Jamgood

The Fish Head Nebula. My first proper image with the new camera after my 60Da died. I had a few teething problems due a bug in APT with Flats but got that resolved with the help of some very clever folk from around these parts. I think I'm going to like this camera for a while until I finally decide to go Mono. I'm going to add more to this (Clouds came tonight!) and I think I'll use this as the basis of a mosaic and go for the heart. Try something different. 20x300s Light Frames (1hr 40) Cooled -10° Binned 1x1 40 Dark Frames 40 Flats 40 Dark Flats Sky Watcher 130PDS HEQ5 Pro with Rowan Belt Mod ZWO ASI294MC Pro Pegasus Powerbox Advance TS-Optics GPU Superflat Coma Corrector Optolong L-Enhance Orion 50mm Guide Scope & Orion Star Shoot Auto Guider Astro Photography Tools & PHD2 Deep Sky Stacker & Photoshop

I've bought all my Astro gear in the last 12 months but had to wait for a lot of it to be in stock. I did however grab some great 2nd hand bargains off members from here though which I'm eternally grateful for. Which reminds me, I need to update my sig......

🤣 Just AP at the minute although I am in the middle of writing a song. Flipping between guitar and piano which are both to the right of the photo.

This is me. Ironing out a few wrinkles in some new gear.

@vlaiv @Budgie1 @david_taurus83 Vlaiv was absolutely spot on. Manual flats at 0.35031 work perfectly. I must have a bug somewhere between camera and APT. 6x300 on the Monkey Nebula with 10 Darks and 10 Flats and a very quick stretch looks like this. Now I can crack on with some imaging! Thanks again guys.

I've only had one go at Orion before and that was with a DSLR. I took 12x300s - 12x30s - 12x10 and stacked them all together and got a pretty decent result. Longer exposures got the nice clouds and the shorter ones got the core.

Use moonlit nights for practice, fine tuning, tweaking your set up, etc, or.....image the moon.

It'll be interesting to see if you have any difference between the 2 drivers. Especially if you try using the Auto Flats Aid. Might help to narrow down the source of the issue if you see something similar to me. I'm looking forward to getting back out and trying again. Bloody weather though. It's a shame we can't test and troubleshoot things like this in the day time.

I've got a big ipad/tablet thing that covers the 130PDS nicely. I just used a white image, stretched full screen. Never had a problem using this method with a DSLR. I did this lots of times until recently when my 60Da died. Flats came out great and always worked really well so I figured I'd be able to carry on using this method with the 294MC pro. The only thing I wasn't sure about was if the the new CC and L-Enhance filter would make a huge difference but I think @vlaiv has proven that they don't as there is an issue with the flat files themselves. I'll investigate further on Monday night when it's clear. I'll grab some data and spend some time on flats and see what happens.

Cheers. Yeah, it's nice to know that it's not a problem with DSS. I wasn't sure what it was but I'll try doing manual flats as @vlaiv has suggested and go from there. This was my first time taking flats with this camera so it's all new to me. (Bit different from point and click DSLR) I just went with what the Auto Flats Aid recommended as I assumed that would be sufficient. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information around regards short vs longer flats. I guess I'll have to try and find the best way with the camera and see what works for me. 👍

Well, I initially read that the ASCOM driver was better overall as it gives you more controls, which is why I went that way. I'll stick with it if I can. I'll update when I test with manual flats after Monday night.

@vlaiv Could the error with the Auto Flats Aid be anything to do with the use of the ASCOM driver as opposed to using the native ZWO driver? @Budgie1 uses the same camera with APT and the Auto Flats Aid works well for him but he uses the Native Zwo driver at 120 gain, 8 offset. I'm intrigued. It's going to be clear on Monday night so I can do some testing with manual flats.

That's awesome! Put my mind at rest that it's not the camera, cc, filter, focuser or stacking software. I did start with 25000ADU which is what these flats were taken at with just a white iPad screen. I tried 30000, 20000, 15000 &10000. All the flats looked the same but with varying exposure times and ever so slightly different histograms. And then there were the different ways I did them. iPad screen, iPad screen with paper, iPad screen with t-shirts, sky with tshirts. I have absolutely no idea how to add 25000 ADU dc offset to master flat because as I said in the first post, I think this is something way beyond my level of knowledge but doing normal flats and inputting manual times under a light frame setting in APT, I can do. 👍 I didn't notice that, sorry. I did flat darks for the second set of flats after I thought the first batch failed. Tried with flats and flat darks and that didn't work so went back to the original flats after countless other attempts. Got in a bit of a muddle, file wise. Next clear night, I'll try again and see what happens. Thank you for your time @vlaiv I really appreciate it.

