AstroMuni

Welcome to the club 🙂 Yes, its a steep learning curve to understand the jargon and pick up the relevant tools to enhance your images. Still learning........

If you have an ipad you could use that too, which is what I do. I just modify the power setup temporarily so that it doesnt dim after 30sec and open a blank word document

The ASI224 is pretty good for DSOs as well. I am a beginner but take a look at the kind of images I have managed to get (see link in signature)

This should not happen. And did you say its a 3 pin power supply?

I like your idea. Its a good one for smaller scopes where your hand wont fit in. Is there a reason you dont place just a large sheet of paper in the tube to block the main mirror? And if you are building a proper tool then suggest you provide for a) an adjustable arm b) a long arm (say 20cm) which is sure to block most scopes.

If & when that happens (lets hope its in the far distant future ) I would suggest you put the roof on 4 legs and put a track on the ground.

One simple way is save it as HOME position. But there maybe a better way to do this. Will check out when I get time tonight. EDIT: Thought of another simple way..Once you have done alignment, save the mount model. When Ekos crashes restart and reload the mount model. Then go to the alignment tab and do a Load & Slew of the last image you captured

Looks great! I love it If you are worried about the load on the drawer runners, you could consider adding a pair of feet on the extreme right with castors on them to support the roof when its open. Just my 2 bits of thought.

Yes, forgot about that one as I have captured that too. 🙂 The OP uses a non-tracking dobs, so might be a bit of a challenge to get that many shots.

I'll second that on the ASI224mc being a user myself 🙂

Hi, Take a look at the ZWO ASI 224mc astro camera as well. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi224mc-usb-3-colour-camera.html is the link to a UK site. Its reasonably priced and you can get great shots of planets and the brighter DSOs. You can see a few images of DSOs taken with that in my signature.

Are you planning to build or buy? If its build then you should be able to do that in that budget. If you are looking to build one then here is a link

Welcome to the group. If you can provide a bit more info on specifics of what you are interested in we should be able to provide some links, books etc. As you can imagine the topic of Observation is vast and when you say Research - thats even more so. Have you read this?

Nice one. 👍 I know what I managed to get in 25mins, and now I know what to aim for 🙂

If an identical number of images have been taken in both instances, I would say the 120ED image is crisper. But that could just be a focus issue. Is it worth paying £1000 more for that image, thats a subjective matter. In my case I would say No.

I dont think they have a version on Linux 😞

I am struggling with installing the same. It needs some components for computing from Google (tensorflow) that I am finding hard to install on my Linux machine

What software do you use? I am in same boat as you and having read up about this,it seems that one way to do that is isolate the stars into a layer so you get only the background to play with. Then play with this to remove background noise and bring out the nebula. Tools like PixInsight have tools to help do this quickly. I am not into PI yet, so continuing my struggle with Siril, Gimp and other such free tools 🙂

If you own a pair of binoculars use them first. You can readily see Andromeda, M81,82 with a 50x10. Once you know where to look for them then you can aim for that spot using your scope. But as others have pointed out, it may not be best season to go galaxy hunting. If you have a camera try with that thro the telescope. An exposure of around 10secs should get you glorious shots. Good luck!

oops. sorry didnt read the topic properly obviously Updated my image with a galaxy

I am an absolute beginner and here is my attempt at imaging with my Celestron 130 OTA mounted on HEQ5 Pro and using the ASI224mc camera. Images captured using Kstars/Ekos and processed in Siril. No guiding. No flats or darks either. Here is my image of Messier 82 - Cigar galaxy taken in early April. 100 x 5s lights, gain 120 65 x 10s lights, gain 120

Sorry to hear this. In my case I bought mine at the Lidl store so it was a case of lucky dip 😉

I am not very good with such DIY skills but may have a go sometime 🙂 Whats the advantage with longer subs? Less SNR? I am just managing with 'lucky imaging' at the moment. Not sure if 30-60sec counts as lucky though?

I dont. I have an f/5 scope so fov is a double of yours. I dont have a guidescope and use a telrad to do initial adjustments. My mount is a Go-to so makes it a bit easier. I have made a small mark on the focuser where I get focus with the ASI224 so its a good starting point. After that its a matter of getting the best focus for that day with gentle nudges on the focuser knobs. A homemade Bahtinov mask also helps. All platesolving is done post getting the good focus.

Its not a scary thought for me...its just a humbling one and one of awe that we are but a small critter on a grain of sand. Its a bit like the scene in the Dr Seuss movie 'Horton hears a Who!' when the critters on a dust spec shout to be heard 🙂