The Lazy Astronomer

I like to go in Stellarium, go to the sky viewing options, and in that window, go to DSOs, then filter the type of DSOs you're interested in, and move the hints and labels sliders all the way up and have a look around. Note this doesn't really work very well if you're looking for galaxies, just because there are sooo many of them up there!

Weirdly, I'm in the process of doing the exact opposite. Started with DSS, but downloaded Siril earlier this week. The problem is, DSS is sooo easy to use, and, because I'm so lazy, it's a struggle to motivate myself to learn how to use Siril for stacking, especially as I haven't found it immediately very intuitive.

That was going to be my question! In NINA, cooling is a 1 button operation, so I dare say if it doesn't work with NINA, you've got a duff camera

I saw somewhere a little while ago a very apt definition of tiff files: tiff = Thousands of Incompatible File Formats As mentioned above, save as fits file, 32 bit. If you haven't done so already, check out the prerequisite tutorials, particularly the getting started with a good dataset and recommended DSS settings: https://www.startools.org/links--tutorials Feel free to post up your stacked data if you want as well, there will likely be several people who will process it and show you what's possible. Or better yet, contact Ivo (the developer) directly, he's always happy to help. His name on this forum is jager945.

Skywatcher sell a flattener for the evoguide. It only has 17.5mm backfocus, but fortunately the OP has an asi533, so will be a perfect match and no additional spacers needed.

My parents have recently moved to a new place just outside of north Wales, bortle class 4 (bordering 3). I went to stay with them over the bank holiday weekend, and would you believe it the forecast was clear for both nights! Obviously then, the full imaging equipment would have to come with me (side note, an eq6r is most definitely not meant for traveling). I had hoped to get around 3 hours of good data over the 2 nights, but unfortunately I had a few issues (and beers) on night 1, and by the time I'd resolved those it was nearing 2am and I decided to give up and try again on night 2. When night 2 rolled around, things went much smoother, and once M16 had cleared the distant trees, I was able to get a decent 1 hour 20 mins worth of data before I decided to pack up and go to bed. This is 16 x 5 min Ha (Astronomik 7nm) with an Esprit 100 and 294MM. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, but as always, feedback and pointers welcome. Now I just need to get OIII and SII filters and head back there for another few nights! 😉

Interesting. I'll definitely be trying it out now. I tried ASTAP briefly, but went back to DSS because it was just so easy to use. @vlaiv: out of curiosity, what is your stacker of choice, and why?

I've never tried Siril, how does it compare to DSS?

Sadly, or perhaps happily, yes. Besides, with interest rates so low, hardly seems worth keeping anything in a bank these days - may as well put it to use ☺

I use 1.25" filters with an asi294mm (same sensor size) @ F5.5 and they work fine. Some vignetting, but easily corrected with flats. Just need to get the filter as close to the sensor as possible.

Yeah, fair point - I actually forgot APP and PI were stackers as well. And also that 'normal' people might want to do something that isn't just astro image editing 🙃

I just kept the standard dovetail - with my setup it balances with the front of dovetail just a couple of millimetres forward of the saddle. Another thing I found though: the rings are rubbish! They don't grip the tube tight enough. I ended up shimming them with some strips of folded paper and while that works perfectly, l will probably look for a better solution in the longer term. It's a good scope, but slightly let down by poor accessories.

Plus it's crazy cheap compared to other popular paid-for options (APP, Pixinsight, Photoshop). I found it does take a bit learning to get to know the right settings for your data (I find I have to tweak the parameters around a bit to get a good final stretch I'm happy with - however this mostly due to my poor quality data) and fortunately Ivo is more than happy to help if you contact him 👍

Thanks very much. ☺ The scope's really nice, very pleased with it so far, but l have to say a fair bit bulkier than l was expecting. The focus point also seems super sensitive to temperature changes, so I think a focus motor is going to be a must for me to be able to leave it snapping away all night unattended.

A selection of 'normal' UV/IR cut filters can be found here: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/uv-ir-filters.html With OSC, you'd really only want to use one if you're finding you get bloated stars from unfocused uv/ir. Otherwise I don't think you'd see any difference to be honest.

