[bluescope]

Originally Posted by jase

Good effort Steve. Pleased to see you back at it. I feel you need to get that ST2k working for you a little better. Subs are too short. Are you guiding yet?

While light pollution can be a major issue, try to work with it. Go long on your subs and get acquainted with handling gradients in your image processing routine. There are many methods to neutralise/desaturate the background. Of course, imaging from dark pristine skies is always very rewarding, you can equally achieve great results from the burbs with patience.

Keep at it. Look forward to seeing more in the future.

Cheers

Thanks Jase ..... I know the subs are short and that's a big part of the poor quality images. I'm still using track and acumulate mode in CCDOP's which I think uses a guide star ( I have to select one before imaging begins ). I've tried self guiding mode and it doesn't seem to do what I would expect .... crappy results with bad trailing etc. I wish some of you guys were just around the corner it's a bit hard across the continent.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Steve,

Just a few tweaks and we'll have you pumping out awsome imagery.

You need to obtain better flats. I recommend median twilight sky flats at about 30% full well capacity.

The camera self guides, so why such short sub exposures? 5 minutes is my bare minimum, just make sure you have corresponding darks.

Spend a bit more time getting accurate focus, and DDP RGB combine will do wonders for the contrast.

Hope all that makes sense!

Peter

Cheers Peter, I get what you mean. I answered Jase regards self guiding. When you say 30% full well flats do you achieve that by adjusting exposure time ?