The AZ GTI Forum

[modest nebula]

£50 including UPS fees

[low mural]

What a result! How much did you pay in total?

[modest nebula]

£529 😮

[rugged jackal]

You got that camera at a good price, it is over £500 now on AliExpress

When is delivery ETA?

[modest nebula]

It was £498 when I bought it but I googled for "aliexpress discount code" and found one that worked, so I got ~£20 off. It was due to be delivered on Friday but UPS are now saying it's delayed, probably because of the air traffic control fiasco

[rugged jackal]

I was hoping you had in time for a clear window on Sunday.

[modest nebula]

perhaps, perhaps not, but it will give me an opportunity to do a back to back test. I notice Triangulum is now visible

[low mural]

So i contact player one aswell. Not sure if you did too @rugged jackal.
I was pretty disspointed with their customer service. It took them a few days to reply and the response was dismissive when I asked about the HDR funtionality.

It has made me think again about ordering from them.

[random night]

what did they say about hdr functionality?

[low mural]

They said "the graph looks weird and they will need to look into it" 😂

[random night]

"The graph"? which graph?

[low mural]

I reckon they meant the curve. I directed them to cuivs video on it

[random night]

I see, tbh im surprised they even responded, Most customer services wouldn't

[modest nebula]

I'm impressed with Risingcam support. However, seems like they're not a big company. Their support dept is basically 1 guy called Eddie. He responds quickly though & is very helpful. I asked what voltage input the cooler part of the cam would take & I got an answer the next day.

[low mural]

Yeah im leaning towards rising cam, just waiting on your results

[modest nebula]

still delivery delays 😦

[low mural]

The company i work for uses UPS and I contact them on a daily basis. Their CS is practically non existant!

Its clear atm but the radars are saying otherwise.. Supposed to be clear tomorrow too

[modest nebula]

lots of light high level cloud here, but I might go try some stuff this evening anyway

[modest nebula]

I made a power distribution box today. I can feed 12v into it, then it will split it into 3 x 12v outputs + 4 x USB power

I only need 1 12v feed now, and I can easily unplug the AC adapter feed and replace it with a battery feed for when I'm out and about

going to remove my USB hub from my mount and replace it with this. My new Risingcam has a hub built into it

[modest nebula]

🙂

[modest nebula]

a real good Siril pixelmath video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMriBh8OJJE

[rugged jackal]

Better than before but still a bit erratic.

[modest nebula]

0.82 is fantastic

it will freak out occasionally & you'll lose that sub

but hopefully not often

[rugged jackal]

OK, thanks

[modest nebula]

that's night & day difference to what you had the other day!

[low mural]

Will be having a watch of this!

[rugged jackal]

Yes it certainly is, thanks to the help in setting PHD2.

[low mural]

Thats the stuff!

[modest nebula]

There's a real cool bit where he uses some tricky math to compute a new green channel. it makes our fiddling with colour curves in gimp/photoshop look quite clumsy and amateur

[low mural]

Better have my nerd head on then 🤣

[modest nebula]

I'm playing with it right now, and when I get it working I'll add it to my Pixelmath formula on my website

grrr clouds coming over now just as triangulum galaxy is visible to me

[low mural]

Better guiding than me tonight @rugged jackal

[rugged jackal]

Though I did not fully understand the EQMOD stuff, I use GSS

[rugged jackal]

thanks but hazy conditions are messing up the imaging at the moment and moon in the east is not helping.

[modest nebula]

that will also mess up your guiding

[rugged jackal]

Yes it is messing up the guiding too. It was supposed to be a clear night.

[modest nebula]

next week will be clearer

[rugged jackal]

hopefully you will be testing your new cam soon!

[low mural]

Yeah im just shooting to get any data atm it seems a little hazy and humid out there though.

[rugged jackal]

well dew was forming as I was doing the TPPA around 9:30pm today. but conditions were clear. Frustrating. LOL.

[low mural]

Met office reckons it will gradually get clearer until midnight and then start hazing over again, but damn that moon is bright! Hopefully the L-enhance is attacking it a little bit

[modest nebula]

too cloudy for me now, so grabbing some darks & then I'll call it a night

[low mural]

Current 52 min stack

The amp glow on this cam is something else haha

[modest nebula]

are you using Astro Live Stacker?

[low mural]

Nah, i have not got round to looking into that. I just manually stacked and auto stretched 😂

[modest nebula]

as long as you get darks, looks like you have some nice data there

[low mural]

Yeah with this cam dark flats are required to elimate the amp glow. Guide cam has shifted focus a bit so will be wrapping up soon to do my calobration. Got about 2 hours now!

[low mural]

2 hours, quick process

[scarlet stump]

It is great! How long each sub?@low mural

[low mural]

Thanks! 240 seconds each

[rugged jackal]

looking good @low mural , had a poor night, lots of haze, then high clouds which cleared but haze was persistent with 80% moon also helping.

will try again tonight, hopefully it will clearer skies.

[modest nebula]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm_eMms1-co

[rugged jackal]

Quick stretch and process pf the Pleiades

[modest nebula]

nice

you're really getting the hang of this!

I'm just getting boring old M13 basically as a test of focus & guiding

I think I'm going to get an hour or so of cloud coming up, then triangulum will be visible

[rugged jackal]

Thanks. I've been following your and @low mural tutorials - very useful.

When do you get your new camera?

[modest nebula]

Arrived at Facility
Koeln, Germany

not long now

UPS site is saying Weds

[rugged jackal]

The delay is due to the ATC cock-up. Must have been a Microsoft update?

[low mural]

Met office is telling me clouds. Not sure whether to risk getting my gear out 🤔

[modest nebula]

it's cloudy here but very high level slight cloud. I'd rather cope with poor seeing than no seeing

apparently it will clear up in an hour for me

[low mural]

Yeah im just shooting anyway 😂

Even if its just for the timelapse 😂

The subs are not hurrendous tbh. Was getting 13HFD and 0.90 FWHM last night and 14HFD and 0.95FWHM tonight

[random night]

A bit hazy but nice guiding tonight, hoping it clears more and I can get enough Ha and OIII to finish my cerebral nebula project!

[low mural]

According to this, I am caked in cloud , but it seems to be clearing up

[random night]

According to that I should be too but it seems ok at the moment

[modest nebula]

I think that doesn't differentiate between thick low level cloud and high level misty cloud

[random night]

Well I shouldn't have spoken.. starting to see some more high level cloud just after the flip

[rugged jackal]

Hazy for me too at the moment, hoping it will clear up, has been sunny all day, few clouds, but seeing and guiding is poor now.

[random night]

My guiding seems ok at the moment managing 0.75 arcsec

[modest nebula]

ffs, Triangulum Galaxy comes into view almost completely behind the moon 😡

this is interesting. I'm running my cam in gain 0 for now so I can get full well depth, but it also gives me lots of read noise including hot pixels. Astro Live Stacker is happily stacking those hot pixels which lets me see dithering at work

luckily, I can easily get rid of them when I stack for real

[low mural]

Yeah that moon is really washing out the sky, can tell there is high cloud reflecting it

[low mural]

2.5 hour autostretch so far.

[modest nebula]

I'd love to try some of my new techniques on that once you're done

[low mural]

Absolutely!

[modest nebula]

do you still stack with DSS?

[low mural]

I have set my self a task of 2400 widefield dslr images to put together into a timelapse of tonight lol

[low mural]

Yeah purely for ease

[modest nebula]

cool. I've been using the Bayer Drizzle method in DSS (set in the Raw/FITS DDP Settings screen). I find it gives good results

[low mural]

Ill give it a go!

[modest nebula]

the normal debayering method tries to invent the missing pixels by averaging its neighbours, but bayer drizzle gathers the missing pixels by finding them in the dithered subs, so doesn't invent much at all. generally gives sharper results

[random night]

Assume you mean drizzling? Debayering never invents pixels rather builds the RGB image for the Bayer pattern on the ccd?

[modest nebula]

the bayer pattern will be something like:-

RG

GB

for a group of 4 pixels

[low mural]

Hehe bayer drizzle did not work well here. Lookikg deeper the target looks clearter but that pattern gradient will be impossible to remove

[modest nebula]

so if you take all the red pixels, without debayering, you'll have a load of missing pixels where the G and B pixels would be

a normal debaying process will average its neighbours to "invent" the missing colour values

[low mural]

Perhaps because it was taken over multiple nights with different sky darkness?

[modest nebula]

bayer drizzle takes advantage of the fact that all your subs have slightly moved so it can take the missing data from other subs to fill it in

you end up with a full resolution R, G and B channels witout it having to do much averaging

[random night]

I see what you mean, although it's not strictly inventing detail but rather colour gain from its neighbours

[modest nebula]

yeh, but never the less, it's data that's not there - it's just assumed

[random night]

Interesting process, I must give it a go!

[modest nebula]

it only works when you have a large number of subs and use dithering

[low mural]

Yeah that was with 44 subs but I have dithered

[random night]

So I guess this process doesn't increase resolution like normal drizzling but rather a better debayerd image at native Res?

[modest nebula]

yes

and, crucially, when you're shooting narrowband, you don't get any colour bleed as a result of debayering, so pixelmath will work better

at least that's the theory 😄

[low mural]

Certainly makes sense on paper! Will have to give it another go when seeing is better and its new moon

is anyone else still imaging btw?

[random night]

I like a standard drizzle then do deconvolution before resampling back to native Res. I find that really boosts sharpness. Especially if using blur x

[low mural]

Yeah this is what I am doing at the moment. But I am using Sirils decon and no blur x

I just cant justify 50 quid aha

[random night]

I guess both these rely on a good dither implemented at acquisition time?

[low mural]

plus 250 quid pix

[random night]

Clouds have hit here now 😞

I'll leave it running as it's due to clear later

[low mural]

just over 3 hours autostretch. Starting to see the noise dropping off a bit which is good!

reckon I will get another 30 mins to an hour on it tonight

[modest nebula]

just tried triangulum again. I can barely see it with the light pollution from the moon

back to boring m13

[random night]

What's your skies again?

[low mural]

B6 here but my road has no street lights. (As long as I am not pointing south to the main road!)

[low mural]

How about some nebula @modest nebula ?

