazK Your shot is really good...And to be fair you have taken on one of the harder DSOs - its easy to capture but hard to process due to the extreme dark & bright shades on it.

I have no experience of using DSLRs, so will let others like @alacant respond. Gut feel suggests it could be something with the optics.

Try this monthly newsletter meant for bins but equally relevant for scopes. https://binocularsky.com/newsletter/BinoSkyNL.pdf courtesy Steve @BinocularSky

I would suggest you use an app like Skeye or SkySafari on your phone to point you in the right area. And then you could use bins to see if the object is visible. Skeye has a push-to functionality as well that should allow you to attach the phone to your scope and help you reach the right spot. Good luck

It could be a balance issue as suggested already. I have same mount as you without belt mod and there are a few areas close to zenith where the mount struggles. Good luck finding the exact cause

+1 to siril. Nice image too