M42 with Altair GPCAM, ST80 and Star Adventurer

[Bobby1970]

I still havent fully got the knack of DSO's using the GPCAM. I altered the Gain settings, Gamma and brightness until i had what i thought was an ok image on my laptop screen, i set the exposure time to around 25sec. Used the integrated dark frame feature and took a few stills. However i also did a small video clip of around 3 minutes. Then used Autostakkert, registax and Lightroom.

My final image is still quite noisy and i am nit too sure of exactly the best method of capturing this subject with the GPCAM. If anyone could advise i would be very grateful.

 

[Stratis]

Hi there,

That is really nice work given you're using an ST80. 

My first bit of advice is to make sure your focus is dead-on and locked-down. Even if it looks ok on the screen, it probably isn't. The difference between in- and out- of focus can be 1/16th of a turn on the wheel

I would advise you to buy a cheap Bahtinov mask for your scope, and use that to achieve focus. It is surprisingly easy and very accurate. That will improve all your images from then on.

Other than that... it's hard to know which technique will work best with the GPCAM, single-shot or video stacking. I've heard of people installing cooling mods on the outside of their GPCAMs to reduce the noise in the images, usually with old CPU heatsinks etc.