[random night]

That's nice I'm b7 and have lights of docks permanently on nearby. But 8 generally shoot in the opposite direction

[modest nebula]

nah, I can't be bothered to put my nebula filter in. I planned on galaxy tonight. Anyway, there's plenty of sky later this week

[random night]

You gotta pick your target carefully when the moon is out? Unless you're just practicing with your rig?

[modest nebula]

I wanted to get something I could compare with my new cam. I thought triangulum would be ideal

I'll pick more carefully tomorrow 🙂

btw, this home made focuser is still working brilliantly. You guys should make one. I still have some boards

[random night]

Nice! Do you have instructions somewhere?

[modest nebula]

https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuserpro2diy/

[low mural]

Or I just send my scope to you 😉 haha i do not trust myself, im clumsy when it comes to DIY!

[low mural]

That my phone camera pointing to the north east.

My garden is open plan and backs straight onto the road

Hence why I cant leave my rig out unattended

[random night]

Ahhh that's a pain. I always leave mine going when I go t bed. I'll shoot until dawn twighlight

[low mural]

Yeah I may speak with the landlord and get a back fence put in 😂

[modest nebula]

hmmm Pleiades is just visible. I might slew to that just before I pack in because it'll be the first time I've seen it this year

also, something called Embryo Nebula which looks pretty cool (but I know nothing about)

[low mural]

I have come across that in stellarium haha

playing around cos I am bored haha

Getting a bit foggy, time to wrap up. Just debating whether to take more darks temp is abkut the same as yesterday

[modest nebula]

yeh I'm packing up now too

[low mural]

Its nice to have like 2 hours worth of data in 1 night and pack up before 1am 😂 just a shame the cloid cover increases

Maybe because we had such a cloudy summer, we will have a clear winter.. 🤔
If only it worked like that.

Ok... i think i drunk too much tea

[modest nebula]

still real clear here, but I've had enough

[low mural]

I bet you are just eager to get your new cam now!

[random night]

Really? Already? Nice. Must be low in the sky though and probably the Wong place in the sky for me (behind the house)

[modest nebula]

Yeh low in North East

[rugged jackal]

Forgot to turn on the dew heaters last night. 🫢 🧐

[modest nebula]

don't worry you won't do that too many times

here's my boring m13 from last night. Focus is good, as expected. I was experimenting with gain 0, trading noise for FWC. Don't think I'll do that again 😄

[rugged jackal]

and still looks good, really nice day, pity I won't be out tonight as work tomorrow.

[modest nebula]

I always have work tomorrow but luckily I wfh so my commute takes ~30secs

means I can stay in bed until the last min 🙂

[low mural]

Really struggling to get the noise out of my bubble nebula.. The result looks better in autostretch than manual processing. Tempted yo just do that 😂

Can send the data over later if anyone wantsba go?

[rugged jackal]

My attempt at the Crescent Nebula:

[modest nebula]

nice, that's not an easy target

[rugged jackal]

Might have been better if I had the dew heaters on

[modest nebula]

well, yeh 😄

[rugged jackal]

72 subs, 180 seconds.

[low mural]

Well you are getting 180 seconds, thays great!

[azure solar]

nice, finally getting the hang of it

[rugged jackal]

Thanks, not an easy hobby to understand and do well esp with limited windows to capture the data.

[low mural]

So i chose not to do starnet and actually prefer it with this image. Stars are a bit clipped but there is much less noise than my previous attempt. I think ill keave it now!

Right north america neb or crescent tonight?

[modest nebula]

I'm trying elephants trunk

[low mural]

Where you getting horsehead?!

[modest nebula]

lol, I just make it up sometimes

[low mural]

Tbf i am looking forward to getting some decent intergration on orion. Considering last time i spent a decent amount of time on it, i was shooting with a 224mc camera 😂

[low mural]

Now that makes sense 😂

[modest nebula]

just checked FOV on my new camera, and it fits!

even pleiades will fit

[modest nebula]

this is 37mins 😮

gonna need some more time on that I think 😄

[low mural]

Yeah my elephant trunk fit. Just 😂

[modest nebula]

how long did that one take?

heat related focus creep

will do an autofocus in a moment

that's better 🙂

[random night]

Guiding is poor for me this evening. Very odd.. same mount and no wind but I was doing 0.75 arcsecs yesterday 🤔

[modest nebula]

mines worse than last night too

mind you, I'm imaging almost at apex which is never good for any mount

[random night]

I'm less so than yesterday so that's odd. Maybe the heat makes a difference to the grease etc?

My sensor is cooking too. At 26 c tonight

Finally moving on from my Cresent nebula project. Hopefully I'll have processed it soon and can post results hee

[modest nebula]

what's next for you?

[random night]

I'm on the wizard nebula now. Was tempted by the bubble but as @low mural is doing such a good job I thought I'd try something different

Oddly after taking some flats and wiggling the mount slightly I'm now guiding at 0.65 arcsecs fairly solidly 🤷‍♂️

I also picked a different guide star come to think of it. I wonder if that's the reason

[modest nebula]

I'm also guiding well now. I turned off "predictive pec" and went back to "hystereris"

[random night]

Interesting. Tbh my guiding wasn't that bad before, my stars seemed nice and round but ideally I want to be under 2 arcsecs with my scope

Nicer seeing tonight compared with yesterday? I should hopefully get a good 5 hrs of data tonight at least

Assuming the flip doesn't go badly...

[low mural]

Ive only just got out

Going for crescent

My guiding is all over the place. But then again I have not calibrated in a while. Im at 1.10

Probs rushed PA too tbf because i only set up 10 mins ago

[low mural]

Well if that is 8 mins of data. Then I am really looking forward to the final result haha

[low mural]

I am pretty happy with 1.5 hours! but now I must go to bed haha

[modest nebula]

this is the worst satellite spoiled sub I've seen yet 😮

[azure solar]

pretty sure that's an aircraft

the light on the left is the beacon reflecting off the engines

[scarlet stump]

What's your website again? @low mural

[modest nebula]

here's last night's data - stacked, autostretched with no other processing. Lots more data needed

at least I have something. Each sub looks completely devoid of anything!

[random night]

Quick process of last nights from me... Guiding seemed to have gone a bit off towards the end of the night. I will collect some rgb data tonight hopefully for the stars

[modest nebula]

I think you might be right

[low mural]

www.astrobenn.com

[rugged jackal]

https://www.astrobenn.com/

also try this website by @modest nebula https://astro.wheep.co.uk/

Both are really useful esp for processing...

[scarlet stump]

Ok, i ll check them

[scarlet stump]

Which is the equivalent cam for the GPCAM3 178c from zwo?
@low mural

[azure solar]

asi 178mc

[low mural]

I managed to get mine second hand for £150

[scarlet stump]

https://www.bresser.de/en/Astronomy/BRESSER-HD-Moon-Planetary-Camera-Guider-1-25.html

Is this comparable?
I bought it for guide cam at the beginning

[low mural]

The asi178mc is 6mp with 2.4 pixel size
The bresser is 1.2mp with 3.75 pixel size. (similar to the asi224mc which i first used for astro (after dslr)

This was taken with a 1.2mp asi224mc. Similar to the bresser

[scarlet stump]

Should i use it for imaging?

Will i have good results if combined with the 50 ed?

[low mural]

What the 178?

[scarlet stump]

With my bresser

[low mural]

I woupd say you will get similar results to the above. Some more of my imx224 images are on my instagram. But don't expect great resolution. 1.2mp and 3.75 pixel size whilat shootinf widefield is nit usually recommended

[scarlet stump]

Is it considered wide field?
In stellarium it seems pretty zoomed in@low mural

[low mural]

Yeah field of view is narrow, but the 50ed being a small focal length of 242mm means it is still widefield and therefore 1.2mp and 3.75 pixel size woukd be low res and under sampled

[scarlet stump]

Ooo i see..

[modest nebula]

horrible guiding again tonight, but HFR's look good and everything in focus

[low mural]

Yeah seeing does not look perfect. I thibk they said something about saharan sand being pushed up northwards. Could be that?

On the plus side my PA was kn point today. 0:00:00 on 3 rounds of PA!

Guiding at 0.7!

[random night]

It's odd, I can get amazing guiding then for 20 mins or so it will be terrible.

[low mural]

Are you sholting close to zenith?

[random night]

Ish but that's not been an issue historically

Seeing is bad tonight isn't It despite it being clear?

[scarlet stump]

https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/tecnosky-apochromatic-refractor-ap-lux-60-360-ed-ota/p,76426

What about this scope with the bresser @low mural

[modest nebula]

OK I give up for tonight. My new camera arrives tomorrow so I'll get some sleep tonight and try again tomorrow

[azure solar]

looks like a glorified guide scope

[low mural]

Yeah, warmer tonight too which is not helping my toasty 178c

Sensor is almost at 27 degrees

[azure solar]

I mean the base structure is identical to many guide scopes. it even has a helical focuser

[low mural]

Yeah I have no experience with that brand haha. But I will always big up the 50ed!!

[scarlet stump]

I will search it a bit more and if not i am probably going for a reflector with a dslr

[low mural]

Wow im flaggingg... 😴Third night staying up late

[modest nebula]

lightweight!

[random night]

You guys need to leave your rigs out, thats whty we use NINA so its automated! But apprciate its tricky if your garden is a public field 😦

[modest nebula]

I'd be afraid of it getting wet if it rained unexpectedly. Not unheard of in this country

[random night]

I check the forecast and if there is more than 10% chance of rain I don't bother but otherwise I'm happy to leave it. They can take a bit of rain anyway.. Just Don't leave it out in a storm like Rory 😉

[low mural]

That is the dream one day! I mean i would love an observatory but i think that requires retirement and a shed load of cash 😂

I have got 3 hours on the crescent. Skies looking u predictable tonight but if I can get 5 hours on it, ill be pleased

[random night]

You don't need a observatory.. probably just a fence 😂 I leave mine on the decking

[random night]

I got another 6 hrs of dual narrowband data for my wizard nebula project last night to complete the narrowband part of my project to an end.. hopefully get a couple of hrs RGB tonight for the stars.
To be honest the extra 6hrs of data has made little discernible difference, which is surprising but the seeing was very poor last night>
Do you reckon standard dualNB or HOO palate?

