£300 to spend, what would you do?

[Peco4321]

So it’s been a while since I’ve been on here, apologies, life tends to get in the way!  Here’s where I’m at, I have £300 currently saved to spend on my upgrade path. My backstory is:
Skywatcher 150p, eq3-2 enhanced motors canon 1100d un modded, upgraded to Heq5 pro late December. 
 

Main interest is DSO imaging, but also lunar and planetary when possible. So my thoughts are to one day go down the guided route but not totally convinced I’ll gain enough as my processing skills and software are limited anyway. I’m thinking of a dedicated astro cam maybe or clip in filter and dew heaters etc etc. Later in the year I’ll have more funds so this is a staged approach. 
 

What would you do?  Here’s some of my recent images that I’m proud of that I’d like to improve on now I have a good mount, based on your advise of what else I could throw in the mix as well. 
 

 

[pete_l]

I think you will find that the room for improvement makes itself apparent, not from the photos you are pleased with but from the ones where you can find things that could be done better,

With that in mind I would suggest taking a critical view of the "second division" ones and considering what comes up most often as the gap between great images and not so great ones.

It may be that all it needs is a little more experience with the kit you have, rather than gadgets. These ones look great, BTW.

Edited January 20, 2021 by pete_l

[Peco4321]

Thanks for that. The problem I have I think is the 13 year old canon 1100d, there seems to be a line on images that I have to overly process out making images very dark.   
I think I will go down the route of an astro cam, to later be used as a guide cam when more funds are available. I’m quite taken with all I’m reading on the Altair GPCAM3 290c. 

[shropshire lad]

£300 what would I do ... book a flight to somwhere where there isn't any clouds .... lol

 

[SteveNickolls]

I would save the £300 towards a ASI294MM-Pro. 😁

Good luck however spending your cash.

Cheers,
Steve

[Peco4321]

23 minutes ago, SteveNickolls said:

I would save the £300 towards a ASI294MM-Pro. 😁

Good luck however spending your cash.

Cheers,
Steve

I’ll be saving all decade!!  

[ollypenrice]

Some of those images would have masses more to give with better processing. Why not post a Dropbox link to that first Double Cluster as an unprocessed stack and see what help folks can give?  You mention a line on your chip which you are cutting out by black clipping, if I have this right? There are better ways, for sure, to make lines disappear!  I won't comment on how to spend 300 quid but I'd be happy to help with processing and that would cost nothing.

Olly

[Peco4321]

6 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Some of those images would have masses more to give with better processing. Why not post a Dropbox link to that first Double Cluster as an unprocessed stack and see what help folks can give?  You mention a line on your chip which you are cutting out by black clipping, if I have this right? There are better ways, for sure, to make lines disappear!  I won't comment on how to spend 300 quid but I'd be happy to help with processing and that would cost nothing.

Olly

Thanks olly I’ll try and send it over later. I only use GIMP so yes, processing is also a weak link in my astrophotography. 

[Peco4321]

uploaded, not sure i have done it right though:

31 Aug 2019a.TIF (dropbox.com)

 

 

[discardedastro]

On 27/01/2021 at 15:00, Peco4321 said:

Thanks olly I’ll try and send it over later. I only use GIMP so yes, processing is also a weak link in my astrophotography. 

I'd spend some of your cash on PixInsight, and "Inside PixInsight" (book). Save the rest towards an imaging camera or a cheap guiding setup.