Lunar, Skywatcher Pro 6" Prime Focus

[Aussie Dave]

First light with newly purchased pre-loved scope tonight doing prime focus before cloud rolled in again. Very impressed with the optics in this scope.

Skywatcher Pro Mak150

Nikon D3100

Lightly processed to my usual in Paint.Net

[xtreemchaos]

nice images Dave,sw mak 150 good scope mate. well done. thanks for posting  charl.

[laudropb]

Nice images.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice. Have you tried taking a sequence and stacking them with e.g. Registax? That could bring out more detail

[Aussie Dave]

I tried Registax last night Michael with 6 images and for some reason, most attempts froze the program. I left it going on those attempts for 30 minutes - 45 minutes and there was no CPU or HDD activity. The successful attempts were processed quick and only achieved by reducing the 6 image file sizes down to 2000 pixels x 1333 pixels and even then most had geometric darker sections overlayed from other images in the final picture, strange. The 3 that did process successfully do not look any different to any of my unprocessed single images. It also had problems with the auto alignpoints which I had to reduce dramatically down to 10 - 15.

Using desktop PC Windows Home Premium 64bit, Intel Core 2 Duo 3GHz, 4 gig RAM.

I was hoping to upload a nicer result last night but it just didn't happen

I'm trying again now for a couple of hours, reduce the file sizes down to 1024x768 pixels and see if it wants to work tonight.

[Aussie Dave]

Just a quick update to my problems while trying to nut it all out. I've reduced the files sizes again and only tried to process 3 images. I've now got black shapes on the bottom of the image... see also the top of the moon for the lighter geometric shapes. These shapes are different on every attempt.

I've also unticked all the Automatic Processing in Settings.

It looks like an overlay, layer, transparency issue.

[Aussie Dave]

ok so these shapes are part of the alignment sections I've just noticed. Anyone know how to eliminate them?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have occasionally had some memory corruption issues with Registax, and it can get VERY slow on big images. Maybe you should try Autostakkert! instead. It is free, and can also stack TIFF files: http://www.autostakkert.com/

[Aussie Dave]

I'll give it a go Michael, cheers.

[alexbb]

Hi,

Try to use just a single align point for the moon. If the exposures were taken very quick one after the other, you won't have problems with field rotation and you should not need multiple align points as there is a single object

I apologize if I'm wrong, but this is how I used to process this one, with a smaller mak.

Alex

[Aussie Dave]

Hi Alex, tried 1 alignpoint and get a line off center of the moon practically going straight down. It's part of the alignment sections, the more alignpoints, the more sections (shapes). There's a checkbox just above the processing area. If I click on that, it shows the alignment section shapes.

btw, nice lunar image Alex.

[Aussie Dave]

Finally had a win but no visual difference to my other 3 I did last night. I used my little XP netbook and sucessfully processed 6 images of 1200x800 pixels. I guess it's a little clearer and not as contrasty as my manual single photo processing in Paint.net but there's little difference from any of my unprocessed photos when I first took them apart from perhaps a slight reduction in noise.

I still say I need a decent imager.

[alexbb]

Hi and thank you,

I think you have to wait for the air and the scope to cool a little more, also leave to moon to rise above... 40 degrees let's say. I checked last evening if registax has any issue processing my full resolution images and didn't have problems with that.

You should be able to take far better sub frames on a clear cooler night with your setup.

[Aussie Dave]

Thanks for the advice Alex

Nights have been cool but I have noticed some heat shimmer around the edge of the moon as we are getting warm days now, moon was about 50-60 degrees. Atmospheric conditions haven't been the best here with very light cloud, mist and smog I think (bush fires elsewhere). Focusing manually as best I can.

Visually it's great. With the Nikon I'm getting very average results.