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My take is that I've seen more people argue for no darks plus dithering than for darks, but aside from anything else, scrapping darks saves a lot of time. I hadn't got around to building a library before I started dithering instead, but without an option to correct for temperature in the software I use, I'm not sure I'd have the patience to capture 32x dark frames every few degrees, especially because temperature is something that's hard to control. The 450d I use has clear banding running horizontally across the image on single subs. By the time I've stacked 20 dithered frames it's gone.

Clearly there are differing opinions but I'd definitely vote for a Pi + astroberry if your kit is supported by INDI. If not, a laptop with at least one USB3 port would be handy (then you can add a hub). If you're going to mainly use it to control kit then it won't matter what spec you use. I use sharpcap on a 5 year old surface pro with a potato for a processor and it works perfectly. If you're processing images then a more powerful CPU helps. Be careful with advice like "get an i5" - those are just labels that Intel have used for many, many years now, and it's not intuitive to determine which CPU is better than another. Use https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ to compare different CPU models (looking at both single core and total performance).

Then you're going to need to try changing one thing at a time.

This does look worse than others I've seen, but have you see other people with the same lens posting pictures? Do you know that lens is good for this kind of photography? Next thing I'd do is try a different lens. Or adapter. I rate https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pixco-Confirm-Adapter-Camera-M42-EOS/dp/B079BGLP4P?th=1 a lot more highly than the one I got for £3 on eBay, but they produced the same results.

I saw issues like this, but not as pronounced, using a few cheaper lenses with an astromodded camera. I never really figured out exactly why but it doesn't happen with a scope, it got better as I stopped down and it was worse on a camera with a full astromod compared to a stock camera. The lens I was using had a red dot indicating the infinity IR focal position and that was quite a long way from standard infinity focus. I guessed I was getting some aberration on the red end which was exacerbated by the mod (although I was using a CLS CCD filter as well).

It's been clear enough to leave my rig imagine since 8pm, but probably cloudy enough to ruin 50% of the subs. Happy I had a night largely without technical issues though!

I haven't tried it yet (on a Nikon or Canon) but if your camera supports live view then I'd guess it'd be able to use that to record frames faster. But if you just want the PA tool then I don't think it'll matter too much (imho sharp caps PA alone is more than worth the £10 fee, it's probably the best bang for buck of anything I've bought for astro).

I just started this year, and whilst I've spent more time ordering and fiddling with kit than actually imaging, I guess the fact that there's not a lot else to do in 202 means that it's worth setting up for a few hours, and I can do that at short notice. I'm a little worried about next year (or whenever we get back to normal) because then I need to have clear skies and a free evening, but let's see how it goes. It does help in terms of looking forward to winter though - we might not get many clear nights, but when we do, there's an easy 8 hours of imaging available!

+1 for Startools, because - it's good value - has good tutorials and an active forum - as of the latest version supports GPU's so is a lot faster Of course, I haven't tried out everything - maybe one day!

I haven't used it, but perhaps https://github.com/vtorkalo/ASCOM.DSLR is worth a look?

Did they explain why they didn't set them up with motion sensors? It looks like there could be legal options around nuisance light pollution, but I doubt it'll be easy to go down that route.

I'm by no means the expert, but: - the advice not to bother with darks usually comes paired with the advice to dither instead (and large dithers at that!) - if you do take darks, they need to be temperature matched very closely, and plenty of them For this analysis, were the lights dithered, and how many darks went in to the master dark?

If it helps address the balance, I've used two pis with Astroberry and it's worked exceptionally well. I've used Pi's for many years and they're generally super reliable. Most problems are power related. Clearly, people will have issues. Part of this will be INDI related (if you want to use Linux, learn to check compatibility before you buy, e.g. ZWO cameras not QHY), part of this is the difficulty of getting WiFi to the garden, and of course, with a myriad of different equipment, drivers, etc, it's going to fail sometime for some setups. IMHO, pi + astroberry is superb value and if you're kit supports INDI, it can work very well.

Realise it's totally off topic, but any reason why I'd pay $49 for Stellarmate OS when astroberry is free, and from the screenshots, Stellarmate primarily relies on open source software (e.g. most of the screenshots are INDI/EKOS). Not trolling at all - it's a genuine question - don't want to be missing out on something useful!

Could still be power related - assuming you're using the same PSU, the Pi1 probably uses less power itself. It clearly shouldn't be an issue given your PSU, but Pi's are often sensitive to power, and PSUs designed for phones might be as good as they claim. A different PSU/a powered USB hub would definitely be where I'd start. I recently went from a Pi 3 to Pi 4 for Astroberry and it's been a massive improvement - the speed of the interface is now limited by WiFi bandwith to the garden, whereas the Pi3 creaked a little running Kstars. Plate solving takes <10s, and the download from the camera over USB is a lot better. I got the 4Gb version and never got close to running out of RAM, so you could probably make do with the 2Gb version - I definitely can't see how you'd make use of 8Gb!