[modest nebula]

HOO more interesting tbh

[azure solar]

Hoo is nice

Man I envy you all right now, I bought a 533c that turned out to be defective so I've sent it back. I haven't shot anything in a month and I refuse to go back to a dslr lol

[random night]

Take the opportunity to ditch the idea of a 533 and go for an IMX585 camera 😉

[azure solar]

I did think of getting one but with my larger scope the pixel scale would be too fine

and the fov is just too small

way too tight and I don't trust my mount to track well enough without an oag

[low mural]

HOO is nice i think !

[rugged jackal]

Any news on the new camera?

[rugged jackal]

I like both but the HOO is more interesting.

[random night]

That seems to be the consensus, Might also be that I saturated my HOO more and should have done the same wityh the other

I really need to get a better NB filter, those halos drive me mad

[random night]

Well I use the IMX585 with an AZ GTI but I do get told my mount is better than most 🤷‍♂️ Allthough tbh my guiding seems to compare to others on this thread (basically grat for some time and terrible other times)

[modest nebula]

I plugged it in, seems to work

I used the 37.5mm spacers that came with it to get my 55mm backspacing, but I want to work out what I need to run with the 1.25" nose so I can rotate it easier

[rugged jackal]

Looks good, clear skies buddy.

[modest nebula]

this thing is huge btw. With the adapters, it's almost as long as the 50ED 😮

I'll need to rebalance this which is going to be a bit of a challenge thx to my DIY focuser

[azure solar]

I would need to guide below .5", that's a little too tight for me

[random night]

Yeah fair enough... Although I should guide at 1.6 and only do for about half my subs (other half its closer to 2)

My az gti is odd it will guid at 0.6-0.75 for a while then it will start guiding around 1.7-2 after a while. Not found out why yet

[azure solar]

average azgti guiding, mine would also track good for a while and then go mad

[low mural]

Wow! Looks well built too! Very much looking forward to seeing your result!

[modest nebula]

I also confirmed that latest nightly NINA shows HDR mode selectable

[rugged jackal]

Mine does the same, good to know I am not alone, I could not understand why either, Could it be due to temperature changes ?

[random night]

I dont think so because I will restart gaiding and it will go back to doing 0.6-0.7 again for half an hour or so

Probably needs taking apart and a service / regreese

[modest nebula]

perhaps the rain got in it after leaving it out all night? 😛

[modest nebula]

@rugged jackal I just had to update the SVBony SDK drivers in PHD2 to use my sv505c. I don't know if you had to do that for your sv305? If not, perhaps it might bring some improvements or break everything. Download SDK from https://www.svbony.com/Support/SoftWare-Driver/ , rename SVBCameraSDK.dll in the PHD2 directory and copy the 32bit one from the zip file in its place

[random night]

I finally processed my Cerebral (Cresent) nebula project from the other day.. Think i took it too far 🤔

It didnt help my rgb exposures were probably too long for the stars so theyre a lottle blown

[low mural]

Have you ran sensor analyisis in sharpcap?

[low mural]

I like it. Whats the total intergration? Im trying to pull the Oiii from mine but having problems.

[random night]

15hrs of Narrowband then 2hrs of rgb for the stars, I used some pixel math I got from this channel to help bring out the oiii

https://youtu.be/19nKeFPu38s?si=uOVECz2quLyhY7Vx

[low mural]

Your stars a bit annoyinf though. You reckon thats your filter or the scope itself?

[random night]

I dunno, its a svbony uv/ir filter but I think my exposures of 90s were too long so they got blown

probably should have done more like 60s

im gonna get rgb data tonight for my wizard nebula so ill try 60s for that and see if it =makes any differernce

[modest nebula]

No, but Cuiv did on his video

[modest nebula]

https://astro.wheep.co.uk/tutorials/image-processing/pixelmath/

[random night]

Cool thats the written down version!

[modest nebula]

and it will create custom version for your sensor

I dunno if it's any better though 😄

[modest nebula]

Run though Gimp g'mic unpurple filter

[low mural]

Ill give pixel math another go tonight

[modest nebula]

ping me if you spot any mistakes on my page or if there's something that could be explained better

[random night]

Where did you get that filter from? Looks useful

Although it's killed the OIII a bit too much

[modest nebula]

https://gmic.eu/download.html

[modest nebula]

there's settings you can tweak

[scarlet stump]

Will the zwo asi 178mc paired with the evoguide 50 be a good setup?

[modest nebula]

I'm all prepared 🙂

[random night]

looks great, that guide scope is somewhat oversized!

[modest nebula]

yes it is

[random night]

It's all clouded over here after being clear all day. The evidence suggests this is all your fault!

[modest nebula]

it's fine for me

gosh I spent ages trying to get that svbony in focus on the guider. i had to remove all those extensions & just screw it in direct

[random night]

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with that camera

[modest nebula]

seems HDR mode in NINA needs work. I can select it, and I can get an image, but the "offset" param doesn't work so it's clipping

now to find the ASCOM drivers. They sent them on a USB stick but I'm not plugging that in!!

[low mural]

Christ that camera is huge 😂

[modest nebula]

yes, heavy too. I still need to rebalance

[low mural]

Have you managed to get any subs to compare side by side with your previous cam?

[modest nebula]

running in HCG mode now instead of HDR. 100 gain, 30 sec subs because my guiding is not great

each sub looks like this

[low mural]

Can you kick in HCG mode at any gain on that cam then? I think with the player one, HCG was at 185 gain?

[modest nebula]

yes

you get to pick LCG, HCG, or HDR

[low mural]

Nice. That is decent data for 30 seconds! What is the camera temps set to?

I am going to go through your Pixel math steps now @modest nebula . Will show you my result afterwards 🙂

[modest nebula]

-10

[low mural]

I only ask because I read in a forum that people come into issues with over cooling when set to -10 in the summer months and people suggested not to go lower than 0 in the summer months. Not sure how accurate that is though. May be because people are colling it to quickly?

[modest nebula]

dunno, but the temperture graph seems to be flat

[low mural]

Just completed your Pixel maths steps. Did not go ahead with the "Further processing" part as it just stretched the image to the point that if I tried to tweak it anymore, it would clip.

The steps were good. The Pixel Math Prepatory Steps could be explained a bit better as I had to resort to the discord channel to remember it again. But other than that, the non processed result is looking promising. Will Send the processed result shortly!

[modest nebula]

I'm happy to update the text. can you propose something?

[low mural]

Yeah I am trying to think of a way to word it lol. My autism is telling me to suggest screenshots, add bullet pointed steps and fill it with 1000s' more words. But I am sure there is a simpler way of putting it than that haha

[modest nebula]

but if you're familiar with pixelmath, would it make sense?

I can always link to a pixelmath tutorial?

[low mural]

Yeah I guess if the steps are generic then it would just require a link to a PM tutorial!

Then it would all make sense!

[modest nebula]

going to pack in now. seeing has got real bad

I don't see any clouds, but no stars either 😮

[low mural]

Yeah thats what it is like here haha. Its going to be Hazy for the next fews days I think

[low mural]

So left is normal and right is pixel math. What do you guys think?

Bayer drizzle (Pixel math one) is defo sharper, but was getting some weird gradients.

[modest nebula]

I prefer normal

perhaps try the normal drizzle with pixel math?

[low mural]

Yeah i might try that tomorrow

Tweaked some green out. Im fairly happy with it.

[modest nebula]

here's a quick stack of this evenings subs. Bear in mind, it was actually quite foggy tonight, guiding was 2-3", I wasn't using HDR mode and this was the first time I'd ever used this. I'm not too unhappy with the results. This is a stack + background extraction + autostretch + green noise removal

total was 1hr of 30 sec subs near as damn it

I'm pretty sure I can do better next time 🙂

[low mural]

Id say thats pretty good! The noise floor looks cleaner than your old cam and my current one 😂

I like the FOV too!

[modest nebula]

I reckon when I get HDR working, and decent guiding, I'll do 2-3min subs and still get sharp stars

[modest nebula]

It's now so foggy I can't even see across the road

[random night]

That snr is great for only 1.5hrs especially with bad seeing (assuming you haven't done a load of noiseX or something)?

[modest nebula]

just 1hr, and the last 15mins or so were terrible seeing. No noise reduction at all

[random night]

Looks like we have terrible seeing in the uk for the next few days despite it being hot and clear 😦

[modest nebula]

just checked, only last 5 mins of subs were junk, so I got ~55mins on that

tonight is cloud for me, but tomorrow is clear

so, beer tonight \o/

btw, talking to the NINA fellows about built-in Risingcam HDR support. It's there but not really usable at the moment because you can't set the offset & the default offset clips blacks even at lowest gain. I'll try the ASCOM driver next time

[random night]

Does ascom have HDR support?

[modest nebula]

I've not tried myself, but Cuiv said it did

[modest nebula]

yes you can set HDR support in ASCOM but it's exactly the same as NINA native - can't set the offset. Hardly surprising because they'll both use the Toupcam SDK in the back end

[random night]

I've just read there is Saharan dust over the UK for the pas night and tonight which explains the state of my car this morning and the terrible seeing we've been experiencing

[low mural]

Yeah I read this the over night. Explains the stuffy heat too 😂

[modest nebula]

the sky looks bluer tonight than it was last night

but, I'm having a beer tonight, not playing dodge the cloud

tomorrow looks clear

[low mural]

Yeah Im gnna play starfield tonight!

[modest nebula]

how topical

[low mural]

Then back for another 2 hours on the crescent tomorrow all being well

[low mural]

If im not doing astro, im playing astro. If im not playong astro, im reading astro 😂
My partner has gotten used to it now

[modest nebula]

one disadvantage of this new camera is that I had to buy a new vixen rail just so i can balance the damn thing 😮

[random night]

I would blame that guidescope for your balance rather than the camera 🏋️‍♂️

[modest nebula]

so this new camera has an issue with HDR mode. I sent an email to Eddie at Risingcam describing the issue. He answered less than an hour later "The imx585 Cooling camera is our new products. Engineer notice the HDR issue too, we are working for it, the new SDK can fix out this issue, engineer say that we will release new SDK after 10-15 days. I will give you new SDK download link and let you know how to replace the new SDK in NINA."

