The AZ GTI Forum

[azure solar]

evostar 72ED with reducer right?

[rugged jackal]

Correct, you have a good memory.

[azure solar]

then your resolution is 1.68 arcsecs/pixel, your guiding shoud stay below that to keep good stars

[rugged jackal]

right, at the moment it is around that figure and the stars are round(er) - thought clear - there does seem to be s little haze and the moon is out too, so it is fluctuating and ofc the az-gti itself can be a little erratic.

[azure solar]

yeah haze and the moon won't help, personally as long as the stars aren't very obviously elongated I'm fine

[rugged jackal]

and now clouds

The most frustrating leisure pursuit ever

[azure solar]

lol, I had the same happen last night

[azure solar]

azgti?

[modest nebula]

yes

[modest nebula]

seems Graxpert now supports AI noise reduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFaSjotPuRU

[rugged jackal]

Nice, as soon as I have some decent data I'll test it out.

loooool.

[low mural]

This looks promising! We just need a decent free Ai sharpening tool now

[low mural]

Denoising with Graxpert really helped with the IFN in my image. I still need to work on my stars though! I think my 50ED has worse CA than others. Let's hope for some more clear skies!

[modest nebula]

it never used to be that bad did it?

[low mural]

I think it's because I have been using the l enhance for so long, I forgot what the natural RGB stars looked like from my scope

[modest nebula]

Sure, but not sure mine's that bad

[low mural]

Have you had a go with my data? Perhaps it's my technique?

[modest nebula]

will try later

[low mural]

I mean if I could find a way to remove the stars without it taking chunks out for M82, then I could probably tame the stars better. Might try some other stacking techniques too. Tomorrow is looking like a potential night to add another 2 hours data all being well

[modest nebula]

I'm imaging already tonight \o/

[low mural]

Sadly not for me 😭 the skies lied!!

[modest nebula]

well don't send them my way

[modest nebula]

ok I'm done with this one. I don't think I have enough resolution to do this justice. Or perhaps my sky isn't dark enough? Or perhaps 5hrs of 60sec subs is not enough 😮

going to start leo Triplet tonight

[modest nebula]

anyone imaging?

[modest nebula]

fml

[rugged jackal]

looks like space wars loool

photon torpedoes being fired

[modest nebula]

last nights sesion was cut short by a few hours by unexpected cloud, but I'm pleased with the results so far. Just need another few session like that

[modest nebula]

sky is trolling me tonight. It's pretty clear but forecast shows blanket cloud. I 100% know that if I get my kit out, cloud will roll in. And I also know that if I don't it will be clear all evening. Instead, I opened a beer

[low mural]

Yeah it was like that for me last night too 😂

The Leo triplet is looking good btw!

[modest nebula]

I should get Leo Triplet finished this evening. It's been wonderful for a few hours

[modest nebula]

The sky was so good last night, I stayed up to 3am. I should have stayed longer but I had to sleep. I managed to finish Leo Triplet and got 2hrs on this one

[low mural]

At least someone's getting the good data and the clear skies

[modest nebula]

yeh but that's probably my lot for May 😄

omg it's clear again tonight. I'm going to be knackered 😮

[low mural]

Possible chance of clear skies for me tonight

Really not sure whether to carry on with M81 😂

[modest nebula]

what should I target tonight?

I could get some more 101

[low mural]

How many hours have you got on Leo?

[modest nebula]

probably about 5 😮

my fov isn't really ideal

had to crop that in somewhat

[low mural]

Had a 1.78 millionth attempt on my data. Probably the best so far by my the stars are stressing me out 😂

The only thing is if I want the IFN, I need to push the noise. Maybe I just keep going at capturing more data until I can mentally not take it anymore 😂

[modest nebula]

that's much better tbh

I'm going to try what could be a stupid idea - a 2x barlow 😄

[low mural]

I did that 2 years ago, had a terrible time 🤣 really hard to get to focus on the 50ED with it too

[low mural]

The amount of masking I had to do to protect the stars was painstaking 😂

[modest nebula]

Then I guess it will be a very short experiment 😄

[modest nebula]

What will you do next?

[low mural]

Hopefully it's better for you haha. TBF I was using the asi224 at the time so it was set for disaster at the start

[low mural]

I have not thought that far yet. I think I will keep pushing M81 until the dumbbell nebula comes out to play

Then I need to find a target I have never done before 😂

[rugged jackal]

Lots of pale blue tonight, but I am setup even though it is hazy, not sure if it is worth it but at least I am having a go in case the haze blows away, please suggest something nice to target.

[modest nebula]

all good here

[rugged jackal]

TPPA done, but still very hazy.

[modest nebula]

I'm trying a challenging target which will probably look crap on my equipment & on my bortle - Coma Cluster

[rugged jackal]

I think I'll try the m51 - an easy one to get back into it again.

[rugged jackal]

Guiding is pants again:

and look at the haze

😥

[low mural]

Nooooooo I fell asleep 😭😭😂😂

[lament lion]

Ok so I’m not the only one, I had the gti with the evoguide out last night fell asleep on the couch woke up this morning and forgot to change the number of frames in the sequence, only have 10 pictures 🥲😭😭 I’m so defeated right now

[azure solar]

Loop until > shoot # of frames

[modest nebula]

so it was interesting to see all these galaxies in one shot, but there's no way I can do this justice, so I won't take this one any further. This is almost 3hrs worth

[azure solar]

Galaxy clusters don't look great with amateurs equipment unfortunately, everything is too small and fuzzy

[modest nebula]

yep

on the plus side, I got this barlow in focus today so next session, I can see if it works

[low mural]

At least you got 10 frames 😂 I fell asleep hortly after taking my gear out

[low mural]

That's is madness. What does the unannotated image look like 😅

[rugged jackal]

I am surprised to be doing this, but here is the link to my unprocessed M51 stack, 176 subs, 60 seconds each uv/ir cut, it was fairly hazy night but got better around 1/2am, if anyone has the time/stomach please let me have your advice while I process (make a hash of it) the image.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18ZhPqFfrJg3EHu3Xtrf97X7Nxxx1iLxg/view?usp=sharing

[rugged jackal]

Nice, thank you, this is much better than I thought, and much better than my attempt. Thanks buddy.

[modest nebula]

perhaps I should have put more stars in

btw I found ImagesPlus. It's a free download. It's mostly outdated and pretty pants today but it's got a good star processing option. http://www.mlunsold.com/

[modest nebula]

your technique has got a LOT better. This was decent data!

[rugged jackal]

Thanks, means a lot to me, considering the disappointing weather we have had so far, so getting any data was a big plus. Fingers crossed for more clear (and less hazy) skies.

[modest nebula]

trying another experiment tonight with my newtonian. it's likely to be crap 😄

[low mural]

You have clear skies?!

[modest nebula]

kinda. it's a bit hazy but it's ok for playing around

at some point, I'll get another telescope with more reach so I can get galaxies a bit better. However, I have no clue which one to get. I'm trying my crappy newtonian to see if I can get any enthusiasm for them

[low mural]

Let me know how you get on. I'm tempted to go for the 130pds or Quattro 150P

[modest nebula]

it's too hazy tonight to judge really. However this scope has terrible coma so it's certainly not a long term option

[scarlet stump]

I bought the 130pds
It is excellent
@low mural

[modest nebula]

I was researching the 150p. Cuiv reckons the focuser is pants though

btw, sky is amazing clear now. I've nailed polar alignment too. I'm doing 90s exposures unguided \o/

[rugged jackal]

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes-in-stock/skywatcher-explorer-150p-ds-ota.html

[azure solar]

planning an upgrade?

[low mural]

Setting up the gear tonight. Annoying that we don't have darkness until 11:40 🙃

[modest nebula]

testing out KStars again tonight

been a few years since I used it last

what target is everyone doing?

[tough scaffold]

this is my target 😂

[rugged jackal]

i am targetting m3 at 60 seconds but feel it might be over exposed

should i reduce the exposure time?

guiding as usual is a bit rubbish.

[low mural]

Outside my house right now

[rugged jackal]

you have the northern lights down south?

i have a streak of haze and clouds at the moment, no wonder guiding is erratic. lool.

[low mural]

Yep in Newbury! Last time I saw it was in Iceland 8 years ago!

[rugged jackal]

I am in the garden hoping to see them too but no such luck haha.

that is one cold sensor below absolute cold!!!

[low mural]

What's happened there 🤣

Kinda want the northern lights to go now so I can image again 😅

[rugged jackal]

I found new physics, and new thermodynamic laws, JWST should have come to me instead of sending it out to over a million miles in deep space to keep it cold, I can do it with a £400 camera in the middle of brum.

[rugged jackal]

clouds have rolled in

[modest nebula]

ok the KStars experiment failed. I gave up using it several years ago because I spent longer fannying around with it than actually using it, then when I did get it dialed in, it would crash. Seems nothing has changed

shame because I'd like to use the Raspberry pi instead of the windows pc

[low mural]

Yeah I saw some poor feedback on k stars which prevented me from getting a raspberry pi

More Aurora is forecast tonight. I may get the old DSLR out for a time lapse!

These were taken on just a Pixel phone

[low mural]

Here is the frame which told me that the northern lights were out lol

That was about 11pm so I am predicting the same again tonight

[azure solar]

That looks like gradient hell

[low mural]

Yeah, I had about 2.5 hours of data but only an hour is useable lol

Not even going to bother bringing the scope out tonigh. I will hook my DSLR up to the EQM instead

[tough scaffold]

Guys, what is the best stretch method for horsehead nebula? Here I used mostly asin independent channel in siril. I try different variants but alnitak is the problem. Any advice how to process this target?

