Alex E

the sort of clouds I like to see. lovely shot, those dust reflections are superb.

that's a superb result for first images, well done

love the delicate aspect of it, almost painted on. lovely

yeah agreed, pretty mind-blowing what one can achieve in their back yard nowadays

amazing shot

some superb shots there

So I decided to have another run at this as the last result just didn't sit right and I think ended up on a slightly better result - core looks better and the balance is better color-wise, managed to remove more of that left gradient and it just looks closer in color to the standard. At the very least it gave me a bit more practice with stretching and playing around with my curves. Detail-wise there's not much more there but I'm still happy with it until I get another clear night and more exposure time.

Thank you both for your replies, that's exactly the kind of information/advice I was looking for. I will be doing DSO imaging so I will definitely give NINA (which I'd similarly not heard of before) a try. I've found APT to be a pretty solid app overall, though to be fair I've only used a fraction of its features so far, but you are right Stuart, the interface is a bit clunky and awakward to use in some places. I shall see how I get along with the Sharpcap PA tool as well, I'm quite curious as to how it all works. So far (and we're talking two sessions so far only) I've just done manual PA using standard methods and phone app - and to be fair, I've not done horribly with it - but I'm guessing the PA tool should give me a much more precise alignment.

So to my very very beginner eye, these two pieces of software seem quite aligned (or competing on an even keel you could say) in terms of what they do and what they cost. Are there any opinions on which if any is the "better" overall, or has most features I guess? And more to the point, which would you recommend to someone starting out in astro-imaging and why. I've been using APT so far and it seems pretty good - I've particularly enjoyed the Bahtinov focus assist tool, but I'd be curious to know if there are any points where Sharpcap would provide an advantage - such as polar aligning maybe?

Scratch that, found it on their website, I'm a dumbass.

TS-Optics used to make a right-angle adapter for the polar finder on the Star Adventurer Pro but it seems to have been discontinued as it's out of stock everywhere - ie: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/TS-Optics-SkyWatcher-Celestron-comfortable-PFZS/dp/B01DIOPWCU Anyone have any idea whether there are any other options, where I might find one of the above or am I stuck bending my neck at un-natural angles every session?

Right I think I managed to get the greenish tinge out so I shall leave it here and return with other (mis)adventures and questions when clear skies avail next. Thank you everyone for your input.

My ClearOutside says it's going to go dark after 8PM today unfortunately, but not sure if that's just the coastal weather out here and Canterbury might be spared. Are there any local AP groups/gatherings that sort of thing? Big up indeed

Thanks for the suggestions, very much appreciated, it's a learning curve but it's also great fun. I did have darks and flats for the second session, but I saw some variable horizontal banding on my flats when I looked at them this morning so I think I need to work a bit more on taking good flats as, like you say, that's much preferred to synthetic methods of removing vignetting and other gradients.

There we go, we're at 17/17/16 now.