Freddie

A blast from the past but glad the comment helped.

I would give all those a go and experiment with Ha blended into red and Ha as a luminance to see which you prefer/works best.

This is without doubt the best image ever taken of this target and is probably in the top ten of any astro images ever taken.

Not the exact same mount but does this help?

Can’t comment on the question but you may get a better response in the “mounts” section.

You may want to describe your home position so people can check it is correct. If you haven’t checked and corrected cone error you would be better doing a 3 star align as the last align takes any cone error into account. Other than from the house, what are you using to supply power to the mount? Is it at least 12v and enough amps?

35 minutes ago, shropshire lad said:

Ah ok ... might it be that the exposrue is incorrect ... e.g too bright 

Changing exposure will not improve focus!

Not so bad for your set up but at the kind of image scale you will get with that kind of setup, the max of 3 mins for Jup is a bit misguided.

Any initial expert tips you want to share with us?

The mount will track at sidereal rate as standard. You can improve tracking by using PEC but you would need to train it first.

Depends on what you want to do\achieve.

It could be less stable when lowered as the feet will not be spread as far apart.

Is the image flipped as the edge rind is from 9 to 12 not 12 to 3.

You don't "need" to discard them. Do a stack with and one without and check what difference you can see between the two stacks.

4 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Hi, no there isn't I'm afraid. Imaging was in hydrogen alpha. You need either a quark or a dedicated hydrogen alpha telescope, also you'd need a refractor. With the Mak you can do white light solar imaging/observation. You must always use a solar filter on the front of the Mak not an hershal wedge. You'd be able to pick up any spots and falculea. Solar imaging equipment is very expensive unless you're able to get second hand. White light filters are less so. You can also add a continuume filter. You can make your own white light filter using baader solar film nd5. Hope that helps.

As we are talking imaging here, ND3.8 would be better.

Good news!!

Give it a go. That's a sure way to find out!!

Or you could look in the IKI Observatory section here on SGL!!!!

Will not work on a planet but you can focus on a near by star and then move to the planet without touching focus. It is best to focus by eye directly on the planet but if that doesn't work for you then a star it is.

Thanks. Yes, let's hope it does actually improve the image for some people rather than just make people feel good about a new RMS number. Will be interesting to see the situation develop over time as more people start to use it and we get some actual image comparisons rather than RMS comparisons.

Would be good if a bit of free software can save people the expense of having to upgrade mounts or replace old worn ones. Time will tell.

Thanks, so all your reporting is a reduced RMS when calculated for multi star Vs single, which does no necessarily mean you will see an improvement in the actual image. It may be the case that multi star averages out the seeing and allows for shorter guide exposures and ensures guide commands are only issued when really needed but all I'm seeing being reported is that the RMS improves and therefore it must be better but no evidence from measuring something on the resulting images.

Will be interesting to see how this all progresses and if images are improved or it just makes people happy because they see a lower calculated RMS and a better looking graph!!

1 hour ago, Skipper Billy said:

I used it for the first time last night - in poor seeing - it worked flawlessly and turning the multistar feature on and off revealed about a 10 - 15% improvement with it switched on.

The large green box is the primary star and the small green circles are the secondary support stars.

 

 

 

10-15% as measured by what? I assume something like FWHM on the subs?

The biggest impact will come from the general seeing conditions but a dew heater definitely contributes. The heater should therefore be used with a dew shield (also useful for keeping stray light out) and the heater set to the absolute minimum that will just keeps any dew off.

Like this you mean??!!

Yes, that’s the one. Has everything you need.