Started to process data that i get few months ago

[tough scaffold]

btw I have upgraded my ssd. Siril now working so much faster. I have used external ssd before

[low mural]

I shot in narrow band for this target which helped remove the stars via starnet easier.

[low mural]

The DSLR is out tonight, but the aurora isn't 🙃

[tough scaffold]

I recorded aurora by accident last year. Was very surprised when checked timelapse from gopro)
#🥛-widefield-milkyway-pics message

[tough scaffold]

what dslr you have?

[low mural]

I had a canon 6d and old 40d, but I sold the 6d to get the Uranus c pro 😅

[tough scaffold]

I have star adventurer which i have never used) Thinking to buy t3i for widefield. it's like 100$, but new mirrorless sensors are so much better, but x5-10 times price for used camera. Or just attach lens to my astrocam, but it's not portable

canon 6d is nice for widefield

[tough scaffold]

someone knows what siril wants from me ?

[azure solar]

debayered lights but not the rest?

[tough scaffold]

should i debayer darks and flats too?

[azure solar]

yes

[tough scaffold]

will try

[azure solar]

either don't debayer anything or debayer all

[tough scaffold]

it worked, thanks.

[low mural]

Mirrorless has disadvantages though. Main one being a hot sensor.
T3i is the 600d in UK/EU terms think. The 600d is a better camera than my 40D and I have had good results with that on the 50ED. I'm yet to do any serious wodefield though.

[tough scaffold]

yeah, but anyway they make cool images. like this #🥛-widefield-milkyway-pics message

there are a lot in that thread made with mirrorless and also 6d

[modest nebula]

number of channels is different. Are your calibration frames debayered? In which case they'll have 3 channels. Your lights won't be debayered when applying calibration so will only have 1 layer

[tough scaffold]

yeah, already fixed, thanks. I debayered all. Manual siril is a bit pain. Used only scripts before

[modest nebula]

I use Sirilic

[azure solar]

I can link you the guide to manual processing if you want, it's easy to follow

[tough scaffold]

I watched official manual, is it that one?

[azure solar]

maybe? I have this one bookmarked for when I forget something
https://siril.org/tutorials/tuto-manual/

[tough scaffold]

yeah, watched that

[tough scaffold]

does it have mode to manually select images by background, roundness etc like in dss or it just script?

[modest nebula]

Sirilic is effectively a script builder for Siril, so it supports all the stuff Siril does. Look it up - it's real good

[modest nebula]

I thought it looked a bit hazy tonight but I thought I'd chance it. Seems it's ok after all

[low mural]

Nice. I'm forecasting clouds at midnight so didn't wanna chance it. Shame I wasted last night chasing down non existent aurora 😂

I am calling it quits on the M81 now though. Gutted with the overall result given I have 10 hours of data. Going to give it one final process in the coming days. Will be moving on to the dumbbell nebula next

[modest nebula]

yeh I'm looking forward to nebulas coming back. These galaxies are too small for Evoguide

I'm also starting to piece together my 2nd generation of equipment. Trying to find a bargain eq5 class mount, then I'll decide which scope to get next

a newt makes most economical sense but I hate the stars it makes & don't really want the collimation hassle

[low mural]

Exactly the same position as me lol

[modest nebula]

but seems we can now get rid of those stupid difraction spikes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj-gDFrYnG8

[tough scaffold]

Guys, i making progress. This was one of my first astrophoto last year 😁 To be clear left is last year, right is this year)

[modest nebula]

that one on the right is awesome!

[tough scaffold]

jupiter with 72mm refractor Not best result

[marsh stump]

why the hell would you wanna do this

[tough scaffold]

Does anyone know how to stack two sessions with different exposure time in siril? Something like groups in dss

[marsh stump]

if you don’t want them get a refractor

it’s what makes newtonians good

[modest nebula]

use Sirilic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJHz1dEy62c

[tough scaffold]

thx, will check it

[modest nebula]

because they're an aberration and they look stupid? I'd rather get a refractor but newts are good value for money

[modest nebula]

Sirilic is an official Siril companion - it's not some hack that someone wrote

[marsh stump]

i think they look nice

[marsh stump]

you can get pretty cheap good refractors

[modest nebula]

yeh I have one, but they start getting expensive when you want a fast scope with more focal length

[vocal talon]

That's what I call a good guiding 🙂

[modest nebula]

clear tonight by the looks of it. It will give me a chance to test my new mini pc. Apparently it's just 10w which will help a lot when it's on battery. Got to get some shorter cables though

[tough scaffold]

whats the model of pc?

[azure solar]

looks like a beelink

[tough scaffold]

I use this one, but they already have newer versions. Mine take 7-15 watts

[modest nebula]

yeh it is. That pic is already out of date - I've just changed it around 😄

[modest nebula]

Mine's not new, but it's less power hungry than my Lenovo

[low mural]

I don't know what to shoot tonight?!

[modest nebula]

I'm doing whale galaxy

[tough scaffold]

few days ago checked my cooled camera with wattmeter. it was about 20w with max power

[modest nebula]

wow, 20w is a lot

[tough scaffold]

yep, i used power banks to power my setup. But with 20w camera upgrade it's not enough

[modest nebula]

I use a big leisure battery

[low mural]

Guiding is on point today. Yes I went back to M81. Call me crazy 😂

[scarlet stump]

How do you get so good guiding numbers?@low mural

[low mural]

I used to get poor guiding and I always blamed it on my camera. However after carefully calibrating in PHD2, I get much better results

[modest nebula]

I noticed the Milky Way was rising early this morning, so I managed to get 1hr of broadband data on Crescent Nebula before I went to bed. I stretched it to death and it's noisy as hell, but it's great to be back on a nebula. I'll get some more data when I can.

[azure solar]

I also can't wait for nebulae, using the newt has been such a mess

[low mural]

That is nice for an hour's data!

[tough scaffold]

is there a way to stack mosaic all frames in one without stacking separate frames? Dss kinda makes it with mosaic mode, but can't align many frames

[modest nebula]

you mean combine the subs before stacking?

[tough scaffold]

for example i have 4 panels mosaic. I want just to select all of my frames and stack them at once. Not to divide into 4 groups of frames and stack them separately

DSS manual says "You should note that in all modes the offsets are computed from the reference frame, so it's not a true mosaic mode but a pseudo mosaic."

so it will not align frame that is too far from reference

[modest nebula]

I hear that Siril will have this functionality in an upcoming release

[tough scaffold]

what a nice mosaic I got

[modest nebula]

very artistic 😄

[tough scaffold]

I tried to find heart and soul at astrobin and cut good frame that would be in the middle of my mosaic so I can use it as reference. Didn't work, I need to add greyscale to dss, but the frame that i tried to add is not. So looks like i will need to sort my frames and stack separately

[modest nebula]

you could try to load the frames into Siril, register them with debayer, apply calibration, then feed the corrected debayered frames into DSS

they'll be 3 channel & will hopefully match your reference

I wonder how Siril will manage the same thing? load your astrobin frame as reference and then ask it to stack the rest

[low mural]

Well that's a wrap for me. 12 hours of data.
Shame about the stars but I am content with the galaxy detail considering this is 250mm focal length.
Perhaps I will have more focal length next season!

[tough scaffold]

Don't see reference frame option in siril. Does it have it?

[modest nebula]

Yeh. You have to add your files in teh conversion tab, click convert, then go to the sequence tab, select your sequence from the dropdown if it's not already loaded, then open frame list. You'll see one of the frames is the reference. You can select a different one

[modest nebula]

You said that last time 🙂

I found a few tricks to get your stars looking better though. Load the star layer in Gimp then run the "unpurple" filter from G'MIC-Qt. Perhaps there's a similar filter for PS? Also, download ImagesPlus 6.5. It's mostly old crap but "Special Functions/Star Size" is pretty decent & lets you slightly reduce the size of your stars for better effect. You can also use that tool to fix star trailing if you have it

[tough scaffold]

looks like outcome from siril will be the same size as single frame

[tough scaffold]

it worked

[modest nebula]

well? don't keep us in suspense

[tough scaffold]

quality not good. Trying to sort bad and good frames now. I didn't used thread to attach camera to scope, so I had ability to rotate, but camera had some tilt and corners are bad

[modest nebula]

well it's better than before 😄

[tough scaffold]

yep, at least dss was able to align most frames

[tough scaffold]

@modest nebula you have sv220, right? is it 1.25? how do you connect it to camera?

[modest nebula]

I have a Evoguide 50ED with a Starizona flattener so it goes in front of the flattener

the flattener has a 1.25" thread

[tough scaffold]

still some problem with stacking. Got some distortion, maybe alignment algorithm problem or maybe reference frame that i did is not 100% perfect aligned with my photo. Not sure, but the data of that area is ok and not distorted

it's take more than hour to stack, hard to test with different settings

[tough scaffold]

Do you have T2-1.25 ring with your camera like this? I have such a ring with my camera, but it does not fit 1.25 sv220 filter and does fit to 1.25 uv-ir filter. So the svbony support told me that sv220 1.25 is not compatible with this ring.

[modest nebula]

I own one of those rings but I don't use it with the sv220. However, they screw together fine for me in case I did want to use it

[tough scaffold]

thx

[tough scaffold]

is it jupiter at reflection?

