Revs

Thanks for that Alan, much appreciated

OK just confirmed it makes no difference. Tried speed of 40 compared to 80 and they're just the same. So USB speed is sumply to get the transfer done faster. Must have mis-read or mis-understood what I was reading.

I'm probably wrong but I'm sure a read that amp glow was caused during the transfer of data, so the faster you can get that done the less amp glow.

Cheers. Did you spend much time finding a good offset setting for each gain setting or just go for a 'safe' amount for both?

Hi. After some saving I've taken the plunge and purchased a cold CMOS camera, the ZWO ASI294MC Pro. I've got the day off and I'm using this time to collect some dark/bias calibration frames. But I have some questions. I understand that the temperature and gain have to be the same for all frames and that exposure times of the darks and lights needs to match, but... Which of following camera settings used to take darks/bias frames have to match the settings used for light frames... USB speed - My understanding is slower means more amp glow, so will have to be the same, at least on the darks, right..? Offset - do the positions of the peaks of the darks/bias frame have to be in the same place on the histogram as the lights? Any input appreciated 🙂 also any other tips for a newby more than welcome!

Pretty sure this is a good one..

That has knocked a lot of the medium brightnees stars down a lot though, kinda lost it's twinkle. From what I remember, he selected the brightest areas using a FWHM selection method, deselected the bits he didn't want to effect and feathered the selection that were left. Turn that in to a mask and adjusted the curves, etc. Then blended the layer in using opacity. I'll try and find the vid...

From what I've seen it would be tweaked at any stage of the PP as desired, so probably both. This guy has a lot of good vids.. AstroBackyard.. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt97PtQt5dJEUdzqgBIJv-xs8anU7F6D- But there are dozens of great astro related channels

It doesn't strike me as an 'issue' as such, more just that the blue ones are the brightest and blow out the most (I'm sure there's a correct term for this but I don't know it), so they do dominate. I'm just getting back in to astro after a long time away and I'm using Photoshop for the first time as of last week. But I've watched a lot of tutorials on YouTube in the last week and am literally just learning about shrinking stars using masks, etc now. So I can't really help much but there are a lot of tutorials and PP walk-throughs on YT. I also picked up the Astro Photography Tool plugin for Ps which does a lot of this using 'actions' in seconds... once you know how to use them 😆

The reason I say that is that the blacks are really black and the stars have less colour than in the first one, suggesting clipping. As you say, maybe half way. But the first one looks good to me BTW I'm not professing to be an expert, I'm still very much learning, especially the PP side.

V1 is very nice but V2, wow that's really nice. So many galaxies, they're everywhere! The colours are lovely, especially the stars. I'm looking on an OLED and the colour balance looks fine to me mate. Though there are a lot of big blue stars in that image and they kinda effect the overall tone. But instead of adjusting the colour I might have a go at tightening up just the big blue ones a touch. It might just make the difference. BTW I'm no expert, just throwing ideas out there On second thoughts maybe a teeeeeeny bit more red..? I'm seeing green as much as blue.

I do prefer a softer image. But I didn't used to so I know where you're coming from

The first one is nice, good colour and detail. If you don't mind me saying; the second one is over-stretched and you've lost detail in both the dark areas and the core/stars. I don't think the extra sharpness gained is worth it. The first looks much more natural imo

Might not be what you intended but it looks gorgeous nonetheless. Good stuff 👍

Thanks guys Jules, not setup at Digley res before, lovely spot though. Was thinking a little further along the road and a little higher; Holme Moss, 527m asl. Prolly a bit breezy up there though.

Hi Guys and Gals.... I'm back! I thought I'd better reintroduce myself as I haven't posted for a such long time, going on 8 years I think. I hope everyone's doing well in these weird times. With all the extra time I've had I found myself watching astro vids on YouTube. Next thing you know I'm dusting off my scopes and reacquainting myself with the HEQ5. I've had a couple of nights out with the 10" dob hoping to see some planets but only Venus and the Moon could be found, but it was so nice to see them again. I decided it was time to retire my slow-as-hell 12 year old astro notebook and pickup something a lot newer and faster. Then had to re-learn the ASCOM install process and figure out how to get the old QHY5 to talk to Windows 10 (x64). I was struggling, I had almost given up and was looking at QHY5Lii's, but I found the info/link I needed here, got the right drivers installed and got it working again, which made my day The only issue now is that I'm in a very light polluted area and don't wanna get in trouble by travelling to darker skies. Anyway, see you in the forums, cheers!