Stuart1971

Totally disagree, over 95% of older Astro cameras are absolutely fine, I have owned 20 year old SX CCD cameras and were all excellent, obviously not as sensitive as modern day CMOS cameras, but certainly more than capable of the had one bad experience and it’s a shame, but this is not at all typical…..👍🏼

They are still there….😳😳👍🏼

I have all of the filters you mention, and with your camera I would deffo go with the L-Pro, as you won’t benefit much from the other two Dual narrowband filters, the L-Pro is a very good LP filter and when I got mine I sold the Idas P2 I had, as the L-Pro blew it away…👍🏼

What is your question….?

What scope are you using these with, as if it’s a fast scope, then this can be an issue and you need filters specially made for fast scopes, F4 and below…

Thermal noise is not really an issue with theses cameras, cooling is not really needed…..👍🏼

Why export to PS, from affinity, as you can do it all in there, no need for PS…👍🏼

Or,I could post it for you, if you like….?

Probably best to ask this on the NINA discord group, you will get an instant answer, and probably from the author himself….👍🏼

Thanks for that, much appreciated….👍🏼 Imthink I did tweak the colours a bit, saturation and warmth, but just on my iPad, as I wanted the newly noise reduced image to send to someone….but they are the same images with different crops plus the colour adjustments after the NR..

This was my example of a before and after, and I thought it looked ok, this was with default settings, the crop is not identical but close enough for a test, what do you guys think..? as on another forum I was told it did not look real and looked “plasticky” and that I had lost loads of detail in the reduction, especially in the galaxy….….🤔🤔 before… and after….

Yes, I bought it a few weeks ago, and just used on the default settings, and have been really pleased with the outcome, well worth the money IMHO…👍🏼

Nice Images, very sharp….👍🏼

Well if it works for you great….until it doesn’t….been there done that with Wi-Fi and with Ethernet…..the latest RPI 4 with 4-8gb of ram is more than capable of running Kstars and indi, as it does not use up any resources at all really, and runs well, but as I say whatever works for you…..if it ain’t broke, then no need to fix, but mine broke so I fixed, and never looked back, NINA all the way for me now….👍🏼

This is all well and good, and I tried it for a while, till you have Wi-Fi issues between mount and indoor PC, then you have to start all over again, much better if the PC on the mount can do it all and not rely on network connections….but I get your point…👍🏼

Absolutely, before moving to NINA 12 months ago, I was an avid user of the RPI4 and Stellarmate, for more than 2 years, and can tell you without doubt that NINA on a mini PC blows it out of the water for ease of use, reliability and of course it’s free, and constantly being developed, updated, and the support is superb too.. There is just no comparison, don’t get me wrong I liked the RPI, but would never go back to it, too many bugs, issues drop outs, lost nights of imaging….

First of all sorry if this had already been covered, but wanted to share a direct comparison using this new Noise Exterminator Plug-in from Rc Astro, I have to say, for me using APP and Affinity it’s a game changer.. It costs $59.95 or $39.95 if you already own a license for one of his plugins, which may sound a little expensive, but for me it was worth it as I already own Gradient Exterminator. There is a free trial period. https://www.rc-astro.com/resources/index.html It really is so simple to use and takes just three clicks to use the default settings, there are two sliders in the plug-in to play with, but I just left on the default. In the blurb it says to try and use early on in the processing, but I did not and just used on finished JPEG files I had already processed, but worked fine. Here is one of my recent images taken with a Tak FSQ85 and QHY268c camera, it is a JPEG of M51 which had minimal processing and also not much data, and a heavy crop, hence very noisy Zoom in on the two images to see the difference… As you can see it protects the stars and the nebulosity, beautifully…in my opinion, unlike some other noise removal plugins… And after using the plug-in on the default settings on the exact same image…

Well, I have to be honest, I would never use a solid coupler on the fine focus shaft, my advice was just for using the motor on the coarse focus side of the focuser, as my Pegasus is fitted….too much flex in the fine focus shaft and that could be easily damaged….😮

I had a flexible on my Tak FSQ85 and moved to a solid coupling, as long as it is fitted correctly, no issues at all. 👍🏼 fit the coupler to the focuser shaft, and tighten down, then fit motor bracket loosely, fit motor to bracket loosely, then slide the motor shaft into the coupler and tighten bracket down, then the important bit, with motor loose on bracket, run the motor slowly to centre the shaft in the coupler, this will move the motor on the bracket as needed, then tighten motor on bracket, run it again and make sure motor shaft turns in coupler with no radial movement, then tighten grub screw on motor shaft…then finally run it 360 degrees in both directions to check for and forced movement in the motor and bracket assembly, which would indicate radial movement……..simples…😀 PLEASE NOTE, the above instruction were for fitting the motor to the coarse focus shaft and I don’t recommend fitting a solid coupler to the fine focus shaft…just thought I would mention that…as some focusers use this side of the focuser….my Pegasus does not..👍🏼

Yes, more than likely…👍🏼

Hi, Nice image, regards the flattener, have you got the distance between flattener and sensor exactly as it should be, as this is pretty critical for most flatteners, also you have to allow for any filters in the imaging train also, rule of thumb is to add 1/3rd of the thickness of the filter to the backfocus distance… Looking at your stars I would say you need to move the flattener away from the sensor a tiny bit… This is not for your flattener, specifically, but may help in reading the star shapes as it applies to most

Questions 1, 2 and 3 are all as you assume…and yes the “Normal Astro mod” is as you say in question 2, I have had the mod done over the years by both Cheapastrophotography and Astronomiser, no difference in how they worked, but at the time CA were much cheaper….👍🏼

At that shutter speed, they are not flats but pretty much bias frames … try to get around 2-4 second flats..👍🏼

So there lies the issue….👍🏼

So are you using a telescope, if so the panel should be on the end of that with it focused for nightime use…?