Gary Clayton

The Witch's Broom along with Pickering's Triangle, 42 X 5 minute subs in mono and shot last night. HA/OIII OSC filter StellaMira 90ED Hypercam 26M

That's a really nice image, I would be very happy with it myself!.

I have now added some colour data that I shot around 6 months ago with the Hypercam 26C to the above mono image, it defiantly sharpens up the colour data nicely but had to crop the image some.

I have used this camera over the last 12 months and found it to be a great camera, like any OSC it depends on your local light pollution and using the right duel narrow band filter it to get the most from them. I my case I used a gain of 100 and an offset of 650 using NINA with HGC and low noise mode enabled to get the best results.

I can only suggest that you keep trying, there are loads of tutorials on YouTube for processing narrow band data with an OSC, using both the HOO and Foraxx palettes. It tuck me a while and now I will have to start over again with mono imaging.

NGC6888 and the Soap Bubble nebula, 50 x 5 minute subs with an 5nm HA/OIII OSC filter and first light with my new Altair Hypercam 26MM, shame it's having to go back to Altair for cleaning. SM90 at it's native focal length with the 1:1 flattener.

I have used the 533 for over two years and found it to be a very capable camera with the latest sensor and very easy to use regarding calibration frames, I found that with the square sensor it's very easy to frame your subject, in fact I just left it at the same angle all the time so as not having to redo the flat frames after rotating it. The smaller sensor will also help you as your not using a flattener, so you should get better stars in your corners. I can't comment on the 294 but hopefully other's will.

I managed to get two hours in the other night, can't wait for darker skies

Looking great for your attempt with the Foraxx Palette, I only managed to image for just over an hour last night on NGC6871 so it's a tad noisy

Good idea, just enjoy using and learning about it and by the time you have cropped your stacked image's, you won't notice any iffy stars.

I have found that you can't always rely on what the software tells you and looking at NINA it shows that you have both left/right and top/bottom tilt, so I would tweak one axis at a time until you have it as low as possible. I have come to the conclusion after talking to other "SM90" users "pixel peepers" that the reducers-flatteners don't fully correct for a complete flat field no matter what FLO says, that being said your very close now.

Back focus is bang on, just some minor tilt to tweak out

ASTAP flips the image so you can't compare them with out sorting out the correct orientation, I would say that you back focus is as close as your going to get it so just adjust the tilt as shown by NINA

Try to get the curvature radius as large as possible, using the 1:1 flattener I got mine over 1500mm

I managed to get a couple of hours last night on IC1396 though the twilight, 25 x 5 minutes subs at the SM90's native focal length. Processed using the Foraxx palette and resampled to reduce the noise Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

Yes there is some reflection nebula at the centre of NGC6914 but it is surrounded with a strong HA signal.

Its odd that your having issues with Hocus Focus as I am still using it (latest update) with no issues, how dark was it when you tried?, as that's the only time I have had it fail so I wait until after midnight.

Yep but any duo-duel band filter is bound too lose some, that said there is some blue in there which I could have pushed harder.

Well I did a while ago but my old brain can't remember, I will check next time I boot up my image acquisition pc. In the mean time check out this great video for setting this up:

I managed 2 hours last night on NGC6914, imaged though the twilight here in the UK and processed in the HOO palette StellaMira 90 with 1:1 flattener Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

I managed to get an hour on M13 last night, no calibration frames as I was tweaking my rig's setup for the darker night's to come.

Are you using Nina to focus or the Hocus focus plugin?, I have found that the light summer nights can have an affect on focus so I usually wait until after midnight.

If you have not changed any settings, I would first check for any loose grub screws on the ZWO focusers flex connector

it's simple enough to just unscrew the field flatter or reducer to swap them around with disturbing the rest of my imaging train

Yes I am happy with it, I now have a two pixel scales to play with 1.4 and 1.8 and it seems to correct nicely for my APS-C sensor, that said so does the 0.8 reducer.