[random night]

That's a good response, Kudos to them... assuming they follow through

[modest nebula]

Risingcam are a customer of Touptec along with some other well known brands. I trust Touptec to fix it

[low mural]

The skies are clear but looking rather grey/orange 😂

[modest nebula]

cloud here but clear tomorrow

[random night]

https://tenor.com/view/desert-primal-survivor5-survival-skills-crossing-the-desert-camel-gif-19052021

That will be the Sahara desert

[rugged jackal]

must be Friday because clear all day and cloudy all night.

[random night]

Seems to be the way at the moment, Its either good weather but poor seeing or just bad weather and cloud

I've done a much improved processing of my celebral nebula project to tame the stars following Nicos new video!

[modest nebula]

that one on the right looks real good

[low mural]

I agree, i like them both. Good work!

[random night]

Thanks, I look forward to seeing your version of this. Hopefully you will get some clear skies to get the data you need soon.

If you haven't seen Nico Carvers new video I recommend it. His method of adding stars back it way simpler than other methods I've seen and much less prone to issues

[modest nebula]

just watching it now

I must invest in one of these. my duo band filter is way too wide

wow I like his method of recombining Ha and OIII. I must try that alongside my method of extracting Ha and OIII

[random night]

I have the l-extreme which is good but a terrible copy when it comes to halos. I have to remove the stars then clonestamp out all the halos. It's workable but a pain. I'll upgrade to something else sooner or later

[modest nebula]

I balanced the cam with a longer vixen mount

[azure solar]

Good choice, for some reason a lot of scopes are sold with very short dovetails which make it very hard to balance

The evostar 72 is sold with a 10cm dovetail, I replaced it with a 30cm one

[modest nebula]

I improved my live stacker page. It now shows total frames & integration time https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

I might have a go at Triangulum Galaxy later if I can be bothered to go remove the UHC filter

[modest nebula]

You should try to move the filter elsewhere in your imaging train. If you put it in the right spot, that will reduce or remove the halos

[random night]

Interesting. I normally have it close to the camera. You reckon closer to the scope may help? It's tricky to move as I have a filter drawer so need to fiddle with adaptors

[modest nebula]

apparently the halos are because light reflects off the l-extreme back up the scope, then hits a flattener or reducer and comes back in

so, move the filter further outwards and you'll put the halos out of focus

preferably in front of your flattener/reducer

my flattener has a screw thread for filters. I guess that's why its there

https://youtu.be/wUVzFfrEwo8?t=273

[modest nebula]

impressed with this camera. Here's the current live stack. This is 1hr45mins. There's a distinct lack of noise 🙂

[random night]

Wow that's great. And that's not using HDR mode I assume?

[modest nebula]

No, not yet

[rugged jackal]

This looks good, does this mean we can cut out dithering?

[modest nebula]

I was still dithering

[modest nebula]

http://karmalimbo.com/aro/reports/Test Report - Understanding Filter Induced Star Halos_Nov2022b.pdf

[rugged jackal]

I am looking forward to the final result. The live stacked image looks great. So what are your thoughts about the camera?

[modest nebula]

Much better FOV. Much lower noise. Seems to be more sensitive too. I got some subs on Triangulum Galaxy. My old camera never even got a sniff of that. I'm looking forward to HDR mode actually working

However, at 2.9um, it's still undersampling on my scope. It would be ideal for a 72ED 😛

just reading this report on filters. It's quite interesting read http://karmalimbo.com/aro/reports/Test Report - Optolong L-eXtreme Filter_Aug2020.pdf

[rugged jackal]

I am saving up to get it, perhaps dec/jan, in the mean time I am enjoying the camera vicariously

[modest nebula]

Yeh, it's not cheap and I probably wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't for an unexpected inheritance. Still, glad I have it. Now I've got to bite the bullet and buy a better narrowband filter

[rugged jackal]

Filters are not cheap either. I am sure a filter does not cost £200-600 to make. We are a captive market hence can charge what they like!

[modest nebula]

well, it's a case of charging for the benefit it gives rather than for the cost to make. It's not unusual thing to do

I mean, if you invented a doobry that made results 100x better that cost you £1 to make, you'd charge a fortune for it too 🙂

[modest nebula]

ok reasonably happy with this. I think it's probably my cleanest yet

no noise reduction on that except green noise

[low mural]

Yeah im pretty sold tbh. May be worth trying to drizzle so you are not too undersampled?

[modest nebula]

it is drizzled

[modest nebula]

Now I just need to get a better narrowband filter

[rugged jackal]

Wow that is great! just under 2 hours of data - clean image.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ib41V1GEBh-9H9LI7AiAy6NxOTm62KJl/view?usp=drive_link

stacked data - I am processing un Siril but cannot get rid of the ring in the frame.

[low mural]

Far too tired to go out tonight, and missed last night because I was at a party in suffolk. Was bortle 3/4 though, so nice seeing the night sky!

Seen someone is selling a 2 inch l emhance for 80 which seems a pretty good deal. Might be able to knock them down and post?

[azure solar]

even lower than 80? it's a great price already so even if he doesn't go any lower you still get a deal

[modest nebula]

I'd have to consider how I could use a 2 inch

[scarlet stump]

Would this set up be any good?
Evoguide 50ed with asi 178mc on a star adventurer gti with the 30mm guide scope

[modest nebula]

• starizona flattener

[scarlet stump]

Yeah I forgot that

So, is it a good setup?@modest nebula

[azure solar]

Is the 178 cam the same used by either beezer or ben?

[modest nebula]

I can't comment on the star adventurer or the asi178mc however https://astronomy.tools/calculators/ccd_suitability says the sensor is suited for the scope

[scarlet stump]

It is pretty much the same as Ben's @azure solar

[modest nebula]

you should also check your FOV is what you expect https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=2676||5304||1|1|0&messier=31

[scarlet stump]

I ve done that and it seems good to me
The only thing that i am not sure of is the mount

[modest nebula]

I've no idea about the SA-GTI, but it looks good though

it looks like the equivalent of my az-gti except it's got built polar wedge and eqmod interface and balance weights

btw guys, some guy called Karas on the NINA Discord channel has messaged me saying he's fixing the Touptek SDK for HDR mode. I assume he works for Touptek

[rugged jackal]

Any news from Player one regarding their camera and HDR support?

[low mural]

Yeah the ASI178 is an IMX178 like mine. Good cam but be prepared for amp glowlore

[low mural]

Nothing back. I am interested to see the results oj the HDR. The HCG looked good enough 😂

[scarlet stump]

Why does it happen?@low mural

How do i correct it?

[low mural]

Its corrected with dark flats for this particular sensor

[low mural]

Its common on older sensors

[modest nebula]

And PlayerOne supports HCG too

[scarlet stump]

Other similar cameras without amp glow lore?@low mural

[rugged jackal]

HCG?#

[low mural]

Well yeah thats what im thinking. Do i just stick with ghe player with hcg. I prefer the look of the cam too lol

[low mural]

Means high conversion gain. Its the sweetspot which greatly reduces redout noise whilst keeping decent amounts of dynamic range.

[low mural]

Honestly, most at this price point will have amp glow. IMX585 is probs goinf to be the next in the price point for no amp glow. You can get the Uncooled 585 for about £300-400

[rugged jackal]

Yeah same here and cheaper too but HDR looks interesting too, but either way we know from @modest nebula that the camera is sweet.

[scarlet stump]

Is it a problem though?
Do you lose data?@low mural

[low mural]

Its not noticeable as you can see on my images

[modest nebula]

@rugged jackal low conversion gain (LCG) gets you big fullwell so you can take long exposures on bright targets, but the read noise is relatively high. High conversion gain (HCG) sacrifices full well for lower read noise. This fancy HDR mode is supposed to give best of both worlds, if it ever works 🙂

[scarlet stump]

Do you capture information in places where there is amp glow?@low mural

[modest nebula]

It's only ever minor on each frame, but it stacks up to something big if it's not removed. For example here's amp glow on my old cam on one dark frame

[scarlet stump]

So i can remove it using calibration frames?@modest nebula

[modest nebula]

that dark frame will remove it from each light

[scarlet stump]

Ok, that s good @modest nebula

[low mural]

Need some clear skiea!

Ita possible tonight. Hopefully I can get a couple of hours more on the crescent

[scarlet stump]

Is this field of view going to work?
The yellow is the guide scope and the red the ota

[modest nebula]

yeh looks clear tonight for me too

I'm going to try for another frame on veil

[random night]

I might try and get more wizard nebula data although the last 8 hrs of extra data I gathered seemed to make no difference at all to the 5hr data set? Probably down to the terrible seeing

[azure solar]

not sure what you mean by "going to work"

[scarlet stump]

I mean, should i find a guide scope that will provide wider field of view than that?@azure solar

[azure solar]

for guide scopes a 30mm will be good enough to almost 1000mm of fl, they don't have to match fovs

[scarlet stump]

If i turn the skywatcher 6x30 finderscope into a guide scope will it be good?

[azure solar]

only requisite I'm aware of is the ratio of the imaging cam to the guide cam which has to be ideally between 1:1 to 1:3

which can be found here
http://astronomy.tools/calculators/guidescope_suitability

[azure solar]

yeah probably, should be like any other 30mm

[scarlet stump]

The imaging / guiding ratio is 1:4.65.
This is what I get

[azure solar]

you were going for the evoguide and 178 right?

or was it 6" newt?

[scarlet stump]

It was about the skywatcher 130pds

[azure solar]

you can still guide with the included finder, assuming it can be used with a camera, but a 50 or 60mm guide scope should help getting better guiding numbers out of the mount

[scarlet stump]

In order to get a guide scope
Should its field of view be wider than that of the ota?
Can you explain it a bit @azure solar

[azure solar]

fov doesn't really matter, it's mostly that pixel scale ratio that you have to pay attention to

if the guide cam is too "zoomed out" it might not catch movements large enough to screw with the main camera

[scarlet stump]

The gear that i will probably be using is the 130pds with a canon eos 2000d
And a ToupTek - GCMOS01200KPA Colour Imager/Guider camera
Which guide scope should i get

[azure solar]

that's a really long name for a camera

as I said any 50/60mm gs will work just fine, brand doesn't really matter

any idea which sensor that guide cam uses?

