Astro Caller

Having a powerful computer will always help, I'm running a custom built PC i9 990k and 128GB RAM for Pixinsight and eats workflows for breakfast, for basic processing an average PC will cope well, however if using for Pixinsight for stacking or advance processing your going to need as much CPU power as you can, also if stacking a lot of subs in Pixinsight RAM plays are big part. if you do got for a new computer, consider getting a NIVDIA GPU as you can actually programme PI to use your GPU for certain processes such as StarNet, , I can do 32strides in less than 5mintuies, 128 strides in 30 seconds , 32 strides on basic CPU such as i5 can take an hour.

No worries, I always use WeTransfer to send files, i don't use photoshop for main processing, just final touch ups, all my main processing is done in Pixinsight, but this image looks really good, nicely balanced, low noise

Sorry adjusted post wrong person

Are you using masks? you need to sperate the background, stars and nebulosity and make adjustments, on this image you have clipped the dark reference removing data from the image

would you mind sharing your data ? are you using Pixinsight or Photoshop?

Its a great mount if you looking at keeping your current payload for a few years to come. anything bigger you slower climbing into the £1200 - £1600 budget. i.e. EQ6R-Pro , CEM70 etc

For such a small payload and wanting to be flexible in terms of remote location, I would consider the EQM-35 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/skywatcher-eqm-35-pro-synscan-goto-modular-mount.html The mount is the most important purchase your make and when spending best part of £800, think about the future

HI Yubo What's your top budget? Thanks

Hi Stu Iv not read any of the responses, but thought I would add a few points . With regards to the motors whining are you using a power box i.e. Pegasus power box etc? your mount requires 12v to perform well, however if your using a power box and 12v supply that also controls your dew heaters etc your voltage drop can be very excessive, I had this on my EQ6-R and ultimate power box, it turned out that with everything running my voltage had dropped to 11v causing my mount motors to whine as they have not got enough torque , I resolved this by purchasing 13.8v power supply. with everything running I was then providing my mount with 13.1v. no more whining. When using 12v my motors would only whine when both RA and DEC was slewing simultaneously , again this all due to volt drop. In some extreme cases it can also be caused by poor balance i.e. counter weight heavy, camera heavy and even worm gears are to tight. Best way to check this is undo the covers on side of the mount were the belts are, turn the power off and see if you can move the gears with your thumb, if you can move freely with power off your worm gears are probably fine, if they are solid and you cannot move them your worm gears are to tight. can be adjusted easily. Also check your balance you want to be approx 1oz (28grams) east heavy RA and camera heavy DEC. if your to heavy again your motors wont have enough torque. One last thing on alignment , have you set up your home position correctly? trip pod needs to be level, don't use bubble level on mount head, these are way off, use boat level and level on all 3 axis, then level you RA with counterweight bar pointing west , use the boat level to get perfect, then set clock to 18:00, do same with dec place boat level on dec (opposite to dovetail clamp and set clock to zero) This will ensure your home position is perfectly level. Hope this helps. Thanks