Endolf

I am. Got the Antlia 3nm Ha and SII, there was no stock anywhere of the OIII so got a 3.5nm version. Got the Astronomik deep sky RGB filters and a CLS CCD for a lum.

The scope is a SharpStar 61 EDPH MKII. Not had many sessions with it yet, but it really does seem to produce some nice data I found some really nasty things shooting flats with reflections, I was getting rings in the flats, turned the filter round, problem gone I was using mode 0 for narrowband, the read noise is pretty much gone by 30 gain. Looking at the graphs again, between gain 55 and 60 the better mode changes to mode 1, so I might give that a try, thanks. For broadband I've been trying mode 3 gain 0, but I've only managed 20 minutes of Lum data before the target went behind some trees. I've not got any flats on this yet, and there is certainly some dust motes there, but if you zoom in, the stars in the core are still separate, so I'm pretty pleased. This is a stack of 40x30s. Filters is the Astronomik CLS CCD.

This is just 30 minutes of Ha data with the Antlia 3nm Ha filter on the QHYCCD 268M, no calibration frames yet. This is so much better than I was getting before, it's almost like going from a DSLR to your first astro cam again. Just 6x300s (Gain 50, offset 15). I think I'm going to like this

I think the conversion to jpg has done something to the background, they do look reasonable here, but when looking at the raw tiffs it was clear that the background was lighter and the overall contrast was not as good as either of the other Ha filters. The Antlia seemed to have the most contrast, I think I could go higher gain or longer exposures to get even more detail out of that filter. I admit my approach isn't very scientific, I'm more a suck it and see to some extent. I looked at the gain graphs for the camera, and thought about what a maximum exposure time might be, both in terms of what my gear will allow, but also what I'm willing to lose if a something happens to an image. I normally don't go above 300s, but have done 600s. I find the longer the exposure, the easier the image is to process, except for the stars of course. I live near a town, so no point going too long due to LP. I ended up looking at the mean ADU, 50 gives me a higher ADU whilst still not blowing out too many stars. For a target near a really bright set of stars, the gain or exposure time might get reduced, but then more images stacked. There are certainly more scientific approaches one can take than what I do, but I am liking my results which is what matters to me

I managed to get some dark skies last night and shot some test images. Seems I've got some tilt somewhere to take out. I shot with the ZWO 7nm Ha filter, the Astronomik 6nm Ha filter and the Antlia 3nm Ha filter. There are 3 exposure times, 180s, 300s and a single 600s sub. There are 2 gain settings, 30 and 50 and 3 offset settings, 10, 30 and 50. The images have the time, the filter brand, the gain, and the offset (or 10 if not specified) in the file names. Sensor was chilled to -10 and the scope is a SharpStar 61 EDPH MKII. Most frames were focused before each exposure. All images have been loaded in to PI and a soft stretch applied using the EZ processing suite. Hopefully they haven't lost much in the conversion to jpg. The 300s Antlia filters appear to have found the one period of cloud, which ruins the comparison, but I've included them anyway. I suspect I'll end up at 300s, gain 50, offset 15 as a starting point for emission nebula for the Antlia filter.

I'm one of the other recipients, mine arrived Friday. It's a beast :). I went for the 36mm FW (which I also have for my zwo 1600), got a set of Astronomik filters, I got the Antlia filters too (3nm Ha and SII, had to get the 3.5nm OIII as there was only 1 3.5nm OIII at the distributors and was already taken). I will replace the ZWO narrowband filters with one of these sets depending on what I choose to keep with the new camera. I tried taking some flats, just to get an idea of the exposure time difference v.s. the 1600 and zwo filters. I was getting some terrible artefacts. Through trial and error I narrowed it down getting light round the edges of the Antlia filters, so I "borrowed" the filter masks from the ZWO setup and the problem went away. Took me most of Saturday to figure that one out. The Astronomik filters don't seem to exhibit the issue, I'm assuming that's due to the semi mounted nature of their 36mm filters. I've installed the Astronomik CLS CCD in the Lum slot as I did on my 1600 and I've got the ZWO 7nm Ha, Astronomik 6nm Ha and all 3 of the Antlia filters installed, so I'm planning on getting a comparison between the ZWO, Astronomik and Antlia Ha filters the next clear sky I get. I'm guessing due to the difference in bandpass I'll need different gain settings to keep the exposure time down and the levels the same. Or I can keep everything the same and do a comparison in post processing. Hoping to get at least 12x300s on each filter.

