Seelive

...I'm assuming the missing 0.2mm... I make it 1.2 mm

As I understand, Duck tape is a proprietary brand of duct tape ... many people pronounce a vacuum cleaner as a 'Hoover'.

A simple search easily finds the 23 page product datasheet for the PL2303SA and the superceded PL2303GA devices.

If every pixel of the sensor had exactly the same characteristics then you could get away without bias and darks. And if additionally the optical path was identical for each pixel then you could also get away without flats as well. Unfortunately they are not.

It depends on if you have the appropriate tools and how experienced are you at soldering. If you can buy a ready made lead it's usually the best option.

Only 1.25kg, half the weight of an equivalent 70mm refractor.

I'm happy that my Canon 400mm f5.6 gives just as sharp an image as any 70mm scope will do under my skies. After all, with just 7 elements its effectively a triplet with a built in 4 element field flattener.

Only Jupiter and Uranus are evening objects at the moment and they will both have set by 9:30. All the other planets are currently morning objects rising just before dawn.

Looks not unlike a RJ45 to RJ12 cable, SW handset to mount perhaps?

Good old fashioned IRIS can blink between images at a rate set by the user. Free and probably still downloadable.

Oh the joys of SMDs, too small for the true part number to fit so they label them with a unique manufacturers code instead.

The last V4 version can be found at: https://github.com/deepskystacker/DSS/releases/tag/4.2.6 I have also downloaded the even earlier V4.1.1 (which was the last version that used DCRAW so I could reprocess some of my old legacy data) whilst also still retaining V4.2.6...and I won't be going for V5 until I upgrade from my current Win 7 PC (and only then when it is stable).

All the older versions of DSS are still available. When you download them ensure you select a directory of your choosing rather than the default one then you can run multiple versions on the same PC rather than overwriting the last version.

Is that the DSS Live version? Perhaps you've opened the wrong DSS.exe?

I initially had the same problem with V2. Do a search for the missing dll file. I found it in several directories on my PC so I just copied one of them and pasted it into the StarNet directory and hey-presto!

From your description I take it you are not guiding so then I can only assume that your exposure time is dependant upon the accuracy of your polar alignment. So how do you polar align? If you're using a polarscope with the mount just set in the home position then a wobbly counterweight won't make any difference. If the polar alignment requires slewing the mount then a wobbly counterweight could affect the position of the scope in certain orientations if you have backlash or stiction in one or more axes which could then affect the polar alignment calculations.

Really? There seems to be many places with hills in my part of the UK.

Not sure how wide field you want to go but the Canon nifty fifty nicely frames the whole of Orion on an APS-C sensor for example.

I use a similar one for my Canon 200D but I have housed the mains PSU in a waterproof box just to avoid problems with damp.

There are meteorological clear skies and astronomical clear skies, the two are not the same 😆

Glad it worked. I've had the same problem in the past with widefield images with lots of stars and it's a problem quite often brought up on the DSS forum. I'm sure there are many people on this site who will be more than willing to explain why! 😊

Try changing the alignment mode from Automatic (or Bicubic) to one of the other options (Bilinear or Bisquare? - off the top of my head I can't recall their exact names)

Famous last words! The USB 2 standard allows for up to 2.5 Watts of power, not much for a dew heater. Most USB dew heaters are designed to powered from a USB power port that can supply far more power. I guess it will depend how well the camera USB hub is designed to cope with an excessive load before it fries. Perhaps the camera user guide mentions the power available from the hub ports? You can then compare it with the power requirement of the dew heater to see how they match up.

With your native FL of 1500mm you're probably already oversampling at 1x1 binning with the 4.63um pixels of the 294. Going to to the 3.76um pixels of the 533 or the 2.4um pixels of the 183 will just make things worse (check the Astronomy Tools pixel size calculator page to get an idea of the optimum pixel size for your scope). Probably best to use 2x2 binning with your 294 and as @ONIKKINEN suggests, just crop your images.

Only if you're using 10log(R) instead of 20log(R)