Wyvernp

Ok, I figured it out. I removed the camera from the filter wheel and tried to rotate through the filters in SGP. Well... it doesn't move so all exposures were from 1 filter...facepalm

Whilst I gather more data over the next few days, Can anyone think of any reason why there's such a lack of colour? I understand that if the histograms have almost identical curves this would happen as there will be equal amounts of R, G and B light, making white. But I'm a little concerned about my setup.

Also, something I have done is use the 12v rails from an old 300w PC power supply. The yellow cable is the 12v positive and the ground is just the black wire next to it. Free if you have one spare and you get lovely buttery smooth 12v dc.

Yeah and at only 3 hours max of data each night this time of year it might take a while

Thanks for trying though!

Blue_HDR.fit Green_HDR.fit Lum_HDR.fit Red_HDR.fit

Here, It's not great data because of the rotation. Looks like i'm going to have to image for a few more nights  

I think last nights data just made things worse... they are at 45 degree rotation to the ones from the previous night. Still the satellite trails are gone but the image still looks colourless

Yeah, I think I'll try again after I collect a few more subs tonight.

12 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

I had a go in GIMP and got some colour (the red has a satellite trail by the look of it). As even, colours are subtle, and boosting saturation gets more pronounced. I will also give APP a go

14 minutes ago, Astrosharkey said:

Just had a very quick go with PS and Fits Liberator and cannot get any colour to come through on the combined image, will have another look later with more time.

Glad to see it's not just me, thanks for trying. Unfortunately yes there's a couple of satellites at the moment, I don't yet have enough subs to do any sigma clipping.

Blue_HDR.fit

Green_HDR.fit

Red_HDR.fit

Morning All,

I'm having an issue combining my channels in pixinsight. I have 3 separate R, G and B channels made from 17x30sec and 7x300sec subs each.

When I combine them the channels histograms seem to match so closely the entire image still looks greyscale. I'll upload them shortly in case anyone wants to have a look.

Thanks in advance.

Wyvern

Glad it could be useful!

I believe as long as you have the correct amount of backfocus which I believe is 105mm it should be fine.

Just came across this and thought it might be useful for others.

https://www.blocklayer.com/timing-tape.aspx

Maps out 360 degrees on a tape you can print. Until I sort out a rotator I'm going to tape this to my camera so I can easily adjust the angle.

Quick update:

Focuser now working, had an additional 10m usb cable delivered today and when plugged into a usb2 port all works well.

Trying to get hold of an M54-M48 adaptor now...apparently not in stock in many places in the UK 

Yep, ok. With the standard fittings the backfocus distance is incorrect.

74mm as apposed to 55mm

so at the moment I have:

flat6aiii -> m48-m54(31mm) -> qhycfw3-m-us (26mm) -> qhy163m (17mm)

and here is what I think I need

flat6aiii -> m48 spacer (10mm) -> m48-m54(2mm) -> qhycfw3-m-us (26mm) -> qhy163m (17mm)

Can anyone give some feedback as I may be a little confused.

I've just noticed there are some pretty nasty stars in the corners of that image. ok, another thing to troubleshoot today!

1 hour ago, red dwalf said:

looks great, i also had focuser problems last night, seems to be a usb cable loose or the usb socket on the focuser loose, always happens when you least expect it

Yeah, that's a pain! I have to wait for another cable to arrive now before I can do much more imaging. 

Interestingly it looks like USB incompatibility issues, usb 2 arduino plugged into a usb3 hub which then goes via active cable to the PC. Looks like I'll have to run a separate cable to a different port on the pc... shame as all the rest of the devices work through the hub.

Morning! I know there's no way I should be up this early after such a late night but I was excited to process my data.

So I've been prepping for the arrival of the QHY camera for a while so I had installed most of the requires ascom drivers on my pc and tested things like the mount and PHD2 guiding.

After an hour or so assembling, mounting filters etc I was so happy to have this!

First things first, I did my polar align using the EQ6-R Pro built in scope which works ok for the moment. Connected everything up to my pc, lots of pings and bleeps as all the hardware is detected.

Mount ✅

ASI120 Guide cam ✅

QHY163M imaging camera ✅

Filter wheel ✅

Focuser ❌

ok, so I couldn't get the focuser working this run. I'll troubleshoot that today. So I did a focus with the bahtinov mask.

Next I installed SGP and started setting everything up.

After an hour or so and with some invaluable help from pages on SGL combined with a few YouTube videos I has plate solving configured, the right pixel scale in the camera settings.. (I put in the pixel size at first which really messed with the plate solving)  and I was ready to image!

Turns out it was too hot yesterday to do my dark frames at -10 so I'll give those a run today as well as some flats and dark flats.

2 Hours on the heart nebula in Ha only, currently no calibration.

There's definitely some blur from the focus not being quite right, but hopefully I can have that working for tonight.

Very happy with progress so far though!

Wyvern

Finally, after nearly 3 months...

I have the 163m taking its 300 sec darks as we speak. Want to try and get a couple of hours on the heart Nebula tonight. 

Hi! and Welcome to SGL.

Hi All,

I'm missing an Oiii and a Sii filter. I have the 7nm Baader HA

I was wondering if you would recommend me adding the ultra narrowband filters in Oiii and Sii to my HA?

Cheers,

Wyvern

edit. 

Maybe not recommend but would you see any issues that could arise from doing this?

Another good resource is https://transit-finder.com/ as it will show you when the ISS will transit the moon and the sun. This way you can be sure that you're pointing at the exact point where it will be so you can set up and point to the right location and tune your focus.

I'm seeing a transit for me on the 28th so of course it will probably be cloudy....  but if not I'll stick the camera on my 8se  and see what I can capture.

As I understand it you can't go wrong with daystar quark filters.

Hi,

Are you using a wedge with your 8se? if not as I understand it even if guiding works you will get field rotation if you try to do longer exposures than ~15 secs depending on what part of the sky you are imaging rendering guiding useless.

It is possible to image DSO's with an 8se on it's standard mount without a wedge with very short exposures however it is very difficult especially if you are using the standard focuser.

This is a shot from my bog standard 8se of m81, it was compiled from over 200 15 sec subs ( a lot were excluded by the stacker due to bad stars)

I really wouldn't recommend it as a first imaging scope but if that's all you have then its better than nothing, but don't expect fantastic results without heavily investing.

Wyvern