[wayne anderson (Wayne)]

Thanks Pat, I added more flats in the stack and it does work just a little better.

Thanks Richard, I took your advice on using darks, flats and bias, I followed the instructions on the DSS help files for the flats this time by placing a white T-shirt over the front of scope and pointed it toward a dimable light source to get just the right amount of exposure, it made a small but noticable improvement to the final shot but there was still vignetting but not as bad as before.

Thanks Christopher, definitly try your reducer I found it was vastly better than without. With alt/az photos I found that the DSS software takes out the the rotation when processing but it does have limitations if you are shooting close to the zenith point rotation is more noticable and results in bloated stars in the final photo also if I go from 25sec exposure to 30sec there is also a little bloating of stars.

Hi Ken and Chris, I have been researching on several forums the use of Meade f6.3 reducer and optimal spacing I have not varified this with experimenting yet but I found it stated that the optimal spacing between the reducer and the chip is 110mm to 115mm mine just happens to be 115mm and the optimal spacing from the rear cell to the reducer seems to vary greatly depending on the individule scope, some posts have stated it to also be 110 to 115mm for the LX200gps models, this seems to make sense as the distance from the rear cell to the end of the zero image shift focuser is about 115mm. The instructions with the reducer states to attach the reducer to the rear cell SCT thread (this is what I have done) however the instruction with the scope state to attach the reducer to the end of the focuser with the SCT thread adapter that I don't seem to have.

I am at this moment experimenting with processing settings if I get a good result I will post it here with details.

Thanks everyone for your help, I will keep experimenting and researching.