[modest nebula]

It could be 😄

[tough scaffold]

dss crashes a lot with this project. Already crashed 5 times, so annoying

[low mural]

Stars are a bit better on this one. Pushed the saturation because I was frustrated about the amount of colour considering this is 12 hours of data 😅
I am banning myself from editing this data anymore lol

[tough scaffold]

i got 8h bode with my 420mm scope and your's is better)

omfg i stacked my mosaic in siril now, and at last part i found out that that I had overwrite enabled and with every stack I overwrited previous🤬

[tough scaffold]

so for now i just stacked panels in siril and manually aligned at photoshop. Very time consuming, but no distortions like in dss

[modest nebula]

I had some luck with https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/252274/how-to-download-image-composite-editor-2-0

IIRC, I stacked each panel & then composited them before stretch

remember to normalize them before stitching to equalize the brightness

also remember to crop to remove the dithering artifacts

[tough scaffold]

How to normalize? you mean this option or what?

i tried to stack my output from siril. Ice aligned it, but when i Stretch there is a problem with colors

I did not used Output normalisation option in my stacked files

[modest nebula]

I meant the "linear match" item from the processing menu

so you'd match each other pane against a key pane

[tough scaffold]

got it, thx

[tough scaffold]

tried linear match. Does not worked for me. Matched images become very red and almost no signal. this is result after liner match with default settings. Autostretched

this is the reference. Maybe the problem that it's not rgb aligned

[tough scaffold]

Testing pixel processor now. Looks like it will take more than 6h to stack frames

[tough scaffold]

so for now i get this with sirl+photoshop. Will try run pixel processor overnight

[azure solar]

Question for the evoguide + 585 guys, is the starizona flattener needed or is the stock one enough?

[modest nebula]

stock one is more expensive and gives much less back focus (17.5mm IIRC). If you're ok with that, then I guess it's enough

are you buying an Evoguide? 🙂

[azure solar]

no, helping out a dude who's getting that combo

wdym by gives less backfocus? the cameras has to be at 17.5 instead of 55mm?

[modest nebula]

yes, and some cameras require more backfocus than that e.g DSLR

that's why people get the Starizona one instead

hmm actually, the starwatcher one isn't more expensive anymore

[azure solar]

yeah I don't remember the skywatcher being more expensive

[azure solar]

makes sense to have filter drawers and stuff too, can't really fit one in 12.5mm

[modest nebula]

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/841064-skywatcher-evoguide-50ed-flattener-read-this-before-buying/ <-- warning about Starwatcher flattener

[azure solar]

thx

[modest nebula]

btw sky is VERY clear tonight, apart from teh moon

[modest nebula]

back onto Crescent https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

[modest nebula]

I got 2 hours on Crescent. Unfortunately I messed with my rotation whilst I was reorganizing my telescope earlier in the week so I couldn't combine it with the RGB I got last week. However, it's not bad for 2hrs data. I'll get some more when I can

[low mural]

This is RGB? I'm impressed with the amount of newbulosity in this

Missed out last night, but will be imaging tonight until about 1am (when the clouds are due to roll in)

[modest nebula]

No, narrowband using the sv220

[low mural]

Still 2 hours of data, this looks nice!

[modest nebula]

I intended to combine it with the narrowband, but I was rearranging my equipment the other night and rotated the telescope

I was doing 10min exposures on this!!

[low mural]

It's really clean

[modest nebula]

I swear I could have done 15mins without overexposing 😮

[low mural]

Was you dithering every frame?

[modest nebula]

yes

I'll grab more data when I can

[low mural]

I'm not sure what to shoot tonight. Going to have a browse 😂

[modest nebula]

if you can wait until midnight, the Milky Way rises

I have cloud tonight and also Stella Artois, so no sky for me

[low mural]

Yeah just looking at the sat and it's changed since about an hour ago. Cloud is supposed to roll in at about 10

I'll hold off bringing the gear out for now and see if it changes

[modest nebula]

game on tonight

[modest nebula]

last nights effort. just over an hour on this one. The "wings" are barely visible so got to get 5x more data on this at least

[low mural]

This is great with just an hour. Promising results

I am hoping to shoot this when the clouds breaks

[modest nebula]

I want to do them all, but not enough opportunity 😄

I'm hoping to get an old EQ5 class mount soon which I will put an onstep kit on. I'm also considering building a tiny "shed" in the back garden to house it, with a sky quality monitor and a sliding roof

I figure I can run it all off a battery & solar

[lament lion]

That looks awesome great job

What filter are you using

[modest nebula]

svbony sv220

[lament lion]

Ok thanks, I have been hearing good things about that filter from the looks of it it’s doing a heck of a job I’m jealous

[modest nebula]

it's not the best filter in the world but for the money, it's fantastic value. Mine's a 1.25" and I got it off Aliexpress for just £65 delivered

[lament lion]

Still at that price and still out performing other filters and doesn’t look like it creates halos

[modest nebula]

it does on very bright stars like Alnitak, but in general it doesn't

[low mural]

I'm trying to sell my guidecam at the moment to raise funds for a newt 😅

[modest nebula]

hopefully it's a spare guidecam? 🙂

[low mural]

Yes it is my Atik GP that I got before I started using my Altair GPCam 3

[low mural]

No one wants it though 😂 just put it on eBay for a £45 starting price see what happens

Every little helps at this stage 😂

Some of my fav targets are quite small so I think a larger focal length will suit me better

[rugged jackal]

Hi guys, somewhat clear for me so having a go - m57 tonight. Exposing at 120 seconds and got this: any thoughts, suggestions, is it ok, overexposed? please do let me know. Many thanks.

[azure solar]

Seems fine to me

[rugged jackal]

great, thanks!!

[azure solar]

It's an old camera with a ccd, I'm not really surprised by that

[modest nebula]

I'd say very overexposed judging by the median & max values

[low mural]

To be fair, it worked great for me as a guidecam. If it worked in Nina, I would have probably kept it and sold the GPCam.

[azure solar]

Oh I'm sure it works great, just that being old people won't be as inclined to buy it

[rugged jackal]

right ok, i'll discard that data and get a new set, but not tonight, it is as usual filled with the grey fluffy stuff

[modest nebula]

did you try to process it before you discard it?

[rugged jackal]

No I have not - good point, I should stack it before I decide to discard the data. I am re-processing the data for m3 which I had processed with old flats - DOH! and need to redo with the newer flats 🤣

[modest nebula]

normally I'd aim for a median of about 6k. I'd like my min to be as close to my offset as possible and to have as few pixels at max as possible. To check for blow out stars, , I'll click the auto-stretch button and view the unstretched image. I'd expect this to be mostly black except for a few real bright stars

also, check this throughout the evening. As sky glow decreases or the moon changes position, this will change and sometimes you can go for longer exposures later in the evening

[rugged jackal]

Good points - with Bortle 8 sky and moving towards the city the sky gets brighter, I also did use the filter last night and got much better exposure and tighter stars but unfortunately got clouded when I was about to use the second filter.

[rugged jackal]

My attempt on the cluster M3: 170, 30 second subs, stacked and processed in Siril and Graxpert (denoise AI 3.0 did not work for me, used 2.0) and in Neo. Let me have your thoughts and here is the stacked only image file if you wanna improve on my attempt: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DNF9wps09QeVHXaA0zMVDIFR8IN1OqmT/view?usp=sharing

[lament lion]

The progress in this forum alone makes me happy, the problems we all had and fixed the help we got from others and the help we gave others it’s just amazing, on another note @rugged jackal now do some shorter than 30 sec to mix in so you can get the core a little bit more defined but it’s coming out really nice

[rugged jackal]

Yes completly concur with your comments! the help I have received from everyone has been amazing and kept me going through all the doubts and frustrations so a big thanks for the progress Great idea, I am surprised at how nice this cluster has come out but the core is blown out so I can see your point what do you suggest - 5 seconds, 10 seconds exposures?

[modest nebula]

you did a good job with this one. My processing is not better than yours

[lament lion]

Yeah 5-10 seconds should do fine, might just have to check a single exposure and zoom in and use your judgement if you need less time but other than that the star colors came out really nice as well maybe the shorter with help tighten them up a little bit as well but if not still amazing

[modest nebula]

guiding is good tonight

also i got my ASCOM Alpaca driver working to report my battery voltage

[azure solar]

also imaging tonight, adding more data to the crescent nebula

[modest nebula]

I'd like to add more Crescent but it's not visible yet, and Dumbbell is

so, I'll stick with that one all evening. Crescent will wait for another night

live stacking tonight as well https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

[azure solar]

I want to try getting as much data as I can, like 15h at least

[modest nebula]

yeh I need to get more. Mine's just 2hrs so far https://astro.wheep.co.uk/assets/images/resized/crescent2.png

[azure solar]

way nicer fov than mine

[modest nebula]

not sure why, but my subs are coming out REAL well tonight with no light pollution gradient

this is one sub

5min subs too 😮

[rugged jackal]

that is really nice, 5 mins subs - how ? what is the secret?

[modest nebula]

sv220 - 7nm. It cuts out most of the light, so you need very long subs

I could probably do longer subs too

[rugged jackal]

NINA lost all my settings so have spent the last hour inserting all my data etc...

done my TPPA but getting elongated stars for some reason

[modest nebula]

it wasn't even supposed to be clear tonight, but turns out to be best sky for ages

[rugged jackal]

I know - finally some 'clean' sky but my guiding is still pants luckily I am doing only doing 5 sec exposures of the M3

[modest nebula]

Got some more dumbbell data last night. Still can't get those wings to come out though. I'll need more.

