Quote:
Originally Posted by tim.stephens
Thanks Colin but honestly, skill has nothing to do with it... Lightroom is almost idiot proof now :-)
I think if I were to improve on imaging at the moment, reducing the vignette with (better) flats and improving my star shape with a flattener would be top of the list. I've got my eye on one of the GSO RC8's in the near future perhaps. While I might be increasing my FL for these tiny objects and reducing the CA, I'm worried the added hassle of collimation may not outweigh the benefits. Don't have a lot of money to spend on a high quality refractor so I have to compromise somewhere unfortunately.
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One good flat should remove the vignette but will begin to introduce more noise into your images, so it is better to take more. I typically take 25, some do more, others do less. Shiraz says as many flats as there are lights as a rule of thumb.
A flattener will help kill all of that curvature, amazing the difference that it can make.
A few months back I was considering the GSO RC8 and decided against it for the very reason that you mentioned, the collimation AND I wanted to keep away from those diffraction spikes
Ended up going with a 130mm refractor while I am JUST starting to get used to after 1-2 months. The GSO RC8 does have a focal length of ~1600mm, if you wanted to go down a cheaper path you could go with a 8-10" Newtonian Astrograph, they come in either F/4 or F/5 typically, far easier to collimate than the RC8 I believe. If you get a newtonian you'll need a coma reducer, Baader do a really good one for ~$300 I believe.