NGC6888 Crescent Nebula 314L+ First Light

[ncjunk]

. Now the QHY, it's a great piece of kit for the price and does a great job but I have issues with USB disconnects and camera hangs (i.e. cannot take a picture, need to go through the lengthy disconnect process of "rebooting" the camera, first unplug the TEC from power, then unplug tec from camera, then unplug usb from camera and reconnect in reverse order - bit of a faf).

The usb cable could just be a cable quality problem. I am having to upgrade all my cables to more exensive ones just because the cheap ones keep seeming to cause a failure every so often (couple of days)

my qhy8l is fine though and no dust. using the qhy8l with the qhy6 caused me no end of problems with one driver showing the others temp control so i would say that qhy do have issues with quality and testing but mine work well now and are cheap.

my atiks where never any problem..great cameras.

on the pics you are showing th 314, then qhy and them combine is that correct? how was it stacking the different cameras?

[ianaiken]

Neil,

Yes, the Atik first in Ha, then the OSC, then a HaRGB Combine.

For the Ha and RGB from the OSC I just stacked the subs in PI as usual. For the combine I aligned the QHY to the Atik using PI StarAlignment, which took into consideration the slightly different image scale and rotation difference, and then I restacked these realigned subs. This gave me a stacked image at the exact image scale and rotation as the already stacked Ha. I then used PS to merge the re-aligned RGB with the Ha with the Ha going into the red channel. I think there are some techniques I need to look at (something Olly has suggested in an older thread) for really bringing out the Ha when combining using this method but I just had a quick go to get a feel for it. I did also use the HaRGB Combine script in PI and was reasonably pleased with the results, although again I was firing from the hip and just having a quick go to get a feel for it.

Stacking the Atik was easier than eating ice cream, with flats but no darks. Stacking the QHY was harder than eating ice cream on the Sun and it has taken me quite some time to get it right, including flats, alignment, debayer etc... but I am there, well I was, no doubt forgotten by the time I get some more data!

Ice cream... now there's a thought

[ianaiken]

@Gina - since you already own a Canon 1000D I would definately go for the Atik mono. Although with a OSC you will see an improvement over the Canon, you will have much greater flexibility with the Atik including NB as you know. I can't fault the Atik at all, not a bad word to say about it. It is worth saving for.

[Gina]

@Gina - since you already own a Canon 1000D I would definately go for the Atik mono. Although with a OSC you will see an improvement over the Canon, you will have much greater flexibility with the Atik including NB as you know. I can't fault the Atik at all, not a bad word to say about it. It is worth saving for.

Thanks Ian The Canon is actually the 1100D and yes, it's the mono version of the Atik I have in mind. I would like to try NB

[ncjunk]

Thanks Ian The Canon is actually the 1100D and yes, it's the mono version of the Atik I have in mind. I would like to try NB

NB is amazing when the moons out, it means you can actually do some usefull imaging.

thanks for the reply ian