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CKemu

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  1. Equipment: Scope: SW Esprit 100ED Mount: SW EQ6-Pro Camera: ATIK 490EX Ha for Flame/Horsehead, RGB for M42 Photographed M42 on the night of the 17th - it's been over 8 months since I've had the scope out, so remembering order of operation, the software etc was a slight challenge, so gave myself a quick target and one I enjoy imaging. Did a short run of 15 x 5 minutes per channel, slapped together in Photoshop, with a quick stretch on the data. The Ha shot of the Flame and Horsehead is the continuation of a project from last January, finally added the data to make the panel for the Flame look less noisy, I want to do a third panel to the left, in order to capture the tail of the Horsehead region. Two panels 16 x 10 minute exposures in each panel, stitched and stretched in PS. My stars I feel are a little smidge eggy, but given how rare the chances are to get out, I feel I shall just have to live with them. I've barely had chance to use the mount, and learn it's quirks - for the most part I had 0.4"-0.6" guiding in RA, but my DEC became a mess as the night went on, it'd guide within 0.4-0.8" for minutes at a time, and then violently swing 4-5" before correcting, guiding fine and then doing it again, with no pattern to when it'd do it...I re-jigged cables, thinking snags, and it was a mess to be fair until I tidied - but it still did it, so assuming balance was off as it got lower on the horizon....? Eh not sure and being in the UK with seldom chance to spend time gremlin hunting, this will remain an unsolved mystery.
  2. Shot over three nights from my garden in Looe (Class 4 Bortle). ATIK490ex | SkyWatcher Esprit 100ED | OAG/Filterwheel/Flattener | 4 x 30 x 240s (8 Hours in L,R,G,B) + adjusted master flat for dust motes. Deep Sky Stacker for rejection, registration and alignment - all layers, levels and saturation done within Photoshop CC. It's been five or so months since I last even had the scope out, and longer yet since I "finished" an image, so I'm certainly rusty, heck I am looking at it now and just noticed gradients (grumble), but overall pretty pleased with the result and really enjoying the clear weather and sunny days allowing me to keep the scope out and ready to go for the next night. Oddly, I think my favourite part of this image is spotting the background galaxies and trying to find out how far away they are - IC4617 for instance is 489 million light years away, and there's fainter ones in the image, that makes me wonder just how far we can see in this image.
  3. This Autumn has been terrible, between 50-60mph southerly winds with sideways rain, to consistent cloud cover (except during full Moons, which I swear is some kind of conspiracy!) - the scope has been a glorious lounge decoration for months. I get one clear night, and naturally get guiding gremlins, but at -3c, I decided to let them play out as I remote controlled my scope in the garden from the warmth of the office (Suspect cable snags, it was a rushed setup!) So here it is, the only data I am likely to get this December, 16 x 600s in H-Alpha of the Horsehead nebula, with a smidge of flame. I'd like to go and do a panel to the left and right of this.
  4. Fantastic mosaics, and they're something I enjoy the challenge of, but I always curse the multiplication they lead to. 20 x 20 min subs = 6.7 hours per channel - so 20 hours per panel, so about 120 hours for my estimated 6 panels for the California Nebula. Now I live in the UK, so 10-400 years of winters to get the data! I've done a few before, my most recent mosaic was the Orion nebula 2 years ago, pretty much the last project I undertook as my camera died and I drifted out of the hobby for a bit (life etc) This was 6 panels, with the 414ex, so small image and sensor crop lead to the larger panel count, might re-do this with the 490ex - I live in Bortle 4 skies, so perhaps increase the exposure time on this to.
  5. Thank you! Honestly the mount has performed better, but various factors made it "rough" last night due to being more focused on getting the FF/guidecam to co-operate. I plan to build a complete picture of the California Nebula, initially in just Ha, and then will go back to do OIII and SII. Just need to figure out how many panels to build the shot, and how many 1200s subs per panel.
  6. I recently got a new mount, moving from NEQ6 to EQ6r-Pro (The NEQ is still in service, but for my observing/bar star parties). Also went from the ATIK414ex to the 490ex and with a bigger sensor comes little eggy stars in the corners, so got the matched field flattener for my Esprit 100ED. ...learning did then occur! Never even thought about back focus and upon realising my ATIK stack of hardware came to 59mm - BEFORE any adapters are involved, I had some lessons to learn. 1x ZWO OAG2, 1x 2mm M54 to M48 adapter and 2.2mm of spacers later - I got my first light with this stack, on an object I've never actually tried to image before. Image is 5 x 1200s in Ha.
  7. If you have a long post, it would be easier writing it in notepad / Word etc first, and then copy / pasting it to the forum, therefore stopping the post from "timing out"?...if that's a thing, also if it's that long, might want to include a brief synopsis ...a "TL:DR" at the bottom 😛
  8. It is never easy eh...........manufacturing companies need to create a "BASIC" set of mechanical conventions and tolerances,.....because DEAR FUDING LORD my patience is being worn thin right now.
  9. Think that's the plan, take a few shots and check out the stars afterwards - for a hobby that requires patience, I am terrible at having patience and hate wasting clear nights though! ha The ZWO OAG is quite thin, no idea if it would attach to my ATIK EFW2 - will have to research, but that would save a good chunk of space. More £££, well I can cope with a few more if it gets me in to a position where I can use the full sensor width - but I shall test this once the part comes and "waste" a clear night. The title stems from frustration more than actual disaster!
  10. I'm using the ATIK OAG for their EFW2.
  11. So I have the Skywatcher 100ED Field Flattener ("FF" from now on) and the following imaging train: FF > M48 to M54 Adapter (2mm)* > OAG (24mm) > Filter Wheel (22mm) > Baader Filters (0.7mm) > ATIK 490EX (13mm) *this is on order from FLO, so currently unable to test this setup. 61.7mm total Required back focus is 55mm ...fuuuuuuu-dge. 6.7mm which I can't really shave off, but I have an imaging circle of 40mm and the chip diagonal is 15.97mm, do you think I will get away with it? I see posts with people sweating over 1mm, but they're often DSLR users! Perhaps this is something that can't easily be answered, gosh I wish there was a tool to simulate this m'larky!
  12. Yeah, that is a heck of a lot better - the stars aren't doughnut brightness, and smudged in to discs. Glad to see you're getting data! I'm sat looking at clear skies waiting for an adapter to come before I can start making useful data again.
  13. I don't know what to say, except to disable your Auto Focus and go in manually, your stars are disc like, slightly hollow and not right, and that's just using my eyeballs, HD corrected with glasses and a lot of coffee in my system!
  14. Using the script for FWHM, I am getting 4.410px. The smaller the FWHM, generally the better, my recent test images from my ATIK490EX / Esprit 100ED gave me 1.34px. Your stars are really out of focus, I would either suggest a Bahtinov mask to tighten the focus, or manually tweak it until that number starts shrinking in your test shots.
  15. I would have to agree, the whole frame seems soft and out of focus. I popped it in Pixinsight to look for aberration in the corners, and it' hard to tell due to focus.
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