Stuart1971

Oh dear, is that inbetween the glass or on the back inside, if it’s on the back surface then you could clean with a long bud and some Baader wonder fluid from down the focuser tube… I had to clean some off my primary mirror on my 8’ SCT last year…not an easy task….😮

Flat frames can work well other own, sometimes, but they are best calibrated with Dark Flats, which also contain the bias signal too hence why there is not need for separate bias frames….so use Darks, Flats at around 2-5 seconds, and Dark Flats at the exact same duration as the flats…and all at the same Temp, gain and offset settings, and you should be good to go…👍🏼

My mistake, that was with a voucher I got for buying two from them already…👍🏼

It’s actually £123 with VAT fees from Aliexpress….

Oh and BTW, you should be using Dark flats too…and don’t bother with bias, seems to work well….

Take longer flats, try Around 2-5 seconds with your CMOS camera…👍🏼

I would not bother with the L-pro, as it’s just a bog standard LP filter, you can get just as good ones cheaper….👍🏼

You might be quite surprised how bad it actually is, I live in a rural country location and no major sources of LP for over 30 miles, but I am still just bortle 6…🤔

No, should be fine, I am at f5.3 and seems fine…👍🏼

I just got my L-Xtreme from here, very good price £167 and fast delivery with no fees…..😉 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003195152373.html?spm=a2g0o.9042311.0.0.5fc94c4dFFN7s0

You can get this with very fast scopes below around f4 I believe…

The L-Xtreme is the best of the three, and works really well with all light pollution and street lights as it has a very narrow band pass in just Ha and Oiii, the L-enhance is a much wider 35nm band pass so not quite as good, and the L-pro is just basically a broadband LP filter….👍🏼

So you use BPM, flats and bias..? but I guess you need the darks initially to create the BPM…?

Very good point, I have lots of hot and cold pixels on mine….🤔 Dithering….? Rejection when stacking….?….would that sort them…

Ok, to stir up a bit of a discussion regards these cameras…. I have been reading on the NINA discord forum that the new IMX571 family of cameras are so clean that there is only a need for Flat frames and bias frames, with your lights, and not to bother with Darks or Dark flats, now I have been using Flats, Darks and Dark flats with my images and seem to work ok, but are we wasting time with darks and dark flats as they only really contain the bias signal so may as well just use bias frames…..🤔🤔🤔 Something to ponder….

The darks must always be of the same duration, gain, offset and temperature as your light frames, so this is what dictates….and can be taken in the same software as you use to image your light frames…..

Oh well I read that CMOS don’t work as well with fast flats, but maybe it’s just the QHY268c then….my bad…👍🏼

Flats are not good with CMOS cameras if under around 1 second, best to do between 3 and 5 second flats, so you need a dimmer light source…👍🏼

My new 2” Optolong L-Extreme filter arrived this morning, from china, took only 7 days, and wow, what a saving on cost, well worth it….👍🏼

Mine runs from direct 12v, most of the older intel NUC will run fine on anything from 12v to 19v, but apparently some of the newer ones will only run on 19v….👍🏼

Ok, finished design, not so much cable relief, as plug protection against my clumsy elbows while moving around the obsy, as I can easily hit with elbow and bend or even damage a socket on the camera…also added bolt to tighten to camera, just need to print now and see how it looks…

glad to hear it…👍🏼 I still use the simple sequencer, ir does all I need it to do, and I actually let it do a flip the other night, first time I have ever done one, and just so simple and all worked really well…

Problem solved, found a mirror option in Tinkercad, just had to re do the text….👍🏼

Hmmmmm 😂😂 oh well it passed away the afternoon, and am not getting the hang of the software….👍🏼

Actually it’s no good, glad I did not print, as the ports are the wrong way round, went by the diagram above too…🤔🤔 but looking at the back of the QHY camera in the image above it’s a mirror image of what the diagram shows….. Maybe it’s an engineering thing….like I say, an engineer I am not….😂