I agree that the power draw is probably a typo, but could still be a power issue. Definitely worth confirming it still happens with a power USB hub.

Unfortunately I don't have an answer, but I'm interested to know if anyone else does. If you have permanent power at the pier then there are probably good options. I haven't found anything that works well from a battery (I guess its impossible). My plan for now is to leave the mount outside if there's clear skies in the next few days, and bring it in if there's about to be a storm!

I asked a similar question and came to the conclusion that - the IDAS is probably the best general purpose light pollution filter. I have a CLS CCD which works fine but doesn't have the LED street light blocking - the dual or triband narrowband filters should probably be considered as a little more than simply light pollution filters as they're a more fundamental change in what you're doing. They do work well in light polluted skies however. I didn't see anyone suggest the additional pass band in the tri/quad filters added significant signal so I'd go for the dual band if you can afford it. The dual band filter should get you some way towards what you'd see with mono + single band filters but no one is going to claim that OSC + dual/Tri band filter is better!

I tried this last week with similar equipment but only got about an hours worth of data, so I'd take your image! I am far from an expert but from what I've read/experienced - choose the best ISO for your camera (e.g. http://dslr-astrophotography.com/iso-values-canon-cameras/) - dithering helps rather than darks, but make it a big dither (~50 pixels). I'm not entirely sure if my setup has an issue (or it's driven by DEC backlash) but it takes my mount/PHD2/Indi/Ekos about 50s to dither. It's still a time saving on dark frames though! Dithering actually stopped working, for some reason, for a set of subs I took a few nights ago and the difference was clearly visible - if you don't dither, take lots of darks (e.g. 32), and make sure they're at the same temperature Someone else will probably have a better understanding, but longer exposures generally reduce noise, not increase it. AFAIK, shorter exposures would only help if you're dithering and you were limited by the types of camera noise that dithering works to eliminate, because you'd be averaging that noise out more.

I just got a 3D printed hot shoe adapter delivered, so I will try this in future.

Thanks. I guess I was thinking that more bands are better, but actually, it's better to to just have H/O and for them to be cleaner? The l-enhance is on offer, but extreme is £70 more. if I buy this, it'll probably commit me to keeping the OSC + filter for the rest of the winter, and I can reassess both how much I'm imaging and the finances next summer.

Thanks. I already use the Astronomik CLS CCD which I'd guess is similar to the IDAS D2 without the LED being filtered out, so maybe I'm expect too much for a tri or quad band filter. I'd guess the triband helps more on nights with the moon?

Realize there's a lot to consider, and lots of opinions, but hopefully this question is specific enough to be worth asking. I've enjoyed my first few months imaging with a modded DSLR, and longer term, might consider a small observatory/shed in the garden, at which point a mono camera + filter wheel seems like a good idea. At the moment that's feels like a lot of expense given the relative hassle of getting everything setup in the garden. I've also come to the conclusion that there's not a great deal of value in the lower end of the OSC dedicated cameras. I'd not really considered dual/tri/quad band filters until I saw a few posts about them, but it appears that it might a worthwhile middle ground. Just wondering if anyone has experience with them and can help with recommendations? I'm in a Bortle 5/6 area with what I consider to be moderate light pollution, on the edge of a small town, with fields on one side/town on the other. I realize that narrow band filters are also an option, but I'd prefer to retain the benefits of OSC, and much prefer to image from the comfort of my study rather than having to constantly head out to the garden! Specifically, I'm wondering: - how much of an improvement in imaging have you seen with filters of this type? - how does the color end up? It appears most filters (whether dual, tri or quad) just pass two narrow bands, one in R and one across B/G - do they end up balanced? - is any particular brand or type (dual/tri/quad) better for one use or another? So far I've been considering: - Altair (quad https://www.altairastro.com/altair-quadband-osc-ccd-2-mm-filter-321-p.asp and tri https://www.altairastro.com/altair-triband-osc-ccd-2-filter-322-p.asp) - Optolong (tri band https://www.firstlightoptics.com/optolong-filters/optolong-l-enhance-narrowband-deep-sky-imaging-filter.html or dual https://www.firstlightoptics.com/optolong-filters/optolong-dual-band-l-extreme-filter.html)

+1 for the zwo 120MC. That's not to say the other shouldn't work. In fact, if you were to use Backyard EOS your camera should be able to do a decent job of recording video - I haven't tried it yet, but it should be possible to zoom in on the live view and capture what you see on the screen.

I've had a go with a 135mm Pentacon M42 prime lens that you can get on ebay for £15. Wasn't terrible - had to stop down a little and there was some chromatic aberration, but nothing that couldn't be fixed in post. I gave up because I found it too hard to find targets with a star adventurer, a tripod and an intervalometer, but clearly other's have worked it out!