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This ended up being a tortuous experience which i wouldn't let go. Ultimately over (too) many evenings, this is a four pane mosaic of LDN1495 taken with my multi-scope-wide-field rig which was pulling in three times the hourly rate of data. Approx 50 hours of Lum data and 40 hours of RGB were used to tease out some details. These totalled - L - 132x10' and 160x7' and 128x6' R - 271x3' G - 264x3' B - 264x3' This may seem excessive and it is. However i managed to not have enough data to reliably stitch the top to the bottom and had to reshoot a central strip so i guess if i had managed this first time around it would average at 15h LRGB a panel which is less excessive 😉. I normally use Pixinsight, but i just couldn't make the mosaic processing work this time and in the end used APP for stitching the raw frames together, and then moved back into PI. This was my first time using APP and what a great programme they have produced so will look deeper into this in the future. LDN 1495 is a large dark nebula that dominates this field of view though there are other objects including LBN782 (Cederblad 30), vdb27, B7, B209, B216 and a few background galaxies hiding in there as well. Thanks for looking.

What an excellent image and you didn’t take long to use them 😁. Zoltan’s loss is definitely our gain with this quality, though I’m sure he will have a queue of customers. Hoping for many more 👍

👍🏼

Thanks Tomato. 👍🏼 hows your rig coming along?

Nice review. The Cloudwatcher - Solo combination is undoubtedly a well worked device that adds to a strong reassurance for keeping kit dry. I've had mine for three years now and I know I sleep better knowing it's in place. One aspect you didn't mention was the Solo's ability to notify your phone if conditions change to 'unsafe' when clouds/rain roll in, or indeed when conditions change to 'safe' and you can get out. The Pushover app can be downloaded (I think it costs £3 or £5). Solo is setup to send a message to the Pushover system on safe/unsafe changes which in turn contacts your mobile. A nice loud notification ping is recommended 😀. All the details are on the Lunatico website.

This is a long way from being finished but that won’t be happening in the near future so I just went with the Ha that was acquired either side of full moon. Whilst this is far from ideal, you take what you can get 😀. In total this is over 32 hours taken with my multi-widefield rig. Still got some teething issues so can only say this is a wip and I would like to add a lot of O111 sometime, and maybe some rgb. Thanks for looking

Plagued by bad weather recently, even when it has been 'clear' there has been plenty high cloud which i think destroyed my blue channel. This is LRGB taken over a 2x1 mosaic with some cropping. A commonly imaged object, i decided to go for a much more stark processing approach this time mostly because i didn't have the colour balance required. Taken over three weeks with my multi-scope widefield rig, the supposed weather-beater ;-) Thanks for looking

Thanks both. Appreciate the comments.

I had the same issues you describe. As has been stated, lengthening the exposure time, and binning 2x2, works well and I am up to 28 seconds now which usually works but I often don't get a nice V, more of a flattened U with literally anything going on at either end of the scale. (I get a perfect V with LRGB). I have noticed that low objects and/or sky darkness can still make focus a bit flaky but this improves with height and time. +1 for Adreneline's suggestion of working out focus offsets as this will save loads of time if you can focus with L (2-5 seconds versus 25-30) and let SGP adjust the focus point for each filter. So something I should do!

Taken through hazy high cloud (yet again) but primarily as I had finally put together a three scope widefield system and needed to align them all. I hadn't gotten it quite right and also discovered a spacing issue which led to some weird corners hence a decent crop, but a lovely object and one to which I return to a lot. This is approx 25-30 x 180" each of RGB. Thanks for looking

Thanks Mark.

Thank you Bryan and Thommy, your comments are much appreciated 👍🏼

This is maybe a little close for this object, and not helped by being cropped due to a dull rotational accident on a third of the subs. I would like to have another go using a widefield setup so I can pull in the tail and some of the surrounding LDNs. That said, it is nice to see some detail through what always seemed to be high hazy clouds. Taken at 1200mm with my SX_H694 over a few nights as I tried to weed out the poorer subs and still give myself enough to work with. In the end this effort is 105 x 300" Lum, and near enough 50 x 180" each of RGB. Ha was a total write off and i struggled with the bright star and reflections especially in the blue at this focal length. Overall it is my first image since building my new obs so at least i have it ready for winter and nice to have the opportunity to use it 😉 Thanks for looking.

Thank you, sounds fiddly, but worth it.

Which saddle are you using for adjustment, and does this avoid and trailing in the secondary scope?

Agree 100%. High quality osc data, alongside a mono for L, or H or even O/S, is the way I am headed. There is no contest for me that mono is superior, but not if you don't get projects completed, so I want to close that gap. 268C arriving next week and I'll be near first in the queue for a 268M when it comes out (spring '21?).

Nice image Göran and good to see the 1600 getting an airing 👍🏼

Fabulous!

Outside I use SkySafari, and yes, visible naked eye though obviously better in binoculars or a scope.

The clouds cleared around midnight for me so I dragged myself outside and I admit it was a struggle. My rebuilt obs has no NE view due to trees so I found a tripod, my old Nikon dslr and a set of binoculars and set to find Neowise. I spent the first hour messing with different setting on Capella as I still couldn't see anything even from an elevated position the garden to find a gap in the trees. I used the remaining time to view Jupiter, Saturn, noctiluscent clouds, even the ISS sped over, and the sky was improving all the time. With my bias being towards imaging it was lovely to use my eyes for a change. I was like a kid when the comet came into view and those first few seconds after I found it were just fabulous - happily nobody saw this 😀. Can't wait for this comet to rise up the sky so I can use my scopes on a tracking mount. The images attached are some fairly rough views of just three seconds (and still enough star movement) so at 300mm fl a tracking mount is definitely required. I didn't change anything for the lightening sky and with the exception of a couple of wider shots at 70mm fl, all images were taken between 0315 and 0330 at ISO 1600, f5.6, focal length 300mm and all 3". The gif is made from 80x3" jpg over aroind 7 minutes so I could show the family the travel. I would love to get better at imaging this but for a manual clunk-click approach I am pretty pleased. I truly enjoyed the night and am kicking myself for nearly not being sufficiently motivated in the first place.

Thanks very much wimvb. I do use PI so can take a closer look 👍🏼

Thanks Olly. @gorann thank you very much. That is quite an improvement. 👍🏼 Hands up re the stars. I hadn’t correct a mechanical issue - pretty sure it was a slightly shifted PA problem - and have now stripped down my widefield kit ready for being moved into the new obs but that’s another story. I am intrigued by what you did there and didn’t know that such an improvement could be made. You are right in that the whole star field loses its intensity and calms the image down. Not knowing anything about PS, this is far from standard to me but will find a tutorial somewhere.

Thank Martin, I will look into the limits as maybe I am being a tad too ambitious.

Thank you. The Long Mynd is very dark and it would be great to have those skies at home though living next door to an army camp does have its advantages. Maybe not dark enough for this type of target however. Like you I have a multi scope rig so that isn’t being dismantled anytime soon but it would be a really good exercise to compare home with LM. Maybe i will give it a go as you have me thinking (and that’s never good!😁).

Thanks Martin; i will be going back to see if i can make anything better of this but didn't want to keep doing the same thing over and get no improvement. Trouble is that there is literally nothing visible, certainly on individual subs and pushing the data is everything here; or just loads more data from a better quality sky???