[scarlet stump]

SONY IMX225 CMOS colour sensor

[azure solar]

yeah that's more than enough

[scarlet stump]

So i should try to find a 50/60mm guide scope

[azure solar]

yep

[scarlet stump]

Ok, thanks a lot

[azure solar]

if you need a price reference, I got my 60mm for 90€ used

[modest nebula]

I paid a similar price for 60mm guide scope including cam

[modest nebula]

8:10pm and already polar aligned and ready to go \o/

[modest nebula]

btw I improved my live stack page so you can actually see the live stack now https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

this one will be quite boring actually - it's 2nd frame of a veil mosaic

[low mural]

I got polar aligned at 9:30 to realise my target was not even in view yet 😂 just started shooting. Hoping to get 3 hours in

[low mural]

This is looking great, I am expectong great things!

[low mural]

My 30mm secondhand guidescope for £25 works absolutely fine!

[random night]

It's awesome to be able to start shooting so early is t it? I'm guiding good and the seeing is sooo much better tonight

[low mural]

My guiding could be better but I am at about 76 degrees so its probay working a bit harder than usual lol. Plus its adjusting to the meridian flip I just did 😂

[random night]

That guiding looks fine to me. Anything under 1 arcsec is amazing for this mount

[modest nebula]

hmm it's a boring target because it's right on the edge of the nebula, but I need it to complete the mosaic

[modest nebula]

My guiding was not great at about 1.5" but now I've done a meridian flip, it's 0.6"-ish 😮

so, moral of the story, if you're getting bad guiding close to zenith, do a meridian flip 🙂

[random night]

That's another reason to shoot all the frames of the mosaic in one night and rotate so you don't have to spend a whole night shooting the boring bits!

[modest nebula]

yeh, perhaps I should do that

I'll do another 30mins on this frame and then move on

[random night]

It also means you don't have issues with different sky and seeing conditions making stitching really tricky

I'm not sure how to set NINA up to do different frames then start the sequence again

[modest nebula]

just use the framing wizard to set your mosaic, then send to sequencer

it saves each frame in the sequencer as a different job

save your sequencer & come back to it another night just like you would for a normal image

[random night]

Yeah but it will only do each frame sequentially. I'd like to do frame 1 for 30 mins then the next lot for 30 mins etc and go back to 1 again

[modest nebula]

perhaps the advanced sequencer can do that

I just use the simple one

[random night]

Yeah I'm sure there's a way

[low mural]

Best of both worlds 😂

[random night]

Nice!

[modest nebula]

gave up on veil mosaic for this evening. Now onto elephants trunk. My old cam barely got a sniff at that. Let's see what the new one does

[low mural]

A quick autostretch of 4.5 hours of data. Just need to work out on pulling the Oiii out. Maybe fetch more data. What do you guys think?

[modest nebula]

looking good

I'm just finishing the evening with some long exposure sub experiments

[modest nebula]

lol just got a 10min exposure 😄

[low mural]

Nice! What gain was that with?

[modest nebula]

Here's 5min exposures in HCG and LCG, and 10min in HCG

these are single frames stacked in DSS with dark frames & then autostretched in Siril. No other processing

[low mural]

I am going to say the second one is the best one, whats that?

[modest nebula]

they have a 2000 offset which is why they look bright

if you hover your mouse and look at the url, the clue is in the name

[low mural]

Im using my phone

9h wait i can open on browser

Yeah middle one 10 min LCG

[modest nebula]

I'm surprised how I can take a 10min exposure and not have it overexpose 😮

I'm also surprised that the stars don't bloat with longer exposures. I used to keep exposures short on my old cam for sharper stars, but seems it doesn't matter here

[random night]

So clean! nice data

Last night was way better seeing than recently.. Made so much difference to what I got...

[modest nebula]

nice

[rugged jackal]

Really good

[low mural]

This looks nice!

[azure solar]

man I'm so envious, that's exactly the target I wanted to shoot, if only I had the damn camera

[low mural]

Im still working on the crescent. Glad I am able to pull the Oiii but not 100% happy yet lol

[random night]

Yeah thats great... How come you didnt get more?

[random night]

Good work bringing out the OIII there. Could do with running thriugh BlurX looks like there is lots of hiddden detail?

[low mural]

Yeah i didnt drizzle this one as I just wanted to test process. Drizzing may pull some more detail and decon in Siril.

BlurX.. If only 😂

[random night]

What Camera are you using atm?

[random night]

Happy to run through blurx for ya if you can share the stacked data?

[azure solar]

I was using a canon, bought a 533 which turned out to be defective and sent it back so I'm just sitting while I found another 533

[random night]

Oh balls, the 533 should be good when you get it though? not tempted by the 585 HDR or out of your budget?

[azure solar]

Too small fov and pixel scale when on the newt

But it was tempting yeah

[random night]

Fair enough.. You know player one and Toubtek both do a 533 thats better value than ZWO unless youre tied to ZWO?

[modest nebula]

It was just done as an experiment. 10min exposures are all well and good, but if the guiding fks up, then that's 10mins wasted

[random night]

Well it looked successful, I would have kept it running.. I managed to get 6hr of data last night.. I didn't expect it to be so clear

[rugged jackal]

Wow everyone are getting some great results.

[modest nebula]

10min vs 10x1min

thoughts?

[random night]

Hmmm, very interesting.. I think your camera has such low read noise that the lower exposures are as good?

That was a really good experiment!

[modest nebula]

This is Siril noise esimation for 10x60sec...

12:56:04: Background noise value (channel: #0): 14.045 (2.143e-04)
12:56:04: Background noise value (channel: #1): 11.079 (1.691e-04)
12:56:04: Background noise value (channel: #2): 13.848 (2.113e-04)

and 1 x 600sec...

12:55:56: Background noise value (channel: #0): 24.423 (3.727e-04)
12:55:56: Background noise value (channel: #1): 18.063 (2.756e-04)
12:55:56: Background noise value (channel: #2): 28.987 (4.423e-04)

now I really want to try HDR mode once they fix it 😄

then I can get the low read noise of HCG with the full well of LCG

[azure solar]

The 533 I bought was from omegon and used for 600€ which would have been an amazing price if it worked

I'm prob buying the touptek 533 from the guys I got my mount from

[random night]

Thats pretty much the same price as the player one offering?

[azure solar]

533 not 585

[modest nebula]

so did you get your money back on the faulty camera?

[azure solar]

yep

[random night]

they do a 533 too

https://player-one-astronomy.com/product/ares-c-pro-usb3-0-color-camera-imx533/ $799

[azure solar]

it's 1k if I buy it in euros

[modest nebula]

what's Risingcam prices like?

[random night]

Oh yeah bad exchange rate Risingcam will be cheaper

711 euro for risingcam new

[azure solar]

I'll be gettingthe touptek version, I heard that risingcam had a bunch of driver issues

will end up costing around 800

[modest nebula]

Risingcam is Touptek

[azure solar]

yeah I know, but touptke is the maker and risingcam is one of the many rebranding it

[modest nebula]

yeh

they don't write their own drivers though

[modest nebula]

is this too much?

might get some more data on that tonight. I think I introduced too much noise when processing

[random night]

Amazing considering how little data you got!

Was that using a dual narrowband filter?

[low mural]

I like it!

Well here another 3 hours of processing and Im still not happy lol. 4.5 hours of data. Do you reckon I go for more tonight?

[random night]

I would if the skies are good. Some nice details there

[low mural]

Tweaked again 😂 it is clear tonight so i may just get a couple of hours more.

[low mural]

I feel like I over pocessed tbh. If I can get more data, perhaps I shouldnt need to stretch too much 😅

I may take you up on the blur x on my next stack though @random night

I should invest in noisex at least

[modest nebula]

I've been using a slightly different technique recently which seems to work well. I'll get a with-stars version of the stacked image (stretched only to get the stars looking good), a stretched starless version but not too extreme stretch. Then I'll process pixelmath to pull Ha and OIII. I'll then pull them all into Gimp with the starless as base layer (for blacks, effectively). Then add OIII colourized cyan, and Ha colourized red as per Nebula Photos video, then stars on top of that. I'll generally sharpen the stars with an unsharp filter, and blur the Ha and OIII using Guassian blur.

[random night]

I've been doing exactly the same. I use a few hrs of RGB data with a UV/ir filter purely for nice stars

[low mural]

Yeah I used the Ha/Oii extraction in Siril and then did RGB recomposition with Ha and Oiii colours

Rather than use unsharp on the stars i use Siril deconvolution which seems to work good on the stars

[random night]

No probs. It does make a good starting point. I can't run blurx and noisex for ya

[random night]

Your project looks basically the same as the one I did a month ago. Very similar framing. I think your data will be better than mine though if that's just 2 hrs!

[modest nebula]

hrmm forgot to turn on the cooler 😮

at least I'll be able to compare a few frames cooled vs uncooled

[random night]

I can send you plenty of imx585 frames uncooled if ya want for comparison 😂. They're definitely noiser that your cooled ones

[low mural]

Oh no it was 4.5 hours lol. Hoping to get that closer to 7 after tonight though!

Anyone use AstroDenoisePY?

Seen it discussed around the cloudy nights forums

[modest nebula]

I remember trying it, but can't remember why I don't use it

[modest nebula]

trying it again now. It won't load 32bit TIF but it's ok with 16bit

ok I remember why I don't use it. Even with it turned down, it's way too strong

[low mural]

Oh fairs haha, i hadnt downloaded it yet lol. I was wondering whether it is could be used in linear or of it was a post process noise reduction. But if its too strong, ill pass 🤣

[modest nebula]

well give it a try for yourself before you give up on it

it may have its uses

[low mural]

Yeah it was hurrendously strong 😂 also doesnt work in linear

Quick process of 7 hours of data. Will give it a proper go tomorrow

With Astro denoise 😂 I will stop with the spam now!

