Mr Thingy

Managed to sneak in 15 mins each of RGB - enough to put some colour into it. Needs much more integration time but so far so good.

Fate must have been looking the other way as I failed to tempt them. Believe it or not, I have my THIRD consecutive night of clear skies

I believe the temperature changes can affect the various materials in the optical path and focus can be slightly affected. I refocus periodically. Lat night I focused at the start of my session, then refocused 1 hour later, and it needed a small adjustment.

Lovely! Such a photogenic target. I love it

I had to fit a longer dovetail bar on mine. They really should come with a longer one as standard, as you simply can't balance the thing without.

Whoops! I guess I just tempted fate...

Shot in Ha over the last 2 nights (just over 2 hours of integration time). I messed the framing up, hence the weird cropping, but overall I'm really pleased with this. A freak occurrence may be on the cards tonight too, with a THIRD clear night on the trot !! If so, I'll start grabbing the colour data.

Awesome stuff! The horsehead and flaming star nebulae also making a nice appearance too.

Miraculously it is a another clear night - second in a row. Imaging rig set up for more Ha imaging on the Rosette nebula, I have a coffee and a chocolate brownie, and some great views of the moon in my other scope.

Target now behind house but got 2 hours of Ha data on the Rosette nebula. Now packing up and generating the calibration frames in the warm. Oh, and dropping my laptop in the process . Thankfully it seems to be working still.

Kudos to you, sir!

Snap! I was just looking at the same with my binos.

Guess the target, win kudos

I have a 1-page process flow table, with very basic guidance (e.g settings, things to consider). Then more detailed guidance on the next pages, linked to the steps in the process. This helps keep the steps succinct and not get lost in detail.

I would second the idea about creating a workflow/checklist. I recently dived headlong into AP, but rather than ease my way in step by step I opted to go mono, use guiding, platesolving, autofocuser, etc, all from the off. I'm not good at restraint! I must admit that it was daunting but I already feel confident now to set up quickly and effectively, and get some shots off. However, right from the start I created a workflow and guidance document, which was a godsend. I hope you get your mojo back though. Hopefully the next session will deliver some lovely shots that make all the pain