[rugged jackal]

Last night wass a bit of a 'mare. NINA lost all my settings, including file pathways and patterns, then guiding was pretty poor. then noticed the camera was not cooling, the sensor was showing ambient temp. I am not sure which frames I managed to get are cooled and which are not. Found out the culprit was a half pluged in plug, not sure how that happened or when, I tried to image the elephant nebula but got sweet FA due to the cooling issue, then the clouds and all over, though may have the m3 at 5 secs to salvage the night.

🤣

@modest nebula I managed to stack that 'overexposed' m57 - the target is very small but I supposed with only 326mm FL, this object will be small, anyhow here is the stack for you to diagnose/process/laugh at :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1skyYrkxoHllZ8f9z_Tw8BlBqYSqXFNIT/view?usp=sharing

[modest nebula]

I'll give it a try

It's not as bad as I thought it would be. There's some blown out stars, and I had to protect highlights when stretching, but it's usable

[rugged jackal]

Wow, you managed to make a silk purse 😆 , ok I'll process the C1 filtered data which should be better but will need to gather the data for the C2 filter (I am referring to the Askar colour magic C1 and C2 filters). Thanks for that!

[rugged jackal]

@lament lion My latest attempt on the M3, combined the previous stack with the 150, 5sec I managed to get last night: again please feel to critique/advise etc:

and here is the raw stacked file if you wish to improve on my processing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i_etF3su8qP1dkDBtX4RFH_sb-8yAVug/view?usp=sharing

[modest nebula]

looks great!

[lament lion]

Looking good, getting more stars in the cluster and star colors are looking a bit better as well

[lament lion]

@rugged jackal i gave it a shot, heavy crop on the cluster, as i wanted to see in pix how the core was going, had to do several edits since computer screen and what i see on mobile are completely different took a bit of slight adjustments, but data is vary nice, background before the crop was so easy to mess around with im impressed

[rugged jackal]

That is lovely work, thank you for the input, another good idea - the tight cropping, I think I will do the same too to get more detail in the core.

[rugged jackal]

M57 - 30 subs, 120 seconds filter C1 - HaOiii stacked file - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dbzFmPH7SMtT2nho8hoQzhyl6xAtM3yi/view?usp=sharing

[tough scaffold]

testing 5 min subs tonight. Elephants trunk

[tough scaffold]

got 2.5 hours

[modest nebula]

looking good!

[modest nebula]

this site's quite useful https://telescopius.com/

[rugged jackal]

Nice!!

[tough scaffold]

looks like i have some power problems with az-gti. Led stops blinking and wifi disconnects.

[tough scaffold]

I had steady on led. I connected to wifi, but not with synscan app, just used it for rdp. Few days ago had no problem using it this way

[tough scaffold]

testing telescope for 1h now - no problems. Don't know what was the problem yesterday

[modest nebula]

well I bought a new mount. It's a Bresser EXOS2 which is an EQ5 class mount. I'll be adding a Terrans onstep kit to it soon. I won't be getting rid of the AZ-GTI though

[rugged jackal]

Are you using the new mount tonight?

[modest nebula]

No
It's not arrived yet and even when it does it will be a little while before I get the onstep kit on it

[rugged jackal]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Xhb2cIYPUauruf1tkZf_ZCEqLl4B5TNA?usp=sharing

This is a link to the folder of 3 stacks of NGC6960 - taken last night, Stack 1 is taken with the HaOiii filter, Stack 2 is SiiOiii and stack 3 is thecombined stack using stack 1 and stack 2. I am working on the combined stack (and making a mess of it), it would be interesting what you guys make of this data.

[rugged jackal]

My efforts.

[tough scaffold]

collected 5h. Waiting for darkness to make calibration frames, as i can't cool down my camera to -10 during day))

[tough scaffold]

az-gti continues to drop wifi at session start few times, then works ok

[modest nebula]

I've not used wifi for years. I always run a wire. I'm also going to experiment with bluetooth soon

[tough scaffold]

is it good idea to put camera into fridge to make darks?

[lament lion]

Yes it’s fine won’t damage anything since fridge will slowly cool it over time, just don’t put it in freezer, just make sure there is no liquid

[modest nebula]

does your camera not have a cooler?

[tough scaffold]

it has, but it struggles to cool down to -10 during day and it's raining outside. It's about +23 here and i get about -7 on sensor

[modest nebula]

in that case, putting it in the fridge would help it

[tough scaffold]

tried to make hubble palette, but not much blue here

[modest nebula]

looks good though

[tough scaffold]

yep, enough data for this target, going to next

[tough scaffold]

Rewatched this tutorial and got better result
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDhOrKvM7GU

[modest nebula]

also good, but now you're dangling 😄

[tough scaffold]

fixed 😄

[low mural]

Finally out with the gear tonight. Jeez it's been a while

Removing myself from galaxies and heading for M27 😅

[modest nebula]

wow, where have you been?

I did M27. It's a challenging target. The trick is to get the wings without blowing out the core. I'm not quite there yet https://astro.wheep.co.uk/assets/images/resized/dumbbell2.png

[low mural]

This is looking good though! What's the integration time?

[low mural]

I was in Spain for a birthday do! Can't complain really, weather was lovely.

Waiting for the overhead cables to pass 😅

[low mural]

It would be good to get a comparison with yours tbh. Touptek Vs Player one 😂

[modest nebula]

3hrs. It was looking almost as good after 2 though

[low mural]

I was thinking on doing 180s to take the core, what do you reckon?

[modest nebula]

I started on 120secs then extended to 300 when it got proper dark

600secs was too bright 🙂

[modest nebula]

To be fair, same sensor, more likely to be a comparison of your bortle vs mine

[low mural]

Yeah that's true. Anyway, never mind bottle, the clouds have just rolled in 😅

[modest nebula]

we're going to get some sky tonight \o/

[low mural]

Yes! Just started imaging. I got an hour of M27 the other night. Hoping of 2-3 tonight

[rugged jackal]

just started on the crescent:

[modest nebula]

same

[rugged jackal]

hahaha, great minds think alike

[modest nebula]

I've already got a few hours on it but I want to do it justice

this is what I have so far https://astro.wheep.co.uk/assets/images/resized/crescent2.png

[rugged jackal]

Love your rock steady guiding mine is a bit erratic but better than my last attempt.

[modest nebula]

I struggled to polar align tonight

for some reason, tppa was mucking me about

I was this close to removing the narrowband filter & trying again

[rugged jackal]

oh wow, that is some cracking imaging

I am using my filters too, should I also be imaging this target using just the cut filter?

[modest nebula]

no, use narrowband

however, the narrowband filters make tppa harder

[rugged jackal]

I did my tppa on the cut filter and then moved to the narrowband filter

must be pretty clear at the moment as my guding is not bad today!

[rugged jackal]

I had too much light when I started so had to wait for the sky to darken and even then had horrible gradients due to the glow from the city.

[modest nebula]

it will be clear all night

[rugged jackal]

great

[modest nebula]

I got my 2nd hand Exos-2 mount. Now I can't wait to get the Onstep motor kit for it

it will basically be a better EQ5pro

[rugged jackal]

my best guiding ever - not as good as yours but still not bad.

[modest nebula]

that's pretty damn good. plenty good enough for your pixel scale

[rugged jackal]

thank you.

[rugged jackal]

that is the one all the bloggers have been using, but many have moved to the harmonic drive mounts

[modest nebula]

yeh but they're still real expensive

[low mural]

Seeing here is pretty poor at the moment. I think some neighbours have got some fires going 🙄

[low mural]

Better than mine!

[rugged jackal]

yeah - too much, feels a little exploitative - they have a captive audience.

[rugged jackal]

unfortunately, commentators curse - there must some haze now as the guduing has shot to 1.86

[rugged jackal]

Fires. hopefully a bbq fire and not some tyre buring fest!!

[low mural]

Yeah my guiding is sitting at 1.25 at the moment. Comparing the data against the other night and there is definitely some higher sky brightness tonight. Could be thin cloud I guess

[rugged jackal]

my guiding is fluctuating too, so there is some high level haze around

[modest nebula]

mine's ~1" which is not the best but perfectly good enough

I'm taking 5mins subs with HFR ~2-2.1

https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

in fact, going to try some 10min subs

[rugged jackal]

wow

I have never gone beyond 2 mins

[modest nebula]

here's my stats for 5mins

thats a very low median. I can probably afford to let more light in

[rugged jackal]

my media at 2 mins is 3072

median*

[modest nebula]

what filter do you have at the moment?

[rugged jackal]

I have the askar C1+c2, I am using the C2 at the moment.

[low mural]

I have fireworks going on here 🤦

[modest nebula]

that's why. Mine's 7nm so letting much less light though than yours. That's why I have to run longer exposures

looks like your focus is creeping too as it gets colder

[rugged jackal]

Are you suggesting I refocus?

[low mural]

Mines creeped a lot. I was thinking it may be down to seeing conditions, but perhaps I should refocus..

[rugged jackal]

My HFR is now dropping slightly

[modest nebula]

yeh

leave it if it's under control, but if it creeps up, time to refocus

[rugged jackal]

ok

I think it is dependent on the seeing too.

[modest nebula]

this is 10mins exposure

[low mural]

Nice!

Just did a quick process on the current data I have so far. It is looking promising

[modest nebula]

very nice. you're getting wings too!