Hi I just got a new camera (QHY 268M), and some new filters (Antlia 3nm Ha and SII, 3.5nm OIII 36mm). I've swapped out my old camera that was on my scope from the last session, and put the new combo on, and thought I would take some "test" flats, just to see what I'm getting. On my old camera, I used to aim for a mean on my flats of ~25k adu, or 15k adu for some of the filters, based on the max value, trying to keep the max under 65k so there was nothing blown out. My test flat with the 3nm Ha filter was blowing out with a mean of only 3200 adu, so I need to figure out if my flats should have a mean ADU at about the 15k or 25k mark, and accept some pixels being blown out on the flats, or if I should reduce the mean ADU down to 3200 to protect the max value. Does anyone else have experience of this sort of issue with very narrowband filters?, how did you solve the issue? Thanks

For myself, the wider FoV (but maintaining the same pixel scale, so can always crop down to the same as the 1600), higher QE, lower noise, reduced/no amp glow and higher contrast.

I've just ordered the QHY version with the 36mm filter wheel as between the price of the wheel and the price of astronomik filters I've saved about £900 v.s. the 2" filter wheel and filters.

For anyone finding this post in future, QHY have added extra adapters so the 36mm filter wheel can be attached, so I've gone for the Astronomik deep sky RGB set, the CLS CCD as a Lum filter and their 6nm narrowband. Sounds like the camera should arrive towards the end of next week or the week after. Hopefully the filters will be here before then.

Hi I've got myself down for the QHY268M when it comes in via modern astronomy. I've been using an ASI1600MM till now with ZWO's 36mm filters. I'm looking at 2" filters to go in to a QHY filter wheel, full LRGB + narrowband, so 7 filters. I replaced the Lum filter from the ZWO set with an Astronomik CLS CCD on my existing setup for broadband to try and cut through some of the light pollution and was thinking of doing the same sort of thing (a light pollution filter instead of Lum) in the new wheel. I've been looking at the options, I'd like to just kit it out with all Astronomik filters, for a better chance of getting parfocal (both of my scopes have an EAF, so not essential). The Astronomik 6nm filters at 2" is best part of £500 each, so I'm looking for other options. I've thought about getting the Astronomik CLS CCD plus RGB and the ZWO narrowband (1/2 the price). I've looked at Optolong, but they are only 80% transmission, instead of 90% for ZWO, and part of the reason for the new camera is the better QE. Are there any other "budget" brand filters worth looking at?, anyone got any bad experiences with any of these options?, or anything that worked surprisingly well for the price point? Thanks Sorry, just realised there is a similar thread already for LRGB filters for this camera too. My bad.

Hi I've currently got 2 scopes, 275mm focal length 61mm refactor and 8" 1000mm reflector. I've got an EQ6 R pro that I've been using with both scopes. I'd like to get a second mount for the small refactor, giving the option of running 2 setups (using stellarmate / Astroberry to control the rig). I'd also like something lighter to get more portable (not back pack portable, but star party portable). I've seen the Celestron AVX, but having to use the hand controller for initial setup each session sounds frustrating. Any suggestions for mounts people have had good sessions with for smaller refractors? Thanks

The 61EDPH MK II is an great little scope, taken some of my favourite images with mine.

Sorry, my fault, I started this hobby back in Feb....

Except the 36mm ones are unthreaded...

Not on the mounted Astronomik ones. I've had a reply from Astronomik who say it doesn't matter for this filter. I'm assuming that any coatings are applied to both sides...

Hi My google fu seems to have escaped me, I'm struggling to find an answer to this. As an experiment I've just got myself one of the CLS CCD, 36mm mounted filters from Astronomik to go in my ZWO filter wheel instead of the Lum (bortle 5/6 in theory, but I get some nasty LP from the docks near me). The ZWO filters I have have instructions on the manufacturers site about which way the filter should be installed, which face goes to the camera and which to the telescope. I can't find anything regarding the Astronomik filters. Does it not matter?, or is it just really hard to find the information?, can anyone enlighten me please?. Thanks

It's taken a little while, but I finally got enough data this week to "finish" (is it ever?) my Heart and Soul image. It's a 2 panel mosaic taken with the SharpStar 61 EDPH MkII and my ASI1600MM 49x300s Ha, 48x300s OIII and 49x300s of SII, so each panel is about 2.5 hours of data across the filters. The moon wasn't particularly forgiving to the data, so I might add more at some point and see if I can sort some of the gradient issues. Stacked in APP and light processing in PI.

