Anubis1311

Did you upgrade then? And if you did, if you were upgrading again which way would you go knowing what you know now about your filters?

Oh really? I thought Oiii as that would be the biggest improvement filter to filter. I guess given most targets have more Ha that actually makes sense. I’ll go for the Ha first. Thanks

Looking to upgrade from ZWO 7nm NB filters to Antlia 3nm filters. Haven’t got the funds to buy all 3 at once so will do one at a time. My initial thoughts are to get the Oiii, then Ha and finally Sii. is this the best order to upgrade them?

Thank you 😊

Thank you Olly, I have certainly come a long way with my processing. I’m still guilty of rushing my processing and posting it asap due to excitement, not sure that will ever change 😂. Same with my integration time although I am a little more strict on myself now. No more 1 hour of each filter and try and pull something out of the hat!

Thank you ☺️

Thank you 😊

So I literally visit the buy/swap section of this web site every day. It occurred to me that I don’t really use any of the other aspects of the forum so I thought I’d share a couple of my images. The first - NGC 7380, was taken this week during the mini heatwave we’ve had here in the uk. It brought 3 clear nights which in itself is a rarity. This allowed me to capture data using a different filter each night. The second is SH2-157. It is a rework of old data inspired by some of the techniques I used when processing the wizard nebula. I’m quite liking the more subtle palette and feel there may be a few more data reworks ahead of me 🤩

Sorry guys, didn’t realise I had so many responses. Appreciate your help. Basically I bought it used from here a year ago. Worked beautifully until it just stopped working. The camera is recognised by my Asiair pro and PC if I plug it in but the camera won’t initialise to let me capture. After contacting ZWO and sending across the logs they said it needs to be repaired. It’s either the main board or daughter board, they’re not sure. It will cost around £150 to have them repair it, and I’ll have to post it. Problem is I used the money my mum left me when she died so it was a one off purchase for me. I can’t afford to buy a new one. I’ll struggle to pay for the repair to be fair so might have to wait a while before I send it off anyway. Looks like china are still in a lockdown so might be worth waiting till it’s out. Just frustrating that we’ve had quite a few clear nights since it broke 😞 I get the point that currently it’s worth nothing so I will send it and hope. Thanks for your replies all

That’s why I’m not sure why ZWO have suggested I state that it’s £299. Wondered if it’s a customs thing? £150?? Will it be that much?

My ASI183mm pro has a fault that cannot be fixed and is out of warranty. ZWO have requested I send it to them in China. In their guidance they have suggested I list the item as ‘personal item’ and put the value at £299. Given its a £1k camera is that wise? Would stating the actual value cause me problems at customs? They said not to list it as a repair as it might cause problems. It all seems a bit weird. Anyone posted a camera to ZWO before?

That makes a lot of sense. So if I’d have continued editing at its native resolution the final image wouldn’t actually be pixelated even though it appeared so in photoshop! so I’m hoping to shoot Jupiter again tonight as my ADC came today. Hopefully I’ll have more data to play with tomorrow and I’ll leave it at its native resolution. thank you so much! I’m learning loads and I appreciate the effort you’re going through to help me.

Hi, actually I pretty much understood the most part of that. The reason I changed the resolution from 72dpi to 300dpi is that when viewing in photoshop the edges of the planet were like squares. Almost as if you were trying to make a circle from hundreds of playing cards. If you zoom out it looks round but when you look closely at the edges you still see the playing cards. hope that makes sense 😂 Might be due to the sharpening?! I’ll have a look at it again in without enlarging it and see if it still looks that way. definitely wasn’t to try and make my image bigger though. It was literally to tidy the edges. It seems to have a cleaner edge at higher resolution but as you say that may be software related. thanks again for your input 👍🏻

Hmm not sure I follow. I did enlarge it in PS from 72dpi to 300dpi as it was a little pixelated. Enlarging it seems to depixelate it. Is that what’s done it? I use my phone to upload to this forum so didn’t even know the image was large! Definitely didn’t drizzle. Not actually sure what that even does so leave it at the default setting which is no drizzle.

Thank you for your advice. I adjusted the exposure times and we are back in business. Won’t win any awards but I’m super happy with it from my little 127 mak 😀

Thank you so much for the effort you’ve put into helping me! I didn’t notice when I looked at my asi183mm pro that it set the resolution to 5496x3672 which obviously gave a wider view! Another thing learned 😀 I have an EFW loaded with RGB filters so could try it 🤔 But might see if I can get the hang of the asi120mc-s first! I’ll try again next time with a lower exp and ditch the Barlow as you suggest and hopefully this solves my blurring issue 👍🏻 thanks again for your help!

Oh wow thanks for the detailed reply! I think I had my exposure length set to about 50 and gain set to 50 (using video mode on AAP). When I dropped the exp down I could barely see it so I upped it to compensate. Should I up the gain to compensate for the dark image with such a low exp or do I deal with it in processing? As for the Barlow have I made a mistake? I do have the asi183mm pro but thought the asi12c-s was specifically designed for planetary. Would the asi183mm pro do a better job with the 2x Barlow. It’s mono which I’m sure has its own benefits however the field of view looked pretty small on astronomy.tools sorry for all the questions 😂

I recently had my first light with a skymax 127 and was quietly impressed with my first image given I didn’t use a Barlow. So I went and bought a celestron X Cel 2x Barlow and subsequently shot some videos last night. The resulting images are far inferior to those I took a few days ago without the Barlow. Was it the seeing? Is it a focus thing? From what I’ve read the 2x Barlow is fine with my FL of 1500mm and my asi120mc-s so I’m hoping it’s not that. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated First image - no Barlow Second image - Celestron 2x X Cel Barlow

Thank you! In the UK and yeah they are pretty low. Wasn’t sure whether the skymax 127 was too short to yield a benefit from the ADC. I think I’ll just practice shooting and processing them for now and then add it when I’ve got a few images under my belt! thank you

Thank you Reggie! Yeah I had to push Saturn pretty hard. Is probably slightly over processed. I had to really isolate the whites to get the rings to show and probably went too far. Still this is my first ever go so lots of room for improvement 👍🏻 thanks for the tips. Let’s hope I get another clear night soon.

So Tuesday night was first light for my newly acquired skymax 127. I wasn’t expecting much as I was just trying to get used to focusing a Mak (usually use a SW 80ed). As I finally managed to get Jupiter in focus I was blown away! Even though I wasn’t using a barlow you could literally see the bands 😍 When I slewed to Saturn I had far more noticeable atmospheric dispersion. I was able to process it out by slightly moving the channels in photoshop so they lined up better. This got me thinking if an ADC would be better? Anyone got any experience with it? I’ve read they mainly benefit larger apertures. Obviously I’ve only had 1 evening of planetary photography but would this improve my images using a skymax 127?

Where did you pick up your C8? I’ve been looking for ages and can’t find one anywhere near as cheap as that?! Was it is good condition or did you have to clean it up?