[low mural]

Yes! A first for me. I did 8 hours of this on the IMX178 and never got the wings

[modest nebula]

I'll upload my subs to gdrive and you can stack mine in too if you like? just for a laugh

[low mural]

Aye thats a shout. Would be interesting to see how much of a difference it makes putting them together

[rugged jackal]

really good.

[low mural]

I need some good results after wasting 13 hours of imaging time on M81 😂

[modest nebula]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17WCnHFd1GAGx4sLqwNMFkt5Y8TZL33HO <--- you can stack those yourself. LIGHT and LIGHT2 are two different nights. I saved them compressed FITS but I think Siril and Pix can handle those. I think I also included enough calibration frames

tell me when you downloaded so I can delete from google drive

https://astro.wheep.co.uk/assets/images/resized/dumbbell2.png that what I got from them

[low mural]

Sweet, I will download shortly

[modest nebula]

if we're going to do this at all in future, we should probably get framing the same or at least similar

[low mural]

Yes thats true. We should Collab on a target this year if you are up for it. Considering we have practically identical gear haha

Made the right choice to refocus haha

[modest nebula]

We should. It'll be an interesting exercise.

[low mural]

Downloaded them. They dont load in DSS but I will try Siril

[modest nebula]

use Sirilic. It's a Siril companion that makes multi-night sessions simple

if you want to load in DSS, you can uncompress those fits with https://github.com/champcm/FPack-and-Funpack-for-Windows

[modest nebula]

Believe it or not the sun is starting to come up already

[modest nebula]

Here's last nights, not sure I'm entirely happy with the edit

no doubt I'll fiddle with it some more during out next 3 weeks of cloud

[rugged jackal]

Too harsh! looks great. Wait till you see mine then you will be delighted with your edit. 😆

[rugged jackal]

No doubt!!

[modest nebula]

Do we prefer this?

[rugged jackal]

This looks much better to me. The detail in the dust clouds and the nebula is really good. How many hours of data?

[low mural]

Yes! Lots of Oii detail in this one!

[low mural]

First attempt at 3.5 hours of my data. May have pushed the colours a bit. Looking forward to getting more data

[rugged jackal]

Very nice, - impressive work guys.!!

My weekend efforts, 3.5 hours of data:

[modest nebula]

I did yet another re-edit on mine. This one is final

[rugged jackal]

Very nice - so much detail in the centre and the dust clouds and love the colours. Day and night difference compared with mine loooool.

[modest nebula]

I think we've all improved a lot in the last year though

[azure solar]

The oiii shell is so nice, I couldn't manage to get mine as bright as that

[azure solar]

left or right? only change is the saturation

[modest nebula]

left (more saturation)

[azure solar]

yeah I'm also on that side

[rugged jackal]

I like thr right more, better contrast, lol.

[low mural]

This is perfection! What's the overall integration?

Throws my crescent data outta the game 😂

[modest nebula]

~5hrs of mostly 10min subs, some 5min

[low mural]

I reckon you could pull more data out @rugged jackal

[low mural]

Impressive considering the amount of Oii you got there!

[low mural]

Left is nice!

[scarlet stump]

@low mural
Do you use ppec on phd2 while guiding on Ra with the eqm35?

[low mural]

I have everything at default so if it's not defaulted then no 😅

[scarlet stump]

Ohh ok
Does default work good though?

[low mural]

Yeah, I had some teething issues but I didn't accurately calibrate. Since then, it's been working really well.

Do you drizzle your data @modest nebula

[modest nebula]

yes usually but not this time

[low mural]

To be honest it doesn't look like it needed it

[modest nebula]

I did a narrowband stack in Siril, and the way that works is it effectively drizzles the green & blue as it combines

[modest nebula]

If you fancy a crack at it... https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1249411821039910994

btw you'll need to align those two stacks before you merge them. Apparently they're not quite aligned

[low mural]

I will give it a go shortly 🙂 Just trying another shot at my M27 data

[rugged jackal]

OK, I'll give it another go. Here are the 3 data files I used. 2 are the filtered raw data and the other is the combined file which I used to get the image. So if you guys have the inclination to have a go:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1v3E11cOodeBTVgigaaT9h_VqOpr_dIYS?usp=sharing

[low mural]

Looks like I was able to pull more detail in the wings this time round. But the I'm struggling to tame the reds...

[low mural]

Added to my queue 😂

[modest nebula]

Are you still using pix or back to siril?

[low mural]

I stopped using pix when the trial ended in September haha

I miss it though

[modest nebula]

if you're using Siril, use GHS stretch and be agressive in the highlight protection slide. move it back to approx 50-60% from the very first stretch to make sure the curve doesn't clip at the top end

[low mural]

Yeah I was doing that but maybe I will be more agressive next time. I will wait for some more data before I reprocess I think

I am obsessed with your crescent data btw!

[modest nebula]

This is my process:- denoising OIII and Ha separately in Graxpert (but do not background extract), then combine using pixelmath R = Ha, G = (0.9 * OIII + 0.1 * Ha), B = OIII, then use SPCC (Siril nightly build) to fix star colours, then Starnet++ to split stars, stretch starless using GHS with highlight protection with a little extra stretch on blue/green channel, then stretch stars using asinh, then Gimp to combine the two stretched layers with some curves tweaks

[low mural]

Oh I didnt know there was a Siril version with SPCC

Will bear this in mind!

Just finished on your crescent data btw

[modest nebula]

Yeh I saw, it looks great

[azure solar]

Why gimp to combine the stars when there's the tool in siril?

[modest nebula]

because I find it more flexible in Gimp

I can also do some curves adjustment if necessary, and some purple reduction, and perhaps some white balance

[azure solar]

That's fair

I will have to try to stretch while keeping the highlight protection as you said, I don't used that slider a lot

[modest nebula]

it's essential on bright objects

[modest nebula]

I think you need some more integration time. It's still quite noisy. This is the best I could do

[rugged jackal]

Wow, thanks, ok next session will be back on this target.

[rugged jackal]

😆

[azure solar]

I'm finding stretching without blowing out some details in the nebula kind of impossible

like if the nebula itself is like this, I can't stretch the rest to show nicely

all the stuff here gets lost if I stretch the backgrund

how's this looking? Idk if I should stretch more

yeah looking at the old process I should, Idk how not to blow out the crescent tho

[low mural]

Yeah this bit always gets me!

[low mural]

what is the black mark, is it dust?

[azure solar]

yep, flats didn't work too well

[azure solar]

stretching only the red channel seems to work well

[modest nebula]

if I were you, I'd add some stars before you decide to stretch more

[azure solar]

not bad but I'll still try to brighten the background nebulae

[low mural]

It's currently clear outside but I am sure the weather is teasing me 🙄

[rugged jackal]

[tough scaffold]

got 2 nights of crescent nebula

[rugged jackal]

[tough scaffold]

got some veil tonight

[modest nebula]

I'll be doing Witches Broom next

I'm away from home this week in Dorset. The sky was clear so I took a look and the stars were so bright. It's b4 here. I can't wait until August when I'll be in b1

[low mural]

Fingers crossed the weather is good to you!

I think I'm going to go for the 130pds as a secondary scope. It's well within my budget. I just sold the Atik GP cam for £60 and my skywatcher L dovetail bracket for £20. That's £80 there. Also looking to sell my Ibanez bass guitar for about £170.

[modest nebula]

I guess you'll need the coma corrector too?

[low mural]

Yeah I will probably by the scope outright and then pay in 3 on a coma corrector 😂

[modest nebula]

Did you consider this one? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes-in-stock/sky-watcher-quattro-150p-f4-newtonian-modified-aplanatic-super-coma-corrector.html

[low mural]

The collimation complaints are putting me off that ones tbh

[modest nebula]

I'm still looking for my next scope but I'm not ready to buy until later in the year. I'm leaning more towards an Askar tbh but they're so expensive. I'll let you convince me to get a newt 🙂

[low mural]

Yeah I mean I am quite happy shooting at F5 tbh, it's fast enough. If it means sacrificing some light for slightly easier and stable collimation, then I will go with that 😂

Anyway I have to sell my bass first 😂

[modest nebula]

Amazed a fish is worth much money

[queen thicket]

Hi all. Had another pop at my November data of last year.. But this time I used the AI denoise in GraXpert 3.0 Wich wasn't a thing back then.
It's just over 5 hours in a bortle 6/7,(please see screen shot for my details & gear used).
Not sure why I still have motteling (please say you see it too).
Fairly happy as its only a small amount of time.
Thought's and comments very welcome 😊.

[azure solar]

not bad, reflection nebulae are a pain in high bortle unfortunately

[low mural]

I experienced mottling with Graxpert recently. Have you uploaded the raw file in #1021002743080558642 or feel free to send it on here

[queen thicket]

Thanks & yes, I agree. I also find thr flame nebula quite difficult especially with color ballance.

[queen thicket]

Glad I'm not the ibky one. I also felt like I had this issue with my M27 of thr same year. No, but I do just that. Thanks.

