AMcD

Over the past six months I have been upgrading my equipment. I have replaced my QHY8 with a QHY268M and have replaced my TS Optics 152 Individual achromat with a second-hand TS Optics 130 Photo Line Triplet APO mounted on my Losmandy G11 reconditioned with high torque motors and one-piece worm blocks. This is the product of my first proper project with this set up. The image represents approximately 16 hours of integrations comprising 4 hours each of L, R, G and B under Bortle 5 skies. The integrations were acquired using SGPro, calibrated, stacked and processed in PixInsight and finished in Photoshop. I had some problems with my flats, particularly on the R, G and B channels but, overall, I am quite pleased. Constructive criticism always welcome 😀

It is faster than my old HP desktop but not as fast as I had expected with the new spec. Reading the other replies, it looks like the programme is just very resource intensive. As @tomato and @gorann say, I guess it gives more time for other activities 🤓

Each year my mother gets me a magazine subscription for Christmas. Lately it has been the London Review of Books, but I am thinking of making a change this year to astronomy related publication. I am aware of the obvious magazine choices, does anyone know of a good astronomy or astrophotography type periodical that has an easily accessible subscription?

I recently purchased a Lenovo Quad Turbo Laptop with an AMD 3020e 2.6GHz processor, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and AMD Radeon RX Vega Graphics. The machine was very good value on Amazon at the time and I wanted a large amount of RAM for a price that was not crazy. I have found that this machine is much faster than my old HP i3 desktop when working on the huge files produced by my QHY268M, both in PixInsight and in Photoshop. However, even on this specification, the laptop still takes a very long time to work its way through my files notwithstanding the increased spec. For example, Local Normalisation of 120 x 120sec light frames can take well over an hour and a half. The Radeon graphics chip (essentially a GPU) is engaged by Photoshop to a limited degree on some processes. However, my understanding is that PixInsight does not access the GPU (although, if you have an NVIDIA GPU, the NVIDIA CUDA code can be used to allow Starnet2 to access an NVIDIA GPU). It may be that I do not have the machine's memory set up correctly and if the above sounds too slow given the specifications, I would be grateful to receive any tips for optimising the set up.

I am lucky to have a permanent, remote-controlled set up, but even with being able to operate it from wherever I am I think I have managed only one dusk to dawn session in the past two months. A large number of initially promising early evenings have turned to thick cloud and very high humidity. I find that using a combination of Clear Outside, MeteoBlue and the Met Office gives a pretty reliable indicator of the position over in the coming two or three days, but it does not stop that position being thoroughly depressing most of the time at the moment 🙄

When registering mono frames in PixInsight, is it better (a) to use the best frame from the channel being registered as the reference frame for that channel or (b) to use the best single frame from amongst all the channels as the reference frame for each channel, to ensure that each stack is registered against the same reference. When I tried option (b), I got a result with black haloes around the stars and poor eradication of satellite trails etc. which has made me wonder whether I should be using option (a). Apologies if I have not articulated the question sufficiently clearly!

I have recently moved to mono imaging and went with 2” Antlia LRGB filters and a 2” Antlia 3nm Ha filter. I have been pleased with their performance so far. I have stuck to LRGB in the first instance, with some Ha to supplement the red channel, as I have found that there is so much to learn when moving to mono. I plan to get the 2” Antlia OIII and SII once I have some experience with LR(Ha)GB and my bank balance has recovered 😳

I have just switched from DSS to PI. It does indeed take much longer. It has taken me nearly a whole day to do one channel, although I suspect I will get faster as I become more familiar with the PI process. However, the results in PI are, at least to my eye, better than those produced by DSS. I was also a bit of a sceptic regarding the whole “if you use PI you get to know your data better” thing, but I am slowly being converted to that argument too 😂

Beautiful images. Quite stunning.

Many thanks Olly. The idea of “dosing” my data with various applications made me laugh. I almost have a complete set of LRGB data on the Elephant Trunk nebula so am keen to try a complete workflow on mono data. It is clear here at the moment so I might get my blue channel- although I am probably speaking too soon 🙄

I am currently finding my way with processing LRGB images. Is there a recommended point in the processing workflow at which to undertake star removal and replacement? My instinct says after channel combination but before further processing...

If the target was close to the zenith when you tried to slew back to it, I would check your mount safety limits (if you have them). I had a similar difficulty recently on my Losmandy G11. Both my East and West safety limits were set to less than 90 degrees following the installation of a new and much larger camera and filter wheel. This had the effect of preventing the mount from accessing an area around the Zenith. When I increased the safety limit on the West to 120 degrees (still safe for my set up) I could access the zenith again.

I too have everything except my processing software on the PC in the observatory (a HUNSN industrial PC) and I access that PC using MS Remote Desktop either from the house via a hard LAN line or from elsewhere in the world via a WAN using port forwarding on our home Internet router. I have found the MS Remote Desktop connection to be reliable and stable in both configurations.

I am banking this one! 😃

I went to the party. It was very good, and I saw lots of old friends I have not seen in years. But also, I could not resist testing and calibrating the new set up from my phone and running a sequence. Rather a risk strategy with a new configuration but managed to get 9 hours of data in the end (together with a few odd looks whenever I retreated to the corner with my phone to check on progress 😂).

