HA 40 x 300s
OIII 40 x 300s
R 20 x 40s
G 20 x 40s
B 20 x 40s
Hy first HOO image with RGB stars. I'm on the early, very steep part of the learning curve so I had to learn how to do a number of things for the first time. Combining the stars with my starless image towards the end was particularly difficult and did not give me the result I was hoping for, so I need to learn how to do this better. The Starless image had significantly more nebulosity towards the 'tail end' but this got almost totally obscured when I added in the stars. I used Pixinsight almost exclusively, so perhaps learning more Photoshop or Pixelmath is my next challenge ...
One problem I did overcome was sorting out guiding, and in an unexpected way. I purchased a lightly used Avalon linear (Synscan version from 2014/2015) ) mount pre Covid, externally in excellent condition. However, I had not managed to consistently guide with it over the last year, no matter what I tried and that, after spending long hours troubleshooting everything from PHD, balance, wind, cable drag, differential flexure etc. guiding was erratic doing from good to very poor in an instant. This was contrary to my expectation from this mount and I was close to giving up on it when I saw an interesting post on Cloudy nights about the polyurethane belts of early models disintegrating. I opened the RA and Dec plates and was stunned to find that the yellow polyurethane belts on both axis were disintegrating, some quite far gone, literally thin threads remaining. I was relieved to have found a solution. Avalon sent me a new set of belts without any question and at no cost (for the belts) that were relatively easy to instal. Guiding is now excellent and consistent. What a change in experience. Stars are round, all is good
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Hope you enjoy. Comments welcome.
Best wishes and CS
Philip
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