[tough scaffold]

Someone knows what is the best setting for max usb speed 0 or 2? I don't remember

[azure solar]

I just keep it at 2, it doesn't really explain what every value does

[low mural]

Getting mixed signals from the radars tonight. Let's see... 🌌

[modest nebula]

@tough scaffold can you share your subs that you were using to make that mosaic? I think Siril can do it and I'd like to try your data if I may

[modest nebula]

tomorrow is mega clear for me

weds rather

[tough scaffold]

you mean heart and soul? I can upload, but that data is not very good. lots of errors were made with that mosaic)

[modest nebula]

I'm happy with whichever data you have that I can mosaic no matter how shitty it is

[tough scaffold]

ok will try to upload it overnight. it's about 19GB

[modest nebula]

do you have a stack for each pane? if so, perhaps just 1 image per pane will do

[tough scaffold]

ok, will upload each stacked

[tough scaffold]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/0j41og4hn28yict0adeii/ANwPRpyzBq57o-VlZIESsY4?rlkey=gak78gp5fg4hf1ybfnh93m7qq&e=3&st=3uxp7wlj&dl=0

[modest nebula]

got them

[low mural]

I'm ignoring the weather forecast and going for it. Let's see what happens 😂

[azure solar]

I'm giving it a shot but the weather isn't great, it's clear with a very very light layer of haze/coulds

the hfr graph looks weird, previous night it was only going down

[low mural]

Yeah I'm getting similar but I think the moon is having an effect too

[azure solar]

oh yeah the moon at this stage doesn't help at all

[modest nebula]

the forecast is still good for tonight \o/

[low mural]

Currently got some haze at the moment here

[modest nebula]

crystal clear here for now

[low mural]

What are you shooting?

Not clearing for me so I'm processing last nights data

[modest nebula]

spent a while getting the framing right

[low mural]

Oooo, how you handling the star? Any haloing?

[modest nebula]

only got 1 sub so far and I wasn't happy with the framing so it's junk. No halo though

happier with this framing

https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

[low mural]

Yeah this is good!

[modest nebula]

I'm on 10min subs now 🙂

[low mural]

Processed my M27 data as I have about 5 hours but still struggling with that core 😂

[modest nebula]

here's a quick stretch of last nights data. This is only 2hr so far. i want at least 5

[low mural]

Looking real good! Love the faint detail

I'm not mad... May go for a bit more data to try and bring the wings out a bit more

[modest nebula]

You are mad 😄

[low mural]

Hahaha crazy mad maybe. After all anyone hunting clear skies in the UK is mad 😂

[modest nebula]

btw I found that stretching the star mask in Siril using 3 or 4 rounds of good old fashioned Histogram Transformation makes them look much better than Asinh or GHS

and if you use Siril 1.3 Alpha, you can do an SPCC first which makes them look even better

[modest nebula]

damn, clear sky again tonight 😮

[low mural]

Is it complicated to install? I could find a download for it anywhere

[modest nebula]

Best to build it yourself. This is actually very much easier than you think. Full instructions here https://siril.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation/windows.html#building-on-windows-with-msys2

I assume you're on Windows?

[low mural]

I am yes. I will give it a go!

[modest nebula]

of course, the latest alpha will always have issues. Currently, it seems saturation stretch is broken. However, you can always return to the stable version if you have issues. IMO though, SPCC on its own is a game changer

[low mural]

I have got to the "meson setup _build --buildtype release
ninja -C _build install" stage

What do I put in here

[modest nebula]

so you installed msys2?

and you ran "MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit" from teh start menu?

[tough scaffold]

will try the same target tonight, if no clouds

[low mural]

Yeah but when I paste this bit in, it says command not found

Do I need to edit the text to put in the build type?

Sorry for my ignorance lol

[modest nebula]

that's 2 separate lines

if you paste them one at a time, do you still get an error?

[low mural]

Yeah still says comman not found

Do I need to replace the "build type" bit?

[modest nebula]

did you run the bit "To install the dependencies, enter the following command:"

there's like 20lines to paste. you can do these all at once

this is the bit that installed the bits it can't find

and are you running the WinGW shell?

[low mural]

Done this

[low mural]

Whsts thats lol

maybe this is all a bit much haha

[modest nebula]

I dunno - I thought it was easy to do 😮

[low mural]

bugger I was doing it in the UCRT64

oops

How do I undo what I did haha

[modest nebula]

just run the right shell

cd into the siril driectory

and retry those commands that failed

[low mural]

Okay we are getting somewhere

I am pretty bad at reading instructions tbh

[modest nebula]

ok when that's done, you can just type "siril" to run the new version

[low mural]

Wheeey I am in! Cheers

[modest nebula]

note the bit in the instructions that tell you how to update & recompile

you'll need to do that on a regular basis

when it says "running the make command" it means "meson & ninja"

so for SPCC, try this:-

1. load an unstretched fit

2. plate solve it

3. run color calibratio / SPCC. Make sure to pick your image sensor & filter

[low mural]

Noted! Will give it a go now

Is it normal for SPCC to take a while?

[modest nebula]

Yes

[modest nebula]

did you get it to work then?

[low mural]

No it crashed 😂

Trying again after tea 😅

I can't work out if it's done it or not 😂 what should the console say?

[modest nebula]

This is what I get

[low mural]

Hmmm I wonder what's going on then.

I will try a different image

I'm guessing it was because I was trying to SPCC a star mask. It worked this time

[modest nebula]

do the colours look any better?

[low mural]

The stars are better for sure. I don't think I processed very well in general this time around though

[modest nebula]

I find SPCC takes all the guess work out of colour calibration

[tough scaffold]

clear night for me. Will try to make veil panel

[modest nebula]

if I can get somewhere close to this 6yr old APOD I'll be happy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180906.html

@low mural looks like that bug with the saturation stretch has been fixed, so you'll need to do another "git pull" and recompile

[low mural]

There also was a bug in star recomposition. Does it work for you

[low mural]

I will have to spend more time on it

[modest nebula]

I don't know. I don't use it 😄

report any bugs to @winged bone in https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1220109001682059275

he's Cyril himself 🙂

[modest nebula]

lovely guiding this evening

[vocal talon]

mount?

[modest nebula]

umm what forum are we in here? 😄

[vocal talon]

Sometimes people that have other mount post they're guiding soo I want to ask

[modest nebula]

and still doing ok 🙂

[low mural]

Guilty 🤣

[vocal talon]

😉

[modest nebula]

progress so far. I think there's more to come here in the faint areas, so I'll get yet another night on this in due course

this target is more challenging than it looks. There's SOOO many stars that the faint ones show up as background noise

especially right in the centre below the Witches Broom

[modest nebula]

clear again tonight

[low mural]

This is looking amazing! The fainter details are really showing through!

I'm imaging tonight 👍

[modest nebula]

What did you get?

[low mural]

I got another 2 hours on M27!

[modest nebula]

great 🙂

I couldn't stay up last night but I think there's another few clear nights on the way

btw that pic of mine above isn't the latest. I got another few hrs since then

not sure it looks much different except a little less noise. I'm tempted to get 1 more night on it & then move on. I'm considering doing a mosaic of the entire nebula

[modest nebula]

ok I got another 3hr last night for 13hr in total. This is done now.

[azure solar]

Looking great

[rugged jackal]

superb image

[low mural]

Great work!

I'm imaging my last M27 session tonight. Should bring me up to about 8 hours in total

[low mural]

Final result 8.5 hours of data

I'm going to shoot a bigger target next because these small targets are depressing me 😂

[modest nebula]

nice 🙂

[low mural]

I think this is better.. didn't push it as much and is less mottled. Wish I could pull the wings out more though

[modest nebula]

that's much better actually

I decided to proceed with a mosaic of Veil. I must be mad because I want to spent over 10hrs on each pane, and I need at least 2 more panes

I tried to stack a few subs of the centre pane into the stuff I got previously and seems Siril is doing a good job

perhps I'll get the left pane next week

[low mural]

I can't even bear the thought of doing a mosaic 😂 that being said, it would look amazing once completed!

[modest nebula]

yes, or a huge waste of time 😄

[azure solar]

Guess who imaged 5 nights with the wrong gain and offset values?

Fml the preset had some old settings and I didn't notice them at all

[tough scaffold]

what focal length is it? 250?

I will try to do mosaic of 2 panels. According to nina framing i can get east and west with 2 frames with 420 focal

got few hours of bubble tonight

[modest nebula]

262 I think

[tough scaffold]

I thought you hard cropped all your images and wondered how you get so nice quality with crop 😅

[modest nebula]

I tend not to crop much

[rugged jackal]

Really nice already!!

[novel panther]

Who has an EQ mod on their AZ-GTI

[modest nebula]

all of us

[novel panther]

Alright lol

Would you recommend it

[modest nebula]

I assume you mean an equatorial wedge?

[novel panther]

Yes

So you can use the equatorial mode

To get longer exposure

[modest nebula]

yes, it's a must if you want to do astrophotography

[novel panther]

Alright I will probably buy it within a few weeks then

[novel panther]

But don’t you also need counterweight?

[modest nebula]

yes

[novel panther]

Ok great, how is the polar alignment process?

How do you do it?

[modest nebula]

I used a threaded bar that I got from a local DIY store and some weights I found in my garage https://astro.wheep.co.uk/about/

[azure solar]

only if that's all your budget can do, it's a bit wonky

[azure solar]

tppa or sharpcap

[modest nebula]

for polar alignment, aim it north and run the three point polar alignment plugin in NINA

[novel panther]

I am a noob so my words are probably not smart

So you just aim your camera with the wedge at Polaris and then start it up and do alignment?

With sharpcap

[modest nebula]

you have to roughly set the elevation, point your mount north best you can. That'll get you in the right ball park. You then run the three point polar alignment in NINA. it will rotate your mount and take 3 shots. it will then work out your polar alignment error and tell you which way to move your mount

you can then use that to get it spot on

[novel panther]

Alright thanks

[azure solar]

sharpcap is similar but you have to rotate your mount yourself

[novel panther]

Yea but the outcome is always Polaris right?