My set up is remote control but, in addition to needing to test and calibrate the new configuration, I too like to be hands on, if only from the comfort of the house!

I have for some weeks been revamping my system with a mono camera, second hand Triplet APO, remote controlled scope cover etc. On the first night in weeks when it looks to be clear enough to test and calibrate the new system I have a family 50th Birthday party. I will have to go, but it led me to wonder how many would choose the clear skies instead...?

My Wanderer V3 Mini remote control telescope cover/flat panel arrived today from China, to grace the second hand TS 130 Photo Line Triplet APO that has now replaced my TS152 Individual achromat. I ordered the V3 from eBay so my heart was in my mouth for a while. However, it arrived by FedEx (for a price) in 10 days. Once the firmware was updated, it connected easily to the Wanderer Control Panel software and opens and closes according to the limits I have set. The flat panel has a good range of illumination, adjustable by the user. First impressions are that it is well made, with metal and carbon fibre parts, although now that I have mounted it and operated it I have a slight doubt about the longevity of service of the servo motor. We shall see 🤞

Just managed to access the SGP Forum. It says they are having issues with their website, including licensing and registration, and that starting SGPro with the computer connected to the Internet can cause the programme to default to trial mode. Mine has clearly done that 😔

Is anyone else experiencing real issue with SGPro. The SGP website appears to have crashed and my version of SGPro is telling me my computer is not licensed when it is 🙄

Now that I am underway with the QHY268M, I fear that it is revealing the shortcomings of imaging with a relatively fast achromat (my TS152 Individual). I am seeing significant blue bloating when imaging through the blue filter (even though the Antlia Pro has a lower cut off at approximately 420nm). Also, although to a lesser extent, with the luminance filter. I need to undertake further tests on a night without high clouds (such nights appearing almost non-existent at the moment) as I am conscious that the affected subs were taken with some high cloud present, increasing the chance of scatter. As I understand it however, the following actions may mitigate blue bloating, albeit I appreciate that I am never going to eradicate it entirely whilst I am imaging with an achromat: (a) Ensure regular focusing. (b) Image on nights with very good transparency, seeing and no moon. (c) Seek to reduce the blue bloating in post processing (using the Minimum filter in PS or a masking and star reduction routine in PI). (d) Employ a minus violet filter in front of the blue filter (albeit the Lumicon minus violet filter also has a lower cut off at 420nm). (e) Buy a fast(ish) Newtonian 😂 (all suggestions for a new scope gratefully received). Does anyone have any other top tips?

I too cannot take my eyes of the starless version. I think it creates a sense of almost being 'at' the Andromeda galaxy, with the foreground stars of the Milky Way 'behind you', as it were. Lovely work on both versions.

I am having a similar issue with my TS Optics 152 Individual achromat. The rear cell is a flange attachment that needs an adapter if a TS 3" R&P is to be fitted to the scope: TS have said they may be able to make me an adapter if I send them drawings, using their custom adapter service: Teleskop-Express: TS-Optics custom-made Adapter

For narrowband I have been using High Gain Mode, with gain at 0 and offset at 40, but am going to experiment with the High Gain Mode and settings of gain 56 and offset 40 as I think this may be better with narrowband filters given the reduced number of photons. For LRGB I use High Gain Mode with gain 0 and offset 30. I cannot claim there is any 'science' behind these numbers. They are what I arrived at having trawled through SGL, CN and Astrobin 😂 With the focusing, I have found auto-focusing the Ha filter a bit of a challenge. The solution appears to be to bin the camera 2x2 for focusing runs with an exposure time of 60-75s. It results in a longer auto-focusing routine but captures enough stars to be accurate. I have ordered a 32GB laptop as there was a (seemingly) good deal on a Lenovo 32GB with RX Vega Graphics on Amazon. Apologies for misspelling your name!

I feel your pain, Brian. I purchased an QHY268M a month or so ago, together with a filter 2" wheel. I love the new equipment but have concluded that making any significant change to a setup (in my case, from 20 years using OSC cameras) means having to solve problem after problem before you get back to where you were. Once the 268M was attached, it took me a while to figure out back focus as I had mis-remembered the backspacing for my TS152 (solved with the help of @Richard_ and @teoria_del_big_bang and others). I then had to re-cable two or three times due snagging and balance issues (solved with the help of @ollypenrice and others). I then had a period where plate solving would not work in SGP as I had set my mount safety limits to account for the increased size of the camera and filter wheel but with the result that I excluded an area of the zenith from being accessible to the mount's go-to (solved with the help of Brian Valente on the Gemini IO User Group). After that, it transpired that whilst my Crayford focuser could handle the QHY8 without difficulty, as the nights got colder, I started suffering focuser slippage with the 268M plus filter wheel and had to re-condition and adjust the Crayford (and investigate rack and pinion focusers in case the fix does not hold). Finally, I have had to order a new laptop for processing as my aging PC cannot be upgraded beyond 8GB of RAM which simply does not cut it for Photoshop given the size of the subs produced by the QHY268M (I can watch a movie in the time it takes for PI to execute Starnet2 on my current PC). However, your really excellent image shows that all the effort to upgrade in this crazy, and sometimes lonely, hobby is ultimately worth it! 😊