Hi Back in May I got my first dedicated astro cam, an ASI1600MM, with the 7 position 36mm filter wheel and the ZWO LRGB + narrowband filters. I've been mostly shooting narrowband targets over the summer (well, the few days of clear skies we had.... :)). I've tried a couple of broadband targets recently and I'm getting lots of light pollution (as I did on my DSLR before I installed the IDAS LPS D2). I've been thinking about replacing the L filter for a light pollution filter of some sort to help my broadband images out. It needs to be something I can get in 36mm (unmounted, although from doing some research the Astronomik CLS CCD Filter mounted also fits in the ZWO wheel). Is this a good approach?, are there many other mono, broadband imagers doing similar things?, if so, does anyone have any recommendations for good broadband light pollution filters that would fit my rig? Thanks

Finally managed to get enough data on my baby scope to call it an image. This is about 8 hours of narrowband data around the SH2-157, there is quite a lot in of objects in here. This is the first image from my SharpStar 61 EDPH MKII that I got a few weeks back, the first time I'm using astroberry (as opposed to my normal stellarmate), first time with an APO, first time using the ZWO EAF. The EAF needs more tuning, especially in the OIII it's not a reliable process yet, I often have to run it a couple of times to get it to play. My guiding wasn't playing nice last night (the second of the 2 nights gathering data), not sure if my PA was off or if there was some other reason for it. I'm pretty pleased with the blue on the lobster, I think I could do a bit more on the bubble, but I need to be careful about going too far. 42x180s Ha 60x180s OIII 60x180s SII Drizzled with droplet 0.5 and scaled 2x, calibrated, stacked and combined in APP, post processing in PixInsight. Full details and higher res are on Telescopius

I only use it for polar alignment, but it wouldn't run this evening for me after the update to Android 11 today.

So, this is part ramblings and part warning I got myself a new scope (SharpStar 61 EDPH Mk II), with the reducer/flattener in place the back focus is different to what I had adapters for before when using my newtonian with a coma corrector. So had a look at some options and ordered a Omegon M42 to M48 adapter that said it only added 2mm to the optical path, and then an SVBony set of extensions to build it up. The SVBony M48 extension tubes arrived first, I quickly discovered that the threads on the extension don't quite work with the M48 threads on my baader MPCC. Weirdly, they work fine with the ZWO M48 adapters, and the male M48 thread did screw in to the MPCC, I'm guessing the SVBony adapter is right on one edge of tolerance, and the MPCC the other extreme. Then when looking at one of the other SVBony extension tubes I realised that the threads are not cut very deep, so it wouldn't screw on to the new scope's flattener/reducer far enough. I ordered some Altair extensions. The new extensions arrived and all was looking good. This morning the M42 to M48 adapter arrived. Set up for one scope and it all looked good. The extensions needed for the other scope are different, but the M42 to M48 is the same, when I tried to swap it over I couldn't get the adapter off of the extensions. I eventually managed it, but the outside had got scuffed up and the extension was bent out of shape. I'd had to apply heat too. So one of the extensions trashed, but I did manage to get it off eventually. So then I tried the other setup. All was looking good till I measured the back distance an discovered it was 5.5mm too long. The sums all worked out, but measuring it didn't. I found out the M42 to M48 adapter added 7.5mm to the optical train, not 2mm. I hunted around online to see what adapter and extension tubes were around, it took a while, but I eventually realised that if I machined 1mm off the adapter, I could use extension tubes from off the shelf. Luckily, one of my other hobbies is miniature steam locomotives, so I have a little workshop. I took some images, from problem, to solution, to result.

That would be good. Thanks. I'm having troubles finding what looks best across 2 operating systems on the same PC, let alone on different PCs with different screens... 🙄😆

Hi Wondering if anyone has had any of their images printed, I've had a request to get one of mine printed (I know, came as a surprise to me too....). I've never had any photo printed, let alone at 16"x12" size, and certainly never any of my astro images. Wondering if anyone has any guidelines, or places they'd recommend in the UK? Thanks.

Yup, also thought about the little QHY 30mm guide scope, for now I'll be using what I've been using on my 8" newtonian. The plan is to eventually build up a second, lighter rig, but for now I've just got the APO so will have to swap everything back and forth depending on the target.