[azure solar]

yes

[modest nebula]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI1tzoBhkH8

[novel panther]

Ok Guys thanks for the info

What is the exposure time that works best for you with what focal length

[modest nebula]

this assume you have your camera and your mount connected to your pc

[azure solar]

when I had mine I couldn't go over 90s at 420mm, but mine was probably a bad unit

[novel panther]

I can connect mount to pc via wifi right?

[novel panther]

Alright well that’s much better than what I can do now with az mode lol

[azure solar]

better to use an eqmod cable, they're cheap

[modest nebula]

exposure time depends on many factors such as sky glow (light pollution), focal length, filtes, etc. You can use the stats in Nina to get your median exposure level just right. That might be 30secs for a UV filter or 10mins for a narrow band filter

yes, use a cable

[novel panther]

Alright well thank you so much for this information guys

[modest nebula]

also use green swamp server instead of the skywacher software

NINA + green swamp server + eqmod cable > mount

[azure solar]

cuiv has a full setup video specifically for the azgti, I followed that and never had issues

[modest nebula]

get the Skywatcher Star Adventurer wedge. It's cheap & jsut about adequate. If you want to make it better and you're good with your hands, you can modify it https://astro.wheep.co.uk/equipment/wedge/

[novel panther]

I was thinking about that but I saw people also needing some new screw or something because it didn’t fit

[modest nebula]

yeh that's a good point. Look at this image. See the bolt at the very top of the pic? what's the one you have to change https://astro.wheep.co.uk/assets/images/resized/PXL_20230516_084056961.jpg

[novel panther]

I thought the left top one

[modest nebula]

yep thats the one

[novel panther]

Ah alright

They probably sell it in a local store right

[modest nebula]

it's the clamping bolt. the one that comes with the wedge is too fat

yes, it's a standard size. I can't remember exactly what size but you won't have problems at a local diy store

[novel panther]

Alright thanks

[modest nebula]

it's either an m8 or m6

[novel panther]

I will first need to get some money again because I bought a 200mm canon f2.8 on Sunday but I think I can order it in a few weeks

Extremely hyped for that lens lol

[modest nebula]

I was a Nikon guy and I know a 200mm f2.8 is VERY expensive (at least the Nikon one was!)

I suspect Canon is a bit cheaper but still not cheap

[novel panther]

It was a bargain tho in my country it’s around 650 euros second hand and I got it for 429

[modest nebula]

yeh, not surprised

[novel panther]

https://www.robtics.nl/nl/remote-operation/8030-robtics-eqdir-eqmod-asiair-pro-usb-rj11-cable-for-sky-watcher-az-gti-synscan-az-all-view-merlin-az-mounts.html would this be good?

[modest nebula]

yep that's the one

you might be able to get a cheaper one from China if you're not in a rush

[novel panther]

Im always in a rush haha

I spend too much money on fast delivery lol

Thanks for helping me

Will be ordering within a few weeks

[modest nebula]

next thing, you'll get sick of sitting in the garden with your laptop connected to camera & mount, so you'll buy a mini-pc that you can strap to the tripod

then you can remote-desktop to it from the warmth of your house

[novel panther]

☺️

Nice

Hahaha

Cold is not nice

[novel panther]

Awesome setup

[modest nebula]

I also have a small travel router on the other side acting as a wireless access point and a wireless client so I can access that PC over my home network or via the access point when I'm away from home. It's one of these https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt300n-v2/ running OpenWRT

[novel panther]

That’s cool

[queen thicket]

(sorry to butt in) This is true but you can also (lily myself) use a laptop outside and then use a tablet OR phone with a remote viewer to control it.
I use Teamviewer.
Full control of thr laptop.

[novel panther]

Its fine, yeah that’s cool maybe in the winter when its too cold although I do like being outside if the temperature is nice

[queen thicket]

Yeah it is nice to be under the stars just looking up.. Many hours I've spent just looking up while imaging.
I don't do cold very well so using Teamviewer is a good option for me.
I'd like to say that 16 degrees is my limit before I'd come in the house.
I live in the uk so it does get cold.
Over the year I have noticed an increase in iridium flares and starlink.

[novel panther]

Looking up is always so fascinating lol

Im in the Netherlands so the weather is not very different

With yours

[novel panther]

The satellites are very visible in the winter if your eyes are used to the dark

Its crazy how many satellites you can see

I entered astronomy in 2021 lol but I was so young and didn’t really have a budget but now I am 16 I have a bigger budget because I can work etc. And the last few years I just didn’t really do anything with astrophotography because I didn’t like my equipment, but I am making a comeback now

Ordered a very respected and good lens, as you can see want to upgrade my az gti which I am going to do in the coming weeks

[novel panther]

Can az gti with the cable in laptop dither?

[azure solar]

You would have to use blind dithering but yes

[queen thicket]

How do you mean?

[modest nebula]

he means without a guide scope

NINA has a built in "guider" than can dither without using PHD2 with guide scope

it's called "direct guider" and its sole purpose it to allow you to dither

[novel panther]

I mean dithering by software slewing the mount (that's what dithering is right?) each exposure

also do you guys think that this cable is fine: https://www.astroshop.be/data-kabels/ikarus-technologies-mount-usb-cable-az-gti-/p,78162

@modest nebula

I use APT to capture everything and they also do dithering by connecting to the mount

[modest nebula]

yes, use NINA direct guider and it will move the mount when you tell it to according to the scheduler

yes that cable is fine

[novel panther]

I have never used NINA tho, I heard that you can do quite some things with it

also never really looked at it

[modest nebula]

I've used NINA and have a lot of experience with KStar/Ekos. NINA is better

never used APT

[novel panther]

Can NINA also do imaging?

[modest nebula]

uh, yes

it will natively interface with your camera

(I think)

[novel panther]

Does not really surprise me but I have only heard about people using nina and then talking about their mount

[modest nebula]

NINA - nighttime imaging 'n' astronomy

[novel panther]

Ahhhh

Nice name

[novel panther]

So I thought it was some mount tool

and guide tool

[modest nebula]

nina will interface with a camera, mount, guider, focuser, rotator, etc

[novel panther]

Jeez thats cool

[modest nebula]

watch some Youtube videos

[novel panther]

Will do!

[novel panther]

I have bought the Wedge, counterweight and cable now

[modest nebula]

so shortly, you can contribute to this channel 🙂

I'm expecting this https://cdn.astrobin.com/thumbs/LMq5yqd48BX1_1824x0_esdlMP5Y.jpg

I shall be disappointed if I don't get that 😄

[queen thicket]

Yes between each or a chosen number of images it will dither.

[novel panther]

Nice thanks guys for the help!! I appreciate it a lot!

You guys are nice

[novel panther]

[modest nebula]

got a long way to go yet. Only about got half the data I need on the middle pane (lower part of this image)

[low mural]

This is looking real good! What did you use to mosaic? And what is the different exposure times on frames?

Also where have the clear sky skies gone?

[modest nebula]

top pane on that image is 13.5hrs, bottom is 5hrs. Mostly 600sec subs but a few 300sec. I'm going to add east veil to that mosaic and then I'm going to keep collecting until I get ~13hrs on each pane. I might then expand sideways to capture the edges

I used Siril to stack this. The latest alpha version has the beginnings of a mosaic option

to use it, stack each pane, crop it to remove artifacts, colour correct it using SPCC, remove background gradient. Then add each pane to a sequence, plate solve the sequence (make sure to tick get stars for each image), then you can register the images using the astrometric registration and maximum framing, then go stack

I think Siril devs are going to expand this facility to make it better for mosaics, but it works ok today

I think I'll put a how-to on my website

[modest nebula]

https://astro.wheep.co.uk/tutorials/mosaic/

[novel panther]

@modest nebula I got the package with the counterweight and wedge and eq cable but I thought the counterweight bar would fit but it doesn’t which bar would fit with the counterweight

I saw somewhere m12 or something

But wouldn’t that mean that the counterweight will not fit on

https://www.astroshop.be/gewichten/skywatcher-tegengewicht-star-adventurer-stang-met-contragewicht/p,45122

I bought that one because it was listed under az-gti

[tough scaffold]

@novel panther I think you need adapter like this

look at this topic https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/631581-sky-watcher-az-gti-mount-counterweight/

[novel panther]

Thanks!

Bruh the diy stores in the area don’t have such a thing lol

[modest nebula]

ebay?

Guys, I'm making one of these https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinonanodewcontrollerpro/ \o/

should be interesting project 🙂

[novel panther]

Does it matter what the direction is of this thingie

I still have to buy the m6 thing tho

Hahaha don’t look at that

Because I saw multiple people having it this direction but I saw few having another direction

[modest nebula]

you mean which side is the knob? that looks correct https://astro.wheep.co.uk/about/

would probably be fine the other way too once you tell the mount "this is home position"

[novel panther]

Ok thanks, I thought the wedge could move horizontally? Why can’t it

Oh I found it nevermind

it’s only really slow lol but that’s understandable

[modest nebula]

yeh 🙂

in my opinion, the method of moving sideways is a bit nasty, but most of the wedges are like that so I guess it's the accepted method

[novel panther]

Yeah it’s kinda weird

I am hoping that I can find a m12 in the diy store which still fits with the counterweight

That would be the easiest

[novel panther]

I fixed it by buying a thread

M12

[modest nebula]

threaded bar? that's what I did

[novel panther]

Yea I did that

I thought that it would work

And it did

Now I have to wait until good weather

[modest nebula]

you should still get a thread adapter from ebay. It will be neater but the threaded bar will work fine for now

[winged dove]

Ok, ive been trying to put together a travel AP setup with an AZGTI, running the latest firmware here’s what i was able to get with the hour of clear sky i had last night

Guiding is a real pain though, im using a zwo 30mm scope and a zwo 120 camera and phd2

My graphs are all over the place, i have tried, neutral balance, heave on scope side, heavy on weight side, and they all seem to be equally inconsistent

For that pic the scope was an old Meade 104mm SCT and a dslr (old rebel t1i)

I’ve tried lowering the aggression in phd2, playing with all the settings, ive got a good polar alignment (i use sharp cap for polar align) and the azgti is on the skywatcher wedge and pier extension, on a chunky carbon fiber tripod

Any tips or tricks to help?