[modest nebula]

heads up, new Siril available

[low mural]

Just put my timelapse together from when I was shooting the Bubble Nebula. There really was a lot of cloud lol

#1152562180168892456 message Damn pixinsight really makes a difference lol. Look at the result from my data haha

[modest nebula]

I'll have a crack at that using my methods

btw here's Wizard from last night. Nowhere near as good as @random night but this is only 2hrs using a UHC filter

[low mural]

I have just requested the Pixinsight Trial.

[random night]

That's pretty imprssive for only 2hrs data an no NB filter!

[random night]

And an RC tools trial too I hope?

[low mural]

I could only get blur x trial as i have used noise x before 🙁

Its so much to learn haha. Shame abiut the noise, but the detail is better. My first Pix attempt

[random night]

I like it. I think you did a better job than I did

https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1149991437597941771
for comparison

You have better OIII details and it looks more natural

[low mural]

I feel like you have a bit more brightness on your nebula which is nice, i couldnt do it without blowong some of it out. Possible due to my cameras lack of full well lol

[rugged jackal]

Sorry I have been away from the group, been busy sorting out a few things, and no clear skies for me over the weekend, though I am still struggling with Gamma Cygni data and the 'stain' ring in the data:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ib41V1GEBh-9H9LI7AiAy6NxOTm62KJl/view?usp=sharing

Any help/advice (please) on how I can deal with this issue.

[rugged jackal]

I assume this image is from the new camera?- wow the image looks very good.

[modest nebula]

yeh

[rugged jackal]

Love it, can't wait to see your work when you get your new player-one/risingcam astro camera, The image quality in here is just getting better all the time!

[modest nebula]

btw guys, I'll be away for a week, so no astro for me

[low mural]

Yeah I am not sure what this is. Could be dew related perhaps? Have you tried stacking without your flats?

Or go through your subs individually and see if you can find the culprit

[low mural]

Holiday?

[modest nebula]

no, spending a week (again) clearing my late father-in-law's house. A week of sorting junk

[low mural]

Sounds busy. Hope it goes alright. My dad used to do house clearances for a living. When he passed, I realised how much of other peoples junk he accumulated over the years. It took months to clear everything!

[azure solar]

did you use some kind of filter?

[low mural]

So I have spent the last couple of nights on Pix. I must say it is a great piece of software. But with my current cam, I am not seeing drastic differences between pix and current open source software. The biggest improvement is BlurX and that isn't even Pix lol. The Narrowband Normalization plug is cool though. I think Siril should have the capabilities of incorporating something like that tbh. I think I may continue with the cam purchase and perhaps purchase NoiseX for photoshop. Or better still, if DeepSNR can create a plug in for PS or Siril as it seems to work pretty well.

I will send over a Siril Vs Pixinsight comparison shortly.

If anyone has som data they want me to try and process in Pixinsight, feel free to send over 🙂

[azure solar]

yeah get the cam first, good software with "meh" data isn't worth the time Imo

good data is much easier to work with from the get-go

[twin locust]

is it worth getting a az-gti over a swsa 2i?

[low mural]

Yes

[rugged jackal]

Sorry, no I have not stacked without flats, I'll check the flats and subs and the re-run it.

[random night]

If you want Go to functionality and automation using NINA or equivalent its essential over the SWSA
It's worth a look at the SA GTI though as that kinda superceedds the az gti for eq tracking, however I think its not great value and is priced badly

[rugged jackal]

I did use a UHC filter to image this target

[azure solar]

If it's a cheap filter it could be that

[rugged jackal]

It came with the dwarf 2 smart telescope - unbranded filter but cuiv said it should be OK

[azure solar]

I wouldn't trust a filter that's worth 50€ max

[low mural]

But youve used it before havent you @rugged jackal ?

I would check your subs individually

And try to stack with flats

[azure solar]

ah that was without flats? they should help a lot

[low mural]

Sorry i meant stack without flats as flats could be causing the yhe ossue

[azure solar]

ah gotcha

one thing that could help is a syntetic flat, I've only used it once but the effect wasn't bad

[rugged jackal]

I have used the filter before and has been useful in reducing light pollution, I have had a quick look and the flats do look odd so I will stack without the flats and see if I can improve the image. I appreciate the help everyone.

[rugged jackal]

what is a synthetic flat?

[azure solar]

the video I saw about it took the starless version and made it really blurry in PS, then subtracted it to the main image

but he had to cut out the object that he framed and I don't think that's easy to do with a large nebulae

[rugged jackal]

Oh right sounds like something far above my astro grade.

[azure solar]

it's easy to do but not with a nebula, I did it with m81 and nothing else really

was this the first time you used that filter?

[rugged jackal]

I have used the filter many times but I think I have messed up the flats - something I struggle with.

[rugged jackal]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bXALDC8ZMefB_Fe8raSbfU3TUvyQ5unr/view?usp=drive_link

Your input/advice is much appreciated.

80 subs at 180 seconds, ISO 1200, with UHC filter, no flats.

[low mural]

Looking good. Perhaps try M45 next time @rugged jackal. Should be good with a stock camera!

[low mural]

Possible clear skies for me tonight!

[rugged jackal]

cloudy for me

[modest nebula]

I'm told the HDR issue with the Risingcam is fixed and will be released next week

[rugged jackal]

That is great to hear, can't wait to see the difference. Unfortunately I am under clouds all weekend.

[modest nebula]

Damn, I just wiped cobwebs off my telescope 😮

[low mural]

I literally had to dust mine this morning

[modest nebula]

I should get some sky tomorrow night. And, my battery stuff is in the post, so come next week I should have a portable setup \o/

[low mural]

Whaaat?! No clouds in sight for me!
What battery did you get?

[modest nebula]

homemade brick solution. 50ah leisure battery + 12v Lenovo adapter for the PC + 12v 5amp adapter for the rest of the kit

it's sized for 6hrs of imaging

probably totally OTT but I wanted to make sure it works 😄

[rugged jackal]

Need photos and a diagram to understand how you made this!! 😆

[modest nebula]

Pacman this evening https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

[low mural]

What.. You have clear skies 😭

Tomorrow is lookijg possible for me though! May hook up the old 40d again and shoot M45

[modest nebula]

yeh, but it's a little bit of dodge-the-cloud at the moment

[bold heart]

i had problems with wlan disconnects. Just opend it up and saw the most horryfiyng soldering i have ever seen. I just resolderd everything. Is this a general problem in Skywathcer Mounts?

[modest nebula]

Never opened mine so I can't say

[bold heart]

the port connecting the board from the sidepanel with powerconnector to the mainboard were basicly loose.

[azure solar]

I don't remember how mine was wired but it's not surprising that something like yours slipped through qc

[modest nebula]

last nights Pacman was a nightmare. Almost full moon, hazy sky, dodging clouds. I managed to get almost 2hrs of poor quality data. I must revisit this on a clear night.

[rugged jackal]

I still like it.

[modest nebula]

I must get a proper narrowband. I think that's holding me back

[azure solar]

narrowband filter?

[modest nebula]

this was using a UHC + IR cut. I still need to get a proper narrowband

[azure solar]

were you using two filters or is the ir cut integrated in the cam?

but yeah even something not that tight like an l-enhance would help a lot

[modest nebula]

two filters. The cam has AR glass & my UHC doesn't cut IR

[azure solar]

prob because it's a filter intended for visual

[modest nebula]

yes, almost certainly

[modest nebula]

just powered all my gear up via battery for the first time \o/

[modest nebula]

It's big, heavy but it works. Luckily I won't be lugging it around very much. It's 50ah & sized for 6hrs of operation. Hopefully should be enough

[random night]

What skies do you have? If under anything greater than b5 then I would say, for emission nebula, a dual NB filter is essential

even if under good skies you want one for shooting in full moon

[modest nebula]

6/7 probably

[tough scaffold]

Got metal damage at Dec axis. Any ideas to fix this? Thinking to polish sharp edges and leave

[tough scaffold]

So I sandpapered it. Will see how it works

[azure solar]

that's probably all you can do without replacing the whole thing

[modest nebula]

surprise clear sky tonight, despite the met office saying I should have thick cloud cover

[rugged jackal]

cloud and rain for weeks for me

[modest nebula]

that "clear sky" last night had very high level cloud. Having said that I caught some photons & added it to the dirty data I got a few days back. This is ~3hrs of data for something that I could get in 30mins on a clear night without light pollution 😦

[rugged jackal]

looking good, you're lucky you've had clear skies

It's been rain and cloud here for weeks. I have not had a session at all.

[modest nebula]

looks like Siril has some more advanced debayer options than DSS. I might try to reprocess an image by getting Siril to bulk-debayer all my FITS before stacking with DSS to see if there's a noticable quality improvement https://siril.readthedocs.io/en/latest/preferences/preferences_gui.html

[rugged jackal]

For some reason I cannot even run DSS on my computers?

[modest nebula]

I visited a local dark site last night. It wasn't as dark as I hoped but it's 100% better than my garden, so I'm going to test run the battery & then go see what I can get

[random night]

Ohh that's exiting. I have had my travel rig for 8 months now and still havnt visited my local drk site.. the weather is so poor atm

Even the "clear" nights seem to be plagued with high level could like last night

[modest nebula]

Yeh, same here. it's possible to get some stuff from nights like that but it's hard work. see my image above.

[random night]

Ive started to not bother now.. I find that adding 5r of bad data to an existing good dataset makes no difference at all (in fact often makes it worse)

[low mural]

Sorry I have been prettty absent on here, its that time on year whwre there is no star to be seem 🤣

[low mural]

This is good, do you think it may be the need for narrowband?

[modest nebula]

Yeh, that's next on my list

[modest nebula]

just watched Cuiv's latest video about the latest beta version of Graxpert. It's actually really good!

