StuartT

no. It was still in parked position, but not parked. I was running NINA's 3point PA routine

it's unparked Now that's an idea! I have recently set everything up again after the summer break, so maybe I was a long way off. This is a long FL scope, so bad PA could produce streaks... Hmm..

I'm using my EQ8 with NINA and tonight for some reason it's not tracking. Even 5s exposures are streaked. But NINA and EQMOD reports sidereal tracking! Completely baffling! What should I be trying?

great! Thank you

thanks @vlaiv By split debayer, do you mean generate separate RGB channels? How would binning the integration by 2 lead to 1.33"/px? Natively this rig is about 0.33, so wouldn't doubling that give 0.66?

Quick question.. night is finally back, so I am set up and ready to go in a couple of hours for some galaxy stuff. I'm using a Celestron Edge HD 9.25 with my only deep sky camera (ASI2600MC). This is not an idea combo, I realise, so I am planning to bin the camera 2x2, or even 3x3. Do you agree? Or would it be better to leave the camera at 1x1 and then downsample in Pixinsight?

ah.. I have figured it out now. The key is NOT to have that "Use custom timezone" box checked! Now it works as it should. Slightly counter-intuitive

Hmm.. I am a little confused still. I do have the "Use custom timezone" box ticked so I assume it is showing Australian time when I set the location to Australia, but the time selector is still showing my timezone (UTC +1). So if you look at my screenshot the location is set to NSW Australia, the time is set to 3am, but the sun is clearly at noon. So what stellarium appears to be doing is still using my timezone in the time/date display, but showing the sky appearance at the location!

A very annoying feature of Stellarium is that when you change the location the time stays that of your computer. This seems crazy to me. I can't find any way of getting the time to match the time zone of the location. Can anyone help?

you mean something like (Ha*0.6+Sii*0.4) to make a fake Oiii ?

Thanks for this. I must say, I was hoping there was some genuine goodness hiding in there and it was only my processing ineptitude that isn't getting it out! I didn't think of HSO.

Thanks Carole. I did try dialling down the green channel in Pixinsight and also in photoshop. But to only limited avail. The basic problem here is that my H alpha signal is drowning out the other two filters. I'm going to get a load more Oiii data (and maybe slightly less Sii)

Thanks @vlaiv and @tomato - these are both nice images. I had another attempt today and managed slightly less greenness. But I am going to try and get a lot more Oiii data for this target (which is NGC6357, by the way)

sadly no. I tried a number of fancy expressions. Yes, I have tried to do that. I tried linear fitting them first. I also tried stretching them first to try and balance them out a bit more. But the Oiii signal is so faint that stretching it to get anywhere close to the Ha merely makes the sky bright. Here they are saved as FITS files @vlaiv https://drive.google.com/file/d/15XUubOxT-LyIgbFM3MAFSsb5SmRfjR8z/view?usp=sharing Thanks. Linear fit is a Pixinsight process that tries to even up the images to each other (selecting one as a reference). SCNR on green makes a small difference but still nowhere near enough

it's a real shame about those diff spikes. Really detracts from the images and makes them look like advertising. Still... the JWST is not up there for aesthetic purposes, I guess

We all know how huge M31 is, but this really brings it home!

I do. But I have a day job, so still a bit too late to be playing telescopes sadly 😭

I've got a few hours of SHO data which I am having a hell of a job processing. I am a total noob to narrowband, so be gentle... I integrated the Sii, H alpha and Oiii to get three masters. I then linear fitted them to the weakest (Oiii) and did a basic combine using pixel math (Sii -> R, H alpha -> G and Oiii -> B). But (unsurprisingly since the H alpha signal is super strong) I get a very green image. I've tried background neutralisation and color calibration but nothing seems to fix it. I think my data is pretty much ok, but I just can't figure out how to get a useable RGB image from it. A linear fit to H alpha is even worse! Can anyone put me out of my misery and get a nice picture out of this? Here are the three masters

reading your original post again, I think I may have misunderstood. I've never been to a star party, so I don't really know what's involved. But I always assumed it is an event where more serious amateurs congregate somewhere to allow beginners to look through their scopes. So why would you be needing an astrophotography level mount for that? Presumably a visual grade mount is all you need for visual? By the sound of it, you already have a higher spec mount (Obsy mount) so why can't you use that for astrophotography?

I believe this is correct. In terms of naming, the "pro" part is redundant, by the way. It doesn't mean anything. The EQ6 and EQ6 Pro are the same mount (as are the EQ6R and EQ6R-Pro). But you probably know that. I'm never near my scope when it's slewing, I'm indoors. So I couldn't tell you. However, I don't have this problem with the EQ8. It slews right across the sky and lands with pinpoint accuracy. But whatever the mount, the Esprit 150 is a joy

morning all. As @scotty38 says, I have an Esprit 150 and I love it. It's given me some really super images. I use the field flattener/reducer too which takes it down to f/5.4. I had it riding on a EQ6R Pro for about a year. I would say the total mass of the scope, flattener, camera, pegasus powerbox etc was pushing 20kg and that is right at the very upper limit of what the EQ6R can manage for photography. Having said that, I wasn't getting bad guiding numbers - they just weren't all that good. So I mostly kept to short exposures. The main problem wasn't the guiding but the slewing. I'd polar align in NINA and then when I slewed the scope across the sky to my chosen target the plate solve would be a fair way off (I'm talking degrees here, not minutes). I put this down to moment of intertia issues, as the Esprit 150 is a long scope So ultimately, I decided to upgrade to a EQ8. In summary, you can get decent results with the Esprit 150 on a EQ6, but you are working within constraints and it does feel like you are at the upper limit of your gear. Is it essential to get a EQ8? No. But it is desirable.

touché my friend.

...although probably a bit earlier back in time than that, in all fairness.. 😉

or a SCT like me

why on earth would anyone want to create diffraction spikes?! Usually the problem is how to get rid of them in post-processing!