The other scope is use is a WO z61, that one doesn’t care as much about guide tolerance

[modest nebula]

do you use a cable to connect the mount to you pc? or wifi?

what do you use as a mount driver? I use Green Swamp Server and it's better than Skywatcher or EQMOD

did you turn on backlash compensation in PHD2? Did you run the guiding assistant?

is your guide scope firmly attached to the scope with no flex?

these mounts are capable of consistent <1" guiding. Mine does it regularly depending on sky conditions

[winged dove]

Ooh, ok i use a cable
Im using eqmod driver for now (Ill definitely go check out green swamp)
I did turn on backlash compensation and had it measure in the guiding assistant
I’ll show some pics and if there’s any hardware help let me know!

Ok now that you mention it and i went and checked, maybe there is a little flex in the guide scope? Ill try and tighten things up for this evening, along with green swamp

[modest nebula]

perhaps remove the pier extension too?

[winged dove]

i can definitly test that too, i do need the height so i wonder which is worse, the extension or extending tripod legs.... should be a fun experiment

i can get sub 1 second guiding for 10-15 seconds, then slowly(over 30-40 seconds) dec will dip till it gets to 3-4 sec and it will jerk back to near zero

[tough scaffold]

You can disassemble mount and reduce some backlash. That's what i did once i got the mount. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgEzeXrhhEg

[winged dove]

Wow, how have i not seen this before, i really like CUIV. im doing this TONIGHT! thank you for the link!

[modest nebula]

luckily, I didn't need to do that

[tough scaffold]

This is how my graph looks like now. About 1 rms but got spikes sometimes

[winged dove]

Ok, i opened up my mount and poked around. I actually don’t think ill do what CUIV did quite yet, im not ready to mesh the work and ring gear, i just took out some slack from the gear train on the motor side. I may replace the springs with stiffer units, but i would worry about binding issues if i permanently meshed them with no relief.

I also tightened up my guide cam mount, and spent some time balancing everything well. I installed green swamp, and will try all of that tonight clouds willing

[winged dove]

Aaaand of course its the cloudiest night in a week or two

[tough scaffold]

did you paint yours? It adds 0.1 arcsec accuracy 😆

[modest nebula]

Red is faster too!

[tough scaffold]

@modest nebula Don't you want to try remote astronomy with my setup?) just for fun

[modest nebula]

that might be fun, but not tonight. I've had a hard day and I'm having a few beers. I'll probably break something 😄

[tough scaffold]

Ok) Have a great rest of the evening

[floral quarry]

I’ve just stumbled across this, how accurate can you get the az gti?

[winged dove]

Ok, i tried green swamp server, it sucked, lol. It kept turning tracking off and everything would go crazy

I did the spring replacement so it now has stiffer springs, and i tightened up the guide scope, and took my time leveling. In the 30 minutes of cloud free sky i got tonight, GSS kept shitting the bed. The last 5 minutes i went back to eqmod and it seemed more stable? I dunno, ill try again tomorrow with gss,

[potent turret]

weird gss works for me fine with the az-gti

[modest nebula]

yeh, for me GSS is much better than eqmod

[tough scaffold]

I am using gss too. There is 3d model tab, you can check if your mount pointed correctly at that tab, also check your gps data at gss settings. My mount only stopped tracking, when i had problem with cables.

Thinking of some box with actuators for my telescope for remote astronomy

[potent turret]

also eqmod did weird tings with my mount

it like slewed very worngly

couldint park

and guide

[modest nebula]

I got the Terrans onstep kit for my EXOS2. I've put the Evoguide on there for now so I can test it, but the plan is that the Evoguide will stay on the az-gti & some other bigger scope with go on the EXOS2

[azure solar]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/975845011260309587/1262085182316347413/image.png?ex=66954feb&is=6693fe6b&hm=338a9a37c86d64bf7a83f44d85b635238a9437b6ea23e27b8159cd0d0d7b65a9&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=678&height=676

22h in b3 🤤

[modest nebula]

wow nice. It must have been very dark because there's no stars 😄

[azure solar]

lol

[modest nebula]

I went to a camp site today for an event & noted that it's b4. I must plan a weekend there at some point 🙂

[azure solar]

in my case the stars (pun intended) aligned, I went to a kids camp or something to help my uncle with cooking for the entire week. I just setup the rig outside and left it there for the entire time

[modest nebula]

nice if you can guarantee the weather. Unfortunately, UK has a tendency to rain. I'd not even trust a clear sky forecast to not rain 😄

[azure solar]

I was surpised tbh, the entire week ended up being perfectly clear

[modest nebula]

nice

it's clear tonight so I get to try my onstep mount

[azure solar]

I want to image something else too but yesterday night a power loss caused my mini pc to go dumb

it doesn't go past the bios

data was safe at least, I was so worried I could have lost all data

[modest nebula]

it's time for a new pc then

[modest nebula]

this new mount is nice. way less than 1" on first light without even any PEC training yet 😄

I shall still use the az-gti often though. This one is big & heavy

[azure solar]

Remind me which mount you got? Eqm?

[azure solar]

Managed to make it work again

[modest nebula]

It's an old Bresser EXOS2 with a Terrans Onstep kit. This is an EQ5 class mount but it's got proper ball bearings throughout rather than just bushes like the Sky watcher ones

[azure solar]

Nice

Don't the recent eq5s also have a bunch of extra bearings?

[modest nebula]

Not sure about recent stuff. When I did my research, of all the EQ5 class mounts, the Bresser EXOS2 and Meade LXD75 had ball bearings on all axis (including the worm gears!), whilst the Skywatcher & Celestron had bearings on only 1 axis

HEQ5 is an entirely different mount

[azure solar]

When I regreased and tuned my eq5 the tutorial I followed was abou the most recent eq5, it had two bearings on the ra and one on the dec so maybe it's better than the eq5 you were looking at

[modest nebula]

perhaps. Mine has 2 on RA and 2 on Dec, and 2 on each worm

[modest nebula]

I chucked all my veil data together for testing the framing. Didn't spend any time on colour calibration or any kind of tweaks. I've not got enough data on the left & middle frames and I think I need to get more on top to increase fov a little. It's getting there but plenty more to do

[azure solar]

looks good, I have yet to try a proper mosaic

first and last time I tried the panels ended up being out of alignment

[azure solar]

how's this looking? I activated another pix trial and it's safe to say it's so much better than siril

I need someone to run blurx on it tho

[modest nebula]

looking good!

[modest nebula]

anyone imaging tonight?

[azure solar]

Nope, too much moon and haze

[modest nebula]

here's last night's effort, almost 3hrs of narrowband. Sadr is such a nice area to image

[hallow scaffold]

the NGC7000 i pictured with az gti in last year

[low mural]

Wow ive been so absent

He lack of clear night's has really demotivated me this year

Possible clear skies tonight. No idea what to image though...

[modest nebula]

clear for me perhaps tomorrow, perhaps Sunday. I'm going to try to get more of Sadr to make a mosaic

at least I'm now certain what I'm going to image when I'm in Wales, assuming sky is clear - NGC 7023 Ghost Nebula

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Yeah looking at the satellite, I may have clouds coming for an hour at 11. I'm not going to get frustrated and will wait until tomorrow when I have more chance. I'm not in the mood for clouds at the moment and I know it will put me off even more if the come over haha

I was thinking sadr but I don't think I'm ready to mosaic yet

Not sure it works as a single frame

Ooo ghost nebula, that's a challenging target is it not?

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yes but Snowdonia is B1

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What's the framing like on it?

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framing is good

actually, it's Iris Nebula, neighbour of Ghost

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Yeah I've tried iris and was really disappointed 😂 that was with the imx178 though

Tbh I don't mind this frame of sadr

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https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1264238735160115211

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Might try that tomorrow but the star is challenging

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that's same area that I did, but different rotation

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That dust is what will be challenging!

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If you rotate 90o, that's my framing

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So you did it this way to avoid the star? Did you not get any reflections from it?

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yeh more or less, see above

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Yeah that's nice! I think last year when I did it I had to crop the star out because it was so hars to work with

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Sadr is so bright I'll probably get halo. Thing is, I want my mosaic to head in that direction so I'll need to deal with that. I'll probably get some RGB just for the star & then get creative with Gimp

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Yeah for sure!

I just need a 3 night stint of clear skies to bring the motivation back up 😂

I actually chose to spend my saved £200 for a telescope because I was so annoyed at the lack of clear skies 😂

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I've been imaging until 3am or later when I get a clear night

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Yeah tough when you have to do school runs 😂 that being said, it's the summer hols now 👀