[azure solar]

yep, I've tried it on a couple of my images and the result was very clean

[modest nebula]

I reprocessed one of my old images using my current technique old https://astro.wheep.co.uk/assets/images/resized/veil-plus-ha-oiii-2hr51min-UHC-IRCUT.jpg vs new https://astro.wheep.co.uk/assets/images/resized/veil-plus-ha-oiii-2hr51min-UHC-IRCUT-reprocessed.jpg I think I'm getting better at processing now

[modest nebula]

testing the battery for the first time this evening. so far, everything running fine for 2+hrs \o/

[low mural]

First clear night for ages and i am having polar alignment and plate solve issues. Spent 2 hours trying to sort it so packing away now 🙄

[modest nebula]

wow, I got mine done in 10mins 😄

[rugged jackal]

no clear skies for me alas my absence... 😆

[modest nebula]

I'm getting cloud now 😦

[modest nebula]

ok battery lasted 6hrs, exactly how I calculated it almost to the minute

[tough scaffold]

I had problems, when I used latest version of synscan and Nina. What soft for mount do you use?

[low mural]

I tested it in apt and nina

[tough scaffold]

i mean software for mount synscan, eqmod etc

[tough scaffold]

first thing to check is focal length and pixel size for plate solve at nina settings and increase search radius for plate solver. I have spent many hours to set up plate solving working normal)

If you use astap and nina you can find logs of failed plate solves and try to determine whats the problem

[low mural]

Yeah all of that was right. All being well, I may try again tonight

[heady flame]

It should be ok if there are no sharp edges anymore. I would also put a little bit of white Lithium grease on it. If I remember correctly there is a big nylon washer on top of it (no bearing like on the RA axis) right?

[tough scaffold]

Right, my washer had metal flakes inside it. I cleaned it and greased with silicone grease. Have not tested it outside yet

[heady flame]

Weird. I think it was like that right from the beginning. My GTI also had a few casting errors inside. But nothing to worry about. Cleaned everything, regreased and adjusted it and from that on it was performing flawlessly.

[rugged jackal]

still no clear skies for me, I am losing the will to carry on with this hobby...

[modest nebula]

clear sky over the weekend apparently

on the plus side, it will reinforce your desire to retire to Tenerife

[modest nebula]

are you guys imaging tonight?

[modest nebula]

tonights Pleiades livestack. I'll process the data tomorrow to see what I can get out of it

[low mural]

Trust me to be away on the first 2 clear nights of the month 😐

Looking foreard to seeing M45. My camera sensor is too small to. Image this but I may get the EOS40D out again!

[modest nebula]

Will get some more data tonight. Good news though, my narrowband filter is in the post

[random night]

Nice seven sisters there. Too late in the night for me at the moment. Doesn't pop up from behind the house until about 3.30am. I may automate one soon though as I have a more zoomed in view with my Uranus-c and tak fs60 that I didn't have last year

Just imaging some data for the Cresent nebula tonight

[modest nebula]

I'm doing some Andromeda until Midnight, then back onto Pleiades https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

had a few mishaps tonight though

I nearly got rained on, except I got suspicious of this cloud so I covered the equipment with a garden chair cover. saved the equipment but threw out the alignment

then I kicked the tripod by accident - another alignment...

back on course now though

[modest nebula]

I overdid Andromeda a bit. I got almost 4hrs on it. I'll process tomorrow

[azure solar]

data is never enough

[low mural]

I may be missing out on these clear nights, but i have just been to a chris hadfield talk at cheltenham literature fest and now off to see a Tim Peake one!

[modest nebula]

nice

[modest nebula]

I struggled to process it until I realized I had to boost the blue & red channels with curves

[azure solar]

nice, I'll have to try m31 again once my cam arrives

[modest nebula]

which cam are you getting?

[azure solar]

touptek 533

[modest nebula]

nice! I considered that but the pixels are a little large for my setup

[azure solar]

evoguide right?

[modest nebula]

yeh

strictly speaking, 2.9um of the 585 is also a little large, but it is what it is

[azure solar]

with such a short fl it's normal to be oversampled

I'm at 1.81"/pix on the evo 72 and .78" on the newt

[modest nebula]

yep, and when @rugged jackal gives me his 72ED it will be perfect 😛

[azure solar]

lol

it's a nice scope for the price

the reducer is weirdly expensive tho

[modest nebula]

yeh, like filters, you pay for the result not for the part itself

[azure solar]

I've been using the 1x flattener and it's been arlight for my standards

I just need a couple of parts for it to complete the "build"

[modest nebula]

like a focuser?

that was the best thing I did, build the DIY one

[azure solar]

I already have an eaf if that's what you mean

[modest nebula]

yeh

[azure solar]

I need a ring that replaces the standard holder so I can just screw in the flattener instead of it being held by screws, filter drawer since with the ring I'd loose the filter thread and a dovetail to hold the guide scope on top so I don't have to disassemble the whole thing everytime I switch from newt to evo

[modest nebula]

the 50ED was a massive improvement over old camera lens that I had. The focuser was a game changer, and the cooled camera a massive improvement over the planetary camera I was using. I think my next big upgrade will be to start visiting dark sites

[azure solar]

I really want to go to dark spots too, I have some like 45m away but I don't have a battery

[modest nebula]

at least I proved the battery. It ran for 6hrs

did you see the one I built? it's just a 50ah leisure battery in an ebay box with a few accessory sockets and some 12v psu's

[azure solar]

nope, got a link to it or something?

I was looking at lifepo4 based batteries for now

[modest nebula]

and the PSU's

I since put a switch on the box so I can actually turn it on/off

[azure solar]

I'll need a mini pc with 12v power too, my current laptop needs 19v I think

[modest nebula]

I think that Lenovo does too

the psu converts 12v up to 20v or whatever it needs. I guess it swaps amps for volts

[azure solar]

that's cool, my prob can't do that tho

[modest nebula]

well. mini pc's don't have to be expensive. lots of SFF pc's on ebay for peanuts, unless you want something real small

[azure solar]

I was looking at somethink like a beelink, they're like 150-200€ and very small

[modest nebula]

that one I built is AGM. It's big and heavy but cheap

I won't be carrying it much so I don't care 🙂

[azure solar]

although I'm a little worried about not having a screen, if something goes wrong out in the field I'll just be stuck

mmh an agm battery isn't great for this type of stuff in theory

[modest nebula]

I'll take a laptop and remote-desktop into the pc. I have 2 or 3 laptops in the house that can be a terminal client

[modest nebula]

and AGM leisure battery is MADE for this stuff. But I agree, you can't use a car battery

[azure solar]

so agm leisure battery is a category on it's own or something?

[modest nebula]

leisure batterys are designed for caravans & boats & stuff where there's small current needed over a long period of time. Car batteries are the opposite - huge current over short period of time

a leisure battery doesn't need to be AGM though

[azure solar]

just found one on amazon, literally dirt cheap wow

[modest nebula]

https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/tools/calculator-sizing-a-battery-to-a-load.html

4amps is probably reasonable for your set up

6hr for 4amps is ~50 amp hour

[azure solar]

no idea how much my laptop takes, I'd need to check. mount takes like 10w so the real concern would be laptop and cooling

[modest nebula]

dew heaters, camera cooling would chew power. mount & focuser would be trivial

[azure solar]

I'm lucky enough to not need dew heaters so that's another thing off the list

[modest nebula]

yeh, don't brag

[azure solar]

[modest nebula]

I tried no dew heaters once and it took me an hour to work out why I had clouds on a clear night

[azure solar]

btw what other parts would I need to make that battery?

[modest nebula]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191688952601

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/276009794208?var=578330636667 (optional)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403216753245 x 2

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391816197542

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126047070426

then you'd need some chunky wire, spade connectors, wire crimper, perhaps a 12v splitter for each of your devices and a PSU for your laptop/computer

[azure solar]

thx, I try to look for those locally or on aliexpress

[modest nebula]

I'm sure the same things are on your local ebay

or similar

[azure solar]

yeah prob, I'll still look on ali as they're prob cheaper

[modest nebula]

yes, provided you're not keen to do it quickly 🙂

[azure solar]

it's just something else on the list to do

[modest nebula]

btw I also got one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145222216871 and a bunch of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223635073050 and made a breakout box, so I could do 12v in, many 12v out

[azure solar]

so psu to this box, then the output is split right

[modest nebula]

yes, all ports would be wired together. The box is metal so you only have to wire the positive terminal

[azure solar]

I see, I might need help later on. Never done stuff with electronics and I don't want to mess it up

[modest nebula]

none of this is electronics. It's all electrics. You can't go wrong unless you short-circuit something 🙂

[azure solar]

you get the point...

[modest nebula]

🙂

[azure solar]

would something like this work? by not being metal I guess I would need to wire the ground too?

found another that's all metal so I guess that solves it

[modest nebula]

yeh, those plastic ones are flimsy though

[azure solar]

seems like I'm only missing cables

[modest nebula]

and be careful - there's 2 different size connectors. there's 5.5mm with a 2.1mm centre pin and same with a 2.5mm centre pin

your kit will probably be 2.1mm centre pin

[azure solar]

I'm considering everything as 2.1mm for now

the battery I found had the wrong amperage, not as dirt cheap when looking at the right one

[modest nebula]

you want at least 50ah,

[tough scaffold]

I am using Beelink Mini S 256gb it's about 100$ excluding vat at aliexpress. It consumes 7-15 watts so I power it from power bank. It handles phd2, nina and rdp but sometimes I have nina interface lagging.
Not sure if it's nina or pc problem

[azure solar]

they hover around 150€ here, I don't think I can get them any lower but it's a fair price in the end. Nina lagging is probably nina itself, sometimes it hangs up even on my desktop pc

[rugged jackal]

Had a fairly clear night and managed to get out to re-acquaint with astronomy and photography, managed to do TPPA and all worked quite well, still struggling to focus using the guidecam but nevertheless good to get out and do some stuff, gudiing was not bad but when clouds rolled across it shot way up but still managed to get some 80 subs at 180s of the Andromeda - easy target to restart. Now to siril and processing.

[modest nebula]

was clear for me too. I was learning how to use my new narrowband filter

[modest nebula]

I got an hour on Monkeyhead Nebula. Here's an initial process. It's a bit noisy and need much more data

[rugged jackal]

nevertheless still looks great!!

[random night]

Looks superb, what time does this rise for your horizon? Not sure i could image this until about 3am. Try extracting the Ha and OIII separately and bring out the exiting colours

[modest nebula]

I can see it over my treeline from about midnight

[random night]

yeah i have to wait for it come over the house

[modest nebula]

I'm still sussing out exposure length for this new filter. Seems no matter how long I expose for, it never overexposes

[random night]

nah you can do 10 mins on that easily

[modest nebula]

so, do I continue with the 5mins exposures I've been trying, or go with 2min exposures like I did before?

