David_Scotland

Hi, Just received my 2600MC to go with my RASA 8, first light was last night and the first couple images (between clouds) produced some promising results. On closer inspection it looks like i may have tilt/backspace/focus issues, one corner has donuts(bottom left), and star trailing top left and right, and bottom right. I ran the stacked image through CCDI and got the following 2 results. So my question is, is this just a tilt issue, will fixing the tilt also fix the curvature, or at least reign it in a bit. I am using a starizona filter holder (with the 5mm spacer) and the RAS8 clear glass removed. I am also using a ZWO EAF for auto-focusing I am not looking for perfect stars, but the only donuts i like are in ma belly Any help/advice is appreciated. Cheers Dave

Wasn't too happy with the previous image so gathered more data and reprocessed. 468x15second exposures - total integration 1hour 57minutes

Yeah, not enamoured with the processing, going to capture another couple hours and spend some time processing this. For some reason i find galaxy processing hard.

Bortle 6 normally, there is a petro-chemical plant usually in that direction which burns of excess gas, but no output last night which helped.

Another clear night and some of that astronomical darkness. Started off with Narrowband imaging, some technical issues later. 17x2m subs for a total integration time of 34 minutes, darks from the library and no flats IC1396 - Elephant Trunk Nebula RASA8 Altair 183C Pro L-Enhance filter Processed in Pixinsight When i finsihed the above noticed M31 was in my FOV between the 2 big trees at the bottom of my garden Managed to get 182 x 15sec for a total integration of 45 minutes, no darks or flats Same hardware as above, just with an L-Pro instead of the L-Enhance. Happy with the data, nice and clean. Bit unsure of the processing, i'll need to get more data and re-process. Current image looks a bit washed out

Was a looooooong 4 months, think the weather gods were being sympathetic, weather during them 4 months was poor, slowly getting upto speed with the scope and mount just in time for astronomical darkness starting at the end of this week

Thank you, was a bit unsure that i over saturated the red a bit much and wanted to keep as much of the dark lanes and dust as much as possible,

Hi, So at the beginning of the year decided to upgrade my setup from a redcat and a dodgy eq5 mount to a RASA 8 and a CGX mount, had to wait 4 months as it was on backorder. Here is my first real image taken with this scope (have done some test shots to guage exposure times, FOV, etc This is 2.5 hours with an Altair 183C Pro camera. Stacked in DSS and processed in Pixinsight I do have some tilt mainly bottom left and bottom right, hardly noticeable so far as i tend to crop the edges. Cheers

i see lots of celestron boxes, any rasa 8's and CGX mounts in there?

So again its been awhile since i posted any images, Scottish weather sucks Had a fair amount of tracking issues also, but a bit of tweaking and hitting my head against a wall, managed to fix it so am now able to guide 10m subs, probably never need 10m subs but at least the mount is working.First image NGC7000 North American Nebula45X120sec subsDarks and Flats from the libraryFilter used - L-Enhance Second image NGC6992 - Eastern Veil Nebula38X180sec subsDarks and Flats from the libraryFilter used - L-Enhance

Hi, Couple new targets added to the album. North American nebula and Eastern Veil nebula, both taken from my spare room as unable to access this portion of the sky from my normal location due to trees, so no polar alignment on these, just a rough guess as to where it is, used stellarium to slew to a bright star, adjusted RA and DEC until centered then slewed to the target. North American - 40x3m subs, my framing for this was well off, will have to go back and spend some more time on this Veil Nebula - 65x3m subs, happy with this image, yes the colors are a bit off and processing could be better, but i think this is my best image yet, i look forward to capturing the rest of this nebula before the summer nebulas start coming up from the south. Clear skies

I have no idea, but whenever i take a dark with the optolong in i get loads of issues, i take it out and no issues at all. I dont think theres an issue with the filter, the above images are testimont to that (if you can see past the crappy processing ) I am happy that something works, though i would like to understand why darks without the filter work with darks with the filter dont. I have time this week i will attempt to take more darks with the filter in to see if it works.

Dang what a great picture, i can only dream of reaching this level, /runs to delete his crappy pictures before anyone sees them

Posted these in another section, but probably better in here. Been having issues with processing due to amp glare issues and processing with darks, finally figured out that my system dont like darks with the filter installed. So with that fixed, pointed my scope to the only nebula within my field of view from my garden. Excuse the poor attemp at processing, still learning that side of things. Soul Nebula - 42 x 3m subs, gain 400, dark 24 Heart Nebula - 13 x 3m subs, gain 400, dark 24 Both images captured with Redcat 51 with Altair Hypercam 183C Pro Tec with an Optolong L-enhance filter. Cheers

Okay finally got to the bottom of the problem, for some weird reason it didn't like me taking a dark with the filter installed. Since i got that fixed grabbed a quick couple of images to test. One of the Soul Nebula and Heart Nebula, only 2 nebulas in my field of view in my garden. Soul was 42x3m subs, heart was 13x3m subs Not the greatest of images (basically my processing still sucks, still learning), these were processed in APP and touched up in photoshop, apparantly the weather for the rest of the week is sort of promising so going to try for 5-6 hours on the heart to try and bring out more data, plus capture some RGB of the stars So there is light at the end of the tunnel....