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OutThereSomewhere

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Everything posted by OutThereSomewhere

  1. Thanks! The camera is a ZWO ASI6200MM - full-frame 62MP sensor with 3.76um pixels. The filters are Baader 50.4mm unframed RGB's in a Starlight Xpress USB filter wheel.
  2. Here's a first stab with my data of M31 taken on Saturday night. 14 x 300secs of LG&B, 7 x 300s of R. Processed in Pixinsight. (FSQ106ED scope; 10Micron GM100 mount; ASI6200MM camera; Baader LRDB filters)
  3. Back from 4 great nights, 3 with clear skies that allowed me to get lots of hours of images. It was great to be back at a GSP and meet old friends and make new ones. I loved looking through Damien's Dob at the NGC891 and NGC898 galaxies, and M13. Thanks to Derek for organising things. I hope that the weather keeps up for those who are staying on. The journey home today was difficult on the M6, with lots of rain, standing water, high winds and crashed BMWs and Audis. Here's a pic of my astro-clutter. Hopefully I can get my head around PixInsight and post some images from the starcamp soon.
  4. Thanks for the advice. I'll have to work out how to pause my imaging and guiding in SGP; dither; then resume guiding and imaging again. I think that must be my problem.
  5. Yes, I've got AstroArt V5 but it's stacking procedure hasn't resolved this problem, so I've tried using DSS then AA5, still without success.
  6. I used 300 sec exposures for my lights and darks, plus 2.35 sec exposures for my flats. If I dithered, would that negate the need for darks altogether? I'm not sure whether I dithered or not when taking these images. Maybe I did sometimes, I can't remember.
  7. Ive attached a screenshot of what happens when I include darks with my lights and flats. Looking closely, you may be able to see black pixels. Do you think these would disappear if I had taken dark flats and added them in Deep Sky Stacker? If so, I'd better build myself a dark flats library too. Do I need to dither as well as do all the darks?
  8. The image was taken using a mono camera and RGB filters, plus flats on the red filter, all using Sequence Generator Pro. The subs for each filter were combined in DeepSkyStacker. The resulting RGB Tiffs were then aligned in AstroArt, before combining in Photoshop. When I zoom in, I can see these annoying pixels, that don't seem to disappear even if I apply darks at the Deep Sky Stacker stage. They obviously don't even align when the alignment process takes place (aligning on stars). Could it be an issue with dithering? I can't remember what I did about dithering in PHD2. Maybe I dithered on some light or flat frames, but not others. Maybe it is something other than dithering - perhaps my workflow. Is this is somehow recoverable without me having to take a load more subs to start from scratch? I use Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop CS6 and AstroArt and would prefer to keep using this software for now. Any advice on how to overcome this problem would be appreciated, because I consistently have this problem. I know that the image has other capture / processing issues that could be addressed, but can we please just keep to the pixel issue? I'd like to take one step at a time 🙂. Thanks!
  9. I've solved my problem. It was self-inflicted! When I ran the AVI / SER file through PIPP, I had - in error - somehow checked "Enable Quality Estimation" in the Quality Options tab. This by default, puts some constraints on the number of frames to keep and reorders the frames in order of quality. So I think that this reduced the length of my movie from 2 minutes to 16 seconds when PIPP processed it and produced it's output. I unchecked the "Enable Quality Estimation" tickbox and processed it through PIPP. The output was a 2 minute movie, which I was able to successfully process through Autostakkert and adjust wavelets in Registax as I normally would. This produced the quality of image that I expected. Phew! But I take on board Geof's and Kon's advice - I really appreciate it. I'm going to have to ween myself off the B/mask to use a better method, but I struggle to focus with the standard Celestron SE6 focus knob. I probably need a robotic focusser. Thanks again for all the input from everyone. I hope that my lesson may help someone else in future! Cheers, Jonathan
  10. I tried various FPS, some up to 200FPS if I remember. The screenshot shows 30FPS because I took the screenshot when I was experimenting with different frame rates to see if that was the problem. It made no difference. I don't think it's a focussing or seeing issue because the seeing was consistently good at the time. I know that the bahtinov mask isn't recommended for planetary, but using it, I won't be far off. I've used this method to get good results in the past. I've got a feeling that the problem has more to do with my software settings.
  11. SOLVED: User Error! Please see my explanatory post further down the thread. Can anyone please give me some advice about why my frames are so “rough” looking? I’ve obtained good planetary images before, but for some reason, the capture quality in my last two sessions has been very poor, but I can’t identify the cause. Any suggestions are welcome! I've attached a screenshot of the poor quality frames that I was achieving. During the imaging session, the seeing was very good and I focussed using a bahtinov mask, so I don’t think that the problem is caused by seeing or focus. Equipment: Camera: ZWO ASI290MC Mount: NEQ6 Pro with good polar alignment Scope: Celestron SE6 Laptop: Inspiron 15 5000; Windows 11 Software: I tried Sharpcap, Firecapture and ASICap, using 2 and 3 minute duration videos, as AVI and SER, as RAW8 format, all with the same poor quality. I tried varying the USB speed, but it made no difference. I also varied the frames per second, but always got the same poor quality frames. I’ve achieved way better results using this equipment in the past. The only thing that I can say was different this time was the temperature was -7 degrees C, which is much colder than on previous sessions. When I ran the 2 or 3 minute videos through PIPP, the output video was only 16 seconds long! When I ran the videos through Autostakkert, the quality histogram showed the frames to be so poor that I could hardly see them at the bottom of the chart. I'm pretty sure that I've just made some basic mistake, but I can't figure it out, so please help! I've attached some SharpCap screenshots that show my settings. EDITED to attach screenshots because my original post was not showing the images when copied & pasted into the post.
  12. I'm lucky enough to be able to drive there with my gear when there was a chance of clear skies at new moon. This was part of a week's driving around Scotland in the hope of good weather. I was lucky with better weather than was forecast and even got to see the aurora for the first time.
  13. Here's my Takahashi FSQ106ED on an NEQ6 mount and Berlebach Planet tripod, in their natural habitat. A couple of weeks ago, I set up for the night in a layby near Lochinver, Assynt, Scottish Highlands to image Plaedes. As you can see, I was fighting clouds and the horizons weren't great, but it was a sheltered spot out of the wind. Everything was powered by 3 x 110ah leisure batteries and controlled via my laptop on the deckchair, covered by a towel. It was relatively warm at 6 deg C with no dew! In the foreground, you can see the all-important coffee-making equipment 😄.
  14. A nice clear night in Warrington. Managed to see a total of 6 stars within Orion. I saw more than 16% of people taking the survey. Grrr! On the plus side, with binoculars, I could see M42 with cyan colouring.
  15. I think it was one of the cables supporting the dish off the ground that snapped first. The whole thing, including dish, was suspended off the ground.
  16. Having always used freeware and native software that came with hardware, I bought SGP recently and have just installed ASCOM etc to make it work. I'm disappointed by this change out of the blue. Had I known they were changing, I wouldn't have bought it. I wont be using the subscription model. Its too expensive for what it is. I'll use SGP until it no longer works, then find an alternative. If it had been a cheaper annual cost, I'd have thought about it.
  17. My setup a week or so ago in Pembrokeshire, looking out to sea with some light pollution from Skokholm Island I think. Its a Takahashi FSQ106ED on an NEQ6 Pro, which I lug about for days, heading to wherever there is a clear sky forecast. This was imaging NGC7000. Power comes from 3 x leisure batteries which I recharge during the day while kipping in the car.
  18. Thanks FLO! I've heard that the site not only does forecasts, but also improves the weather
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