Gary Clayton

14 hours ago, Tangoringo said:

For those folks with the SM90 could anybody comment on the quality of the focusser? I have an ageing WO Megrez 90 which I love but am getting increasingly frustrated with tilt in the optical path due to excessive play in the focusser as well as AF issues so the SM90 could come in to the equation if the chancellor plays ball. 🫣

The focuser seems to be well made and I have no discernable play in mine, you can adjust it via the set screws around the tube and under the focus knobs if you need to. 

Rosette nebula from last night, best 50 x 5 minute subs 

Drizzled in Astro Pixel Processor then finished in PixInsight (Foraxx  palette)
StellaMira 90 with 0.8 reducer/flattener
Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter
Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera
Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

17 hours ago, pavel_s said:

Possibly wrong forum? This is observing forum.

Not to sure how to move to the correct one

California nebula, taken last night at just over 3 hours total integration time and a tad soft due to the high wispy clouds.
Drizzled in Astro Pixel Processor then finished in PixInsight (Foraxx  palette)
StellaMira 90 with 0.8 reducer/flattener
Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter
Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera
Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

38 minutes ago, IDM said:

I currently use an aging Asus laptop with and i7-3517U processor, 10Gb of Ram and 500Gb SSD for a variety of astrophotography and image manipulation packages, the principles being; Siril (stacking and image manipulation), Deep sky stacker, Gimp, Affinity photo, Pipp, Autostakkert, Registax and my laptop is somewhat slow.

I was looking at mini-PC's as a sensible price alternative with low power consumption. One option I found was this https://amzn.eu/d/3BfQ9XC When I looked at the processor although, its i5 the fact that is is so much newer it looks like it might work OK (i5-8279u), I can also increase the RAM from 16Gb to 32Gb. Does it seem like a good option or should I consider something else (I don't really want to spend the earth as my astrophotography telescopes, cameras and mounts have already been rather a lot! Though of course if there is something slightly more expensive that will be a lot more powerful then I would of course consider it.

Thanks in advance.

Ian 

Hi Ian

I have been using a very small and low power BeeLink Gemini M with 8 gigs of ram for the last few years, it also runs on 12 volts and has windows 10 installed. So you don't need anything powerful to run a full imaging setup and the one you have linked too will work just fine for years to come.

Gary

5 minutes ago, IDM said:

Lovely image. I have recently started using an Altair Hypercam 26C and I wondered what gain you use your dual band filter? I use and L-Extreme and am trying to optimise my settings.

Thanks,

Ian 

Thank you Ian, I use the default settings for the camera with a gain of 100 and I use 200 for the offset with 5 minute subs, but this will vary depending on your local conditions.

The Flame nebula taken last night, 98 X 5 minute subs for a total integration time of 8.1 hours.
Drizzled in Astro Pixel Processor then finished in PixInsight (Foraxx  palette)
StellaMira 90 with 0.8 reducer/flattener
Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter
Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera
Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

Heart and Fish Head nebulas taken last night, just 3 hours worth of data

Taken with my Hypercam 26C, Antlia ALP-T dual band 5nm filter and my new StellaMira 90mm with 0.8 reducer, it' just 2.9 hours worth of data thanks to the weather.

I managed to get 2.9 hours worth of data last night on the Horsehead and Flame nebula, shot in narrowband.   

1 hour ago, scitmon said:

I suppose the test for that would be to rotate the camera and see if the tilt moves on the image?

Yes that would work.

It certainly looks like tilt, but check your focuser for any flex/play

Soul nebula for me, OSC processed as HOO and around 8 hours from bortle 4 skies.

I concur, they look the same as my darks, apart from your offset. 

15 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

I, personally am only using the “correct only” option for my corner stars, I am not using any other option as I am not convinced that it’s not adding detail that was not there already in my images, and so would not be “real”, but for me it’s worth the cost just to give me much better star shapes to the corners of my images…

I get a slight improvement using the default settings in both stars and background, so I will purchasing it once the 30 day trial runs out.

14 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

Ah drat, the Elephant's Trunk photo is 22 hours of integration already... My light-polluted skies don't make things easy! Thanks for checking 👍

High light pollution using a OSC is a hard nut to crack, I am lucky in that respect at bortle 3/4 ish if my neighbour turns his outside light off as there are no street lights in my village.

8 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

Would anyone mind trying BlurX on some freshly integrated stacks of mine to see what a difference it makes? I've given it a go and while I definitely see tighter stars, the difference in the nebulosity seems to be minor, if visible at all in some parts. I'm wondering whether I'm doing something wrong in executing the process; or perhaps my expectations are just a bit off. Really, I want the "wow, what a difference!" reaction that others seem to be getting 😂

 

As you say the main change seems to be in your stars, I think that this down to the low signal to noise ratio in your images and it looks like longer integration time is needed, I have had good results with my own images using this tool.

13 hours ago, scitmon said:

I'm having issues with my ZWO EAF tonight... It refuses to pull the draw tube back in altogether.  I can hear it attempting but its not budging.  It also seems to give up at random points pushing out too, but far less frequently.

 

I presume it should be able to handle a 294MC pro, filterwheel and the stellamira reducer, so any ideas?  I'm not using the draw tube locking screw so its not that.

It's been extremely cold the last few night's, iced up maybe, -10C here in North Yorkshire

The Soul Nebula (Westerhout 5, Sharpless 2-199, LBN667) is a large emission nebula located in the constellation Cassiopeia, 96 x 5 minute subs for a total integration time of 8 hours taken last night in the HOO palette.

Drizzled in Astro Pixel Processor then finished in PixInsight

StellaMira 90 with 0.8 reducer/flattener

Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter

Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera

Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

I seem to be having issues with elongated stars using an APS-C size sensor with this scope and it's 0.8 reducer, I have run the aberration inspector in NINA and tweaked my sensors tilt as best I could, even ASTAP says that I am down to 4%  yet it seems to me that I am to close in one corner and two far away in the others or am I expecting to much?.

As the others have said it's a great device which is very easy to use and tweak, I reduced my camera tilt from 68% down to 3% within 30 minutes so it's well recommended.

I would like to use my SM90 at its native focal length but with a FF that screws onto the scopes M63 focuser thread as the deadicated SM 0.8 reducer does, can anybody recommend one

As the moon is out tonight try focusing on that first, if you don't have any luck it could be that the camera is not at your scopes focal plane and more spacers could be required to get there.

Are you using the native or the ASCOM driver, try swapping them to eliminate driver issue. 

I used to use the ZWO 533MC pro but when it became time to upgrade it was a no brainer for me due to the price difference between the 2600MC PRO and the 26C PRO cameras, with that and the good reviews online I made the jump to the 26C Pro and I am very happy that I did, you get great support from Altair plus both native and ASCOM drivers. So i can't think of any downside unless you are using the ASIAIR PRO to control you imaging rig.