You're too kind ☺ As a bit of learning exercise over the summer, l may attempt to put together a mosaic of this region. Watch this space 😉

Woah there. That is a huge expenditure you're planning. Now I'm not in the business of telling people what to do with their money (except l am about to do exactly that 😃) - based on the fact you're buying all the equipment, I'm assuming you're completely new to this, in which case, let's maybe start a bit slower. First up, some recommended reading: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html Buy that and you won't need to listen to my shoddy advice below. Otherwise, continue reading this post at your own peril 😁 The cheap option would be a DSLR with a lens and a camera tracker. There are some very good images on here taken with that combination. However, if you know your interest in astronomy/astrophotography will be longer term, it may be worth splashing a bit more cash. General advice is buy the best mount you can afford. The mount is more important than scope or the camera; the best scope and camera in the world will produce poor images on an inadequate mount. If you've narrowed it down to an eq5 or an eq6 class mount, go for the latter, preferably the eq6r pro or the the az-eq6 gt. Next up, get yourself a small (60 - 80mm) refracter, a decent doublet would be a good choice to keep the cost down a bit. If you're feeling fancy, then by all means go for a triplet. If you wanted to add guiding capability, then a simple guide scope and camera package such as that offered by ZWO will suffice. The small refracter could potentially serve as a guide scope for a larger main scope at a later date too. As for the camera, if you've already got a DSLR, then use that in the first instance. If you need to buy a camera, then consider a DSLR for the cheaper option, or again, if you're feeling fancy, get yourself a dedicated cooled astro camera. Your talk of filters and filter wheels leads me to believe you've got your eye on narrowband imaging, and if this is the case, I'd say get yourself a mono camera to make full use of the whole sensor when doing narrowband imaging. Other accessories such as autofocuser and dew heaters can be added as desired/needed. You haven't mentioned this in your above post, but something worth considering is the sampling rate you will achieve with a particular camera and scope combination. Under typical skies, it's generally recognised that there is little point imaging with a sampling rate below 1"/px, as you will be limited by the seeing conditions. A good sampling rate to aim for for deep sky imaging is somewhere in the range of 1 - 2"/px. Lastly - and very importantly - before you start buying any astrophotography gear, take one last look at your bank balance so at least you'll remember what it was like to have any money! 😉

Turns out my issue may just have been the data was too noisy to leave at full resolution. New version binned 50% and reprocessed. Thoughts, comments and criticisms welcome (help me get better at this!!) Thanks.

Made use of my last few nights of astro darkness (although most of the subs ended up being taken outside of astro darkness). Conditions weren't great, but here is 36 x 300s h alpha, taken over 2 nights last week P.s. quite possibly my total lack of processing skill, but if anyone has any tips on how to prevent Startools creating those ugly grey halos around the stars I'd very much like to hear them!

I have the 294MM, and until recently was using it to image with an Evoguide 50 (pretty much same focal length as redcat). It may just have been my lack of skill (in both capture and processing!), but I found the data from the unlocked mode to be very noisy, even with many hours of integration time. In it's native (bin2) mode it's much better, and l got a couple of fairly pleasing widefield images, but obviously you then lose resolution. In short, l personally wouldn't recommend the 294MM if your intention was to image solely, or primarily, with the unlocked mode.

You are correct. For all but the tiniest of sensors (and I mean tiny!), you would need to use the flattener unless you don't mind severe field curvature, and the back focus on the flattener is only 17.5mm. There was some talk about a flattener from Starizona which had a larger backfocus, but don't know if that ever actually materialised.

Be aware that in order to achieve those high frame rates, you will likely need a laptop with an SSD. I found out the hard way that a regular ol' HDD just can't write the data fast enough without using a small ROI

There are a few options, I think the simplest is to get an extension lead and a weatherproof enclosure, to bring the mains sockets outside, then plug in a 12v brick type transformer (keeping the 240v side inside the enclosure), and have the 12v side cable coming out from the enclosure and into whatever you're powering

No, because your DSLR sensor is still a colour sensor (i.e. the bayer matrix is still there). The monochrome effect is achieved through the cameras software.

Before appropriate advice can be given, the following questions need to answered: 1. Do you intend to get into imaging, or are you looking for a scope purely for visual use? If a mixture, do you know which you think you'd intend to do more often? 2. Do you know what your main area of interest is (moon, planets, galaxies/small nebulae, mid to large size nebulae)? 3. Where will you set up to use it - i.e. do you have somewhere to use it from home (garden/balcony/rooftop/etc.), or will you have to (or want to) take it somewhere further afield? If you can provide answers to the above, any advice can be much better tailored to your wants and needs ☺