[random night]

The length will be limited by the mount here

[modest nebula]

I mean, is 5 x 2mins as good as 1 x 10?

[random night]

I always use 5 mins with the az-gti and the l-extreme

feels like over 5 would be pushing it

[modest nebula]

last night, my guiding was less than 1" most of the time, so I felt ok with 5mins

btw I have another new toy in the post \o/

https://pegasusastro.com/products/pocket-powerbox/

This will replace my DIY one

[rugged jackal]

Tried to do so astro last night, slight drizzle when setting up - but hardly any clouds - so not sure how? laste about 5 mins then stopped. Clear skies but ofc there was a haze and hence guiding was erratic, got about 30 subs of about 180 secs when clouded over, waited to clear - no luck, waited a little more, decided to pack up after taking some flats etc, as packing up and dismantled it all, look up and clear skies wth!!!! had no energy to setup again.

Trying to stay motivated - how do you guys do it?

[azure solar]

I have the advantage of a balcony that can see everything so packing and unpacking is done like a minute

[modest nebula]

I didn't bother last night because I knew the first and only cloud would rain on me. Monday night looks promising though

[low mural]

Hey all!
Sorry I have been so absent on this channel. I have literally had not a single clear night for the last 1.5 months. Gutted. The one clear night I had in early October, I had platesolving problems. Monday and Tuesday is looking promising for me. Its been so long I am not even sure what is up in the sky at the moment

Hopefully I dont have a repeat platesolving issue.

Anyone got some recent images from the last month?

[azure solar]

nothing dso related but I found out that my old jupiter data had so much more potential than I gave it credit for

[low mural]

Thats a great improvement!

Think I am going to go for M45 using my Canon 40D. Seems like a good target to ease back in to!

[azure solar]

I was very surprised to say the least

[modest nebula]

last one I got was Monkey Head a few weeks back

[woven basin]

hello, has anybody put the skywatcher heritage 150p on the az gti?

[azure solar]

I've used my astromaster 130 with it when I first bought the mount, so in a way yes

[woven basin]

yeah i am hoping that the heritage will work even without tube rings

well actually i could get the az gti and eventually could upgrade it to eq or i have also been looking at the starsense explorer dx5 and that mount will work well with the heritage and i'll get a 5" sct with it too

[azure solar]

that's very expensive for a 5" mak

as any starsense telescope really

[woven basin]

i mean id love to see some other cheaper examples

but £489 is the best i have seen

[azure solar]

well, technically as others told you already the heritege should perform better than a mak. It's really up to you if it's worth getting one

[woven basin]

yes but the sct would give a far better and easier viewing experience

[azure solar]

that's for sure

[woven basin]

but anyway if you have any cheaper 5" sct's you have saw id appreciate links

[azure solar]

I can try to look around but your best bet will remain the used market

[woven basin]

yeah i guess so, my experience with used scopes is rather poor though. and i do fully undesrtand how good the heritage is optically but i want something a bit nicer made.

[rugged jackal]

Not having a great time astro wise saw clear skies setup then some sort war broke out because they were using military grade fireworks, and my guiding is up the spout currently total error is 20.93

I think it is just too hazy

Why did I choose this as a hobby when I could have taken up pipe smoking as a hobby

[azure solar]

I wanted to try and make another time lapse tonight but there's so much wind it feels like I'm below a layer of water, can't see any detail at all on jupiter

[rugged jackal]

I know how u feel

Thinking of packing up and get some sleep

[modest nebula]

game on tonight \o/

[rugged jackal]

good luck

[modest nebula]

going ok so far. Getting some Pacman whilst waiting for Monkey Head to rise

[modest nebula]

I'm going to swap targets soon. Just seen a new one rise above the conifer at the bottom of my garden - the Fossil Footprint Nebula. It looks interesting and I've never heard of it before

[low mural]

Its happening! I am finally getting data!

Plate solvong is still being tedius, should not take me 30 mins to perform polar alognment, but hey ho, cannot complain!

[low mural]

fossil footprint nebula soubds interesting! Have you got a dual band now?

[modest nebula]

Yep. Got an SV220 7nm. It gets good reviews and seems pretty good to me so far.

Cost ~£75 delivered from Aliexpress

[low mural]

Nice, yeah looks to be doing the job and a steal for £75

Ngl im lookong forward to shooting the hell out of the orion nebula 😂

[modest nebula]

You've got a while to wait 🙂

[modest nebula]

It takes me about 5 mins. Although I can't align through the narrow band filter. I have to swap in a IR cut filter first which is a bit tedious

[low mural]

Not perfect and not enough data. Onoy had 1 hour 20 of useable data from last night. The old Canon 40d still impresses me though

Tonights looks less positive but will prepare the gear just incase

[modest nebula]

that's not bad though!

[modest nebula]

sky is looking very clear for me tonight, at least until midnight

[low mural]

Clouds are in, managed to get 40 mins more data

[low mural]

Its not great, but its alright

[modest nebula]

I guess your main cam fov is too tight for this target?

[low mural]

This was my shot at it u guided last year. I wanted to get a wider view though. Perhaps 800 ISO is too much for the 40D..

[random night]

Nice star colours!

[low mural]

Do you fancy running a noise/blur x on it for me if I send you the unprocessed stacked fit file? 😁

[random night]

sure

[low mural]

Much obliged!

If you have Instagram, I will be sure to credit you for using 🙂

[random night]

Sorry it took so long (had work) https://drive.google.com/file/d/16_ugxw77CQ1PGGAQzAp1BFYH_zMAXynY/view?usp=drive_link
Note I ran the blurx sharpen stars at .15 rather than the default .25 as it seemed too much to me, klet me know if you want more

By the way if that's a slr and only 1 and a half hours the noise (or lack of) was amazing!

[low mural]

The cold probably helped! Camera sensor was 10 degrees. Thanks for the blur x, made a huge difference!

[modest nebula]

last nights soul nebula. as always, need more data. It's too noisy

[low mural]

It looks great, what was the total intergration?

[modest nebula]

I just let it rip last night from early evening to almost midnight, so I got over 4hrs

that nebula doesn't seem to put out much OIII so by default that nebula is mostly red

had to pull back on the Ha data to get some interesting colours. I'm going to reprocess now with a different technique to see if I can pull more from it

[low mural]

Make sense, that image looks great so I cam looking forward to seeing your reprocess!

[modest nebula]

btw I found my first ever Pleiades pic from several years back. Want to see it?

one of those may be more recent than the other 😄

[low mural]

Wr have to start somewhere right? Here is mine in conjunction with Mars

[modest nebula]

That's actually pretty cool

I also got some more Monkey Head data

[low mural]

This is great! Very Vibrant!

[low mural]

Astronomically maybe, but the untracked image is poor (in comparison ) 😂

[random night]

Superb! I would throw on a ir/uv filter now and grab a couple of hors of rgb for the stars then that would be awesome!

[modest nebula]

yeh the stars suck with this narrow band filter

but, it doesn't suffer from star bloat or halos

[random night]

I always do RGB data seperatley now for stars

You can do shorter exposures and process separately then also

[modest nebula]

I did a reprocess on it. It's a lot less vibrant but I prefer it. The stars still suck

[modest nebula]

sky looks clear tonight. Might add to my Soul data

[lament lion]

It looks like finally it’s having a few clear nights for me in a couple days it’s been so cloudy it’s been months I’m dying to get more data, also I’m loving the monkey head, I’m going to have to look for a new telescope I’m just not liking the svbony sv503 I might try a 4.5 newt but we will see

[random night]

Get some RGB data 😉

[modest nebula]

Perhaps tonight, perhaps another night 🙂

[low mural]

Currently backing up all my astro files to the cloud...

[modest nebula]

Wow! I don't have that problem. I have Cityfibre internet with 900meg upload 🙂

[low mural]

I have 500mbps but it is 40gb of files 🤣

And upload is always longer than download

[dense hound]

Hey, so did you buy the AZGTi ?

i put the heritage 150p ota on a AZGTe (not AZGTi i think and i don't know the difference ) but i havent't done any astrophotography. i just took videos of the moon and a bit of planets with phone attached to EP

i am also considering getting eq wedge but i don't know if it will work with my mount.i am considering it because even after aligning to the best of my abilities, things still drift out of frame and i understand that in eq mode tracking is better

here's a video ouf of my tiktok ( sorry, might want to turn sound down, couldn't mute it) of the partial moon eclipse. to aligni used the 2 star alignment in synscan app, i first centered polaris in eyepiece, then leveled the scope with level bubble, then centered 2 stars, might have been vega and jupiter but the moon still drifts out of frame altho not as fast as this was a 2 hour long video

[dense hound]

also i recently bought a used asi 224mc to get better views of the moon and planets but also want to try and do some smaller dso EAA. do you guys think it would work ?

[scarlet stump]

I have the az gte and use it in eq @dense hound

It works for astrophotography, you just need a wide field setup

[dense hound]

what i have is very narrow field i guess

i just want small dso EAA tho. good to know that it works in eq. how heavy is your setup? what you put on top of the wedge ?

[low mural]

I have used the asi224mc with the evoguide 50ed and azgti. Its ok, but there is better out there! Here are some of my ancient photos using the 224mc

[dense hound]

that's cool, is it eaa?

[dense hound]

any tips on alignment with the azgte in alt az mode? and is it gonna be better with eq wedge? how much weight can i put on the wedge?

[azure solar]

There aren't really tips for alt-az, just do the 2 point of 3 point alignment

With the wedge you'll need a camera to align it since it doesn't have a polar scope and a counterweight

Max weight prob around 3.5kg

[scarlet stump]

I ve managed 1 minute subs unguided with a 102/500 achro and a DSLR unguided.
Good polar alignment is important @dense hound

I have opened it and regressed it though

[low mural]

Captured some of my first Orion data last night. Only 1 hour 20 mins and a need to take some shorter exposures to protect the core. But overall I am happy with the start of the project.

[modest nebula]

looking very good so far. Is that with narrowband filter?