scotty38

Took me a few minutes to work out how to get the FITS file in there but all done now.....

Excellent news given I am an owner already...... Thanks for the heads up.

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

I bet it's colder here than in Lincs by night. 3000 feet up, continental climate... We are in the Dept of the High Alps, after all. We'd see minus 12C routinely in the past with a coldest of minus 19C and we could get 80cm of snow overnight. In the last six or seven years it's warmed up considerably but we did see minus 10 last week along with some snow. This was a couple of weeks ago, looking down from the observatories.

Olly

 

Ah ok fair enough. I guess I should have taken more notice of your avatar rather than imagine you sitting on a beach sipping a martini 😂

2 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

My wife says that in winter it's too cold and in summer it's too late!

Olly

Too cold where you are? We have spent many holidays in the south of France and it's never been too cold, admittedly never in winter but even then there is no comparison with what we have here 🤣

Haha no, she's happy to have a look at something if I show her but beyond that she has no real interest in it.

I mean, don't get me wrong, she is in wonder of the night sky, she just is not that keen getting cold to do it....

I ordered the 294...... Please don't tell my wife

Thanks again all....

Well scope is now sorted plus the ZWO guide scope and 120 mini so that's that question dealt with.

The only "issue" is that my preferred 533 is not available. I can get the 183 or 294 (both cooled) so do I stretch to the 294 or buy, say a 385/178/462 that is available too and then get the 533 a a later date and off load the other one?

Thanks, all useful information, great stuff. You'll have me on to mono in no time at all 😃

Thanks, separate scope it is then....

Thanks both.

It’s  the second time OAG has been mentioned and I have no real axe to grind either way, so happy to use a guide scope, but I am interested why it’s not recommended, what’s involved in the extra complexity?

Nice work!

Thanks both, I have to admit the 533 cooled was my favourite and you’ve done nothing to convince me otherwise 😃

I’ve been having a play with a few of the tools, PixInsight included, but have made no decision yet, given the myriad options. I have ON1 Raw, Affinity Photo, Luminar and that may be it for software I’ve paid for, oh and Sharpcap Pro but will take your comments onboard and check out the gradient tools.

thanks again.....

Edit - l just checked and the Xterminator plug-in is supported in Affinity Photo.......

Hi all,

I’ve decided to jump in the deep end and have a go at imaging. I’ve never done it before but have years and years of photography background so, at least, that side of it is fine for what it’s worth.

The scope will, hopefully, be a WO GT81 with its 0.8 flattener/reducer and I already have an AZ-EQ6 mount and iPolar. My “plan” is to use a ZWO OAG and probably a ZWO 120mm for that bit.

The next bit is the question and I think I’m veering towards OSC as there’s enough to learn already without adding mono too so what camera would you be recommending please? I’ve looked at the ZWO 178, 183 and 294 uncooled along with 183, 533 and 294 cooled and compared FOV etc on astronomy tools until I’m blue in the face and will be looking to image DSOs primarily. 
 

Any thoughts on where I should concentrate or anything that I’m missing please, do I even need to bother with cooling at this point in the game for example?

Im intending using my Sony A7III at times too so if I need really wide I can play with that....

Many thanks in advance.