Cheers. I'm usually pretty good at problem solving things and google is always a great help but this has got me stumped. I'm interested to see what others make of the files with different software as that would rule out many things.

@vlaiv @david_taurus83 Hopefully this Dropbox link works. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zr40vbbipmajaw4/AADj4ouLzIZSeG99b81STd6Na?dl=0 I somehow deleted the original Darks that I used so I had to make some new ones today. In DSS, however, these make no difference. Same outcome for me. There's an hour subs each of M13 and M101. (Darks, Flats & Dark Flats) I was just testing and getting to grips with the camera with APT which is why they're so short. Obviously being my first "real" night using the camera, I wanted to see how it all worked and troubleshoot anything that needed it. Didn't bank on this though! Thanks again for any help. 👍

This is how far the CC and L-Enhance are away from the end of the focuser. Maybe a problem? I currently have a William Optics Compression Ring on the focuser. I put this on on the first night with the camera as I didn't have enough front focus to get a sharp image. This being bigger gave me about an extra 18mm. The next day I re-collimated the scope and pushed the Primary up a bit to give me that extra wiggle room. I had this small compression ring on first which wouldn't focus but now after collimation, should have enough front focus and the focuser tube will be much further out (18mm +/-) and less protrusion into the light path. This is my set up but I do use a black shower cap on the end of the scope. I'm just trying to work out how to Share a folder on Dropbox. Completely alien to me. Might be WeTransfer if I can't solve it.

Believe me, I've read everything there is to read. Posting here and asking for help was my last line of call. I read about long exposed flats, short flats, t-shirt sky methods, multi t-shirts, paper, light boxes, etc. I've tried all different ways and the flats always come out looking like decent flats whether they are 0.03s or 12s long. They just don't seem to work or work too well and overcompensate.

Cheers, I appreciate it. I'll get them up when I get back home. 👍

That was my first proper outing with the camera, (I had tested it the night before on the moon, between clouds) using the ASCOM driver and everything at default. 16bit, Unity Gain 120, Offset 30. With the CC and Filter being near the end of the focuser tube, light could go directly into the focuser tube as well as reflected light but I would think that would make the flats look uneven? Where as they look like decent flats to me. I have a Baader CC which will be nowhere near the end of the focuser so I can also use that for testing when it's clear next. Ideally though I want to avoid the Baader as in the past I've had nothing but problems with spacing. The GPU I recently acquired gives nice round stars across the image.

Hi Vlaiv. Everything was taken as you said. I do use a black shower cap over the rear of the scope. Although I'm in Bortle 8 and the moon was half in the sky, I've never had vignetting so bad before. Other than the camera, the only things that are new to me are the GPU CC and the L-Enhance filter. I'm wondering if the CC is too close to the end of the focuser near the secondary and too much light is hitting the filter causing reflections. I have another focuser attachment that will pull the focus point out around 15mm so I can try that and see. The other thing in question is the camera drivers. I originally read it was best to use the ASCOM drivers which I did. Next time it's clear I'll try with the ZWO Native driver and see if there's any difference.

I'll dropbox then to you later, cheers 👍

@david_taurus83 Yeah, sadly that's not the problem. The reason the single image is debayered is because I had to run it through DSS before I could open it with Photoshop. I've not found a decent .fits viewer that will save to .jpg for sharing on here yet. GIMP should do it but I can't get it to work at all.

Cheers. That gives me something to work with. There is definitely some difference between the drivers at the same settings. Here's an example two darks, same temperature (-10) 120 Gain 30 Offset. The ASCOM Driver defaults to 30 Offset. Maybe that is part of my issue. ASCOM ZWO

This was the interesting post about ASCOM vs Native Drivers. http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=11623.0

Hmmm. Maybe that has something to do with my issue then. I saw it recommend to use the ASCOM Driver and selecting Asi Camera 1 to connect but have just read about someone else having similar issues with ASCOM. I'll investigate further.