Are you running Windows or Mac? And which version of Siril are you running?

The Rosette Nebula is about 25 degrees to the left of Orion. On the celestial sphere it's at the same declination as Orion's belt.

It's to the left the constellation Orion. About 20 to 25 degrees. About 5 degrees past the Rosette Nebula. It's close to the feet of the constellation Gemini.

It's NGC 2264 I believe.

Great! Glad you found it helpful!

I haven't mostly because I'm on an older version of the firmware. I've seen the results of the new firmware, and it looks interesting.

Hi Tariq! You can always combine things like that. Are you talking about putting a plane in front of the moon, or taking a photo of a plane crossing the moon and putting it elsewhere?

That's a reasonable question. Depending on the quality of the data (in my case: pretty low due to heavy light pollution), it's can be a challenge to bring out faint details in the target without bringing up the brightness of the sky. There are ways of fixing, or at least mitigating that, with other tools. I really need to put out an updated video going into that.

I appreciate your point. To be honest, if you're just taking images off the scope and there aren't any issues you need to work around, it doesn't take much if anything to tweak them. And there are a lot of people who use image processing software for tweaking their astro photos, especially for the final stages. Even if it wasn't your cup of tea, thanks for the comment and the final bit, too.

You're welcome!

I forget the technique I used for extreme matching issues, but a lot of times I just decrease the number of matched stars. I actually sometimes run it as low as 5 stars to match. I would try that. If that doesn't help... let me know and I'll try to remember the other method I used.

@@erewhon42 That helped. I did minimum star points 4 and selected on " match stars in selection" however out of 500 only 344 was taken. anyways to close the gap to less discarded ?

@@JeremiahThomas-y8g Great! That's a big improvement! I'm still trying to remember what I used for this one particular data set. I think I might have tried a different transformation (to Euclidean, perhaps?). I don't remember if I changed the registration channel.

I'm using Seestar Alp, an open source project.

Yes! I will talk about both of those during the live stream tonight. Both of them could be very impressive comets.

Glad you liked it! Thanks!

Yes, unfortunately I'm in Bortle 9 skies. And a pretty bad Bortle 9. So it takes a long time for me to get results. But that makes it easier to have mishaps.

@@erewhon42 so the only way to get dark images that barely need processing is to be in a dark sky then with an EQ mount

@@hmuphilly9129 I guess it depends. Not only do I have Bortle 9 skies, I have a lot of buildings to deal with around me. So I can't image on a single target for that long. You can get good results with urban and suburban skies without much processing. If the subframes aren't in bad shape, you can automate a lot of the processing.

Thanks! Glad you found it helpful!

Great! Thanks! I will definitely check it out. Appreciate it!

Sadly it didn't. But that's a great idea! :-)

You're welcome! Although there is a lot being added by others. I'm probably going to do a live stream Thursday evening, and I'll have even more to show.

These days I'm usually using the open source Seestar Alp software to control it (github.com/smart-underworld/seestar_alp). I also sometimes use the iPad version of the Seestar app running on my M1 Mac. That works fine. For the live stream, I actually use a hardware encoder, but I've also used ECamm Live and OBS.

It was to the east. It should be low towards the east right after sunset, but it hadn't risen behind the buildings in my backyard. Saturn is actually next to the lower part of the constellation.

Well, just from personal experience: planes are a big problem where I live. But then I also miscalculate how long I should leave the exposure going, and I'll get a neighbor's roof or tree. Sometimes clouds roll through too. In both cases, if there are still some stars visible, the Seestar will include it in the stack and really start messing up the image quality.

The disk image? I used the Pi Lite image. That was probably the biggest thing. I also compressed it using "xz" which takes longer but results in a smaller file than "gz". But the biggest thing was that I used the Lite image. (With no desktop environment.)

@@erewhon42 Thanks.After you install alpyca and seestar_alp, how you create the image, you used like win32diskimager and then zip with "xz"?Or you used some software like PiBakery, rpi-clone,PiShrink or pi-safe or DD command?

@@ticoq179 To actually create the image? I use a tool call SDM (github.com/gitbls/sdm) which lets me script building the image and make it reproducible. It also lets you start up the image via an emulator. After the image is built, I use xz to compress the image. I need to update the repository I created with scripts to build the image.

Sorry about that, and thanks for pointing that out! It looks ok to me, but it might be a problem with some of my CSS and dark mode. I need to look over it. Thanks!

That was the prediction. But it struck me as the kind of thing where it could be plus or minus a few weeks. Of course, if it doesn't end up going nova... that would be disappointing.

The fastest way to transfer files is to plug your Seestar into your computer. It will show up as a drive, and then you can copy the files. (It works this was on Mac or Windows.). Alternatively, if your Seestar is on your home Wifi network (station mode), it will show up as a network device "SEESTAR". You can connect to it in Finder / Explorer and copy files that way. It's a lot slower over Wifi, but it works.

great!

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

It's pretty low to the south right after sunset. At least after sunset here. It's in southern sky, so it would probably be hard to see in northern US or Europe.

You can still have mishaps, but yes, on the whole things will probably be better all around. I've seen some photos from the Seestar from Bortle 3 or 4 even and in some cases the results seem better than what I get in just a fraction of the time. Of course, when you have a lot of good data, you'll probably want to spend just as much time really making it pop.

@@erewhon42 Moonlight and or planet glare?

@@hmuphilly9129 Well, it depends on the target. The moon will definitely wash things out, but people get good results even when the moon is up. So long as what you're imaging isn't too close to the moon in the sky.

@@erewhon42 I head planet glare is a form of light pollution in dark sky locations thanks for the replies.

Dinner with a friend sounds like a good way to spend an evening! And yes good progress on the web app. I hope to clean up some of the rough edges today and live stream again tomorrow.

@@erewhon42 I look forward to seeing it!!!

Right now you have to ssh into the box to update it. It should be a checked out version of the code, so if you go the seestar_alp directory, you should be able to run "git pull". I think that will work. I don't have mine running at the moment. I need to check that out. Also, I do want to eventually make sure everything can be done via a web interface. I'll make a note about supporting auto update via the web interface.

What target were you imaging? How many subframes? I have had some registration issues with some targets because it can't match enough stars.

Hi there! Glad you got it working! That's great. And glad you found the videos useful. SSC doesn't make the mosaic. Seestar Alp should have caused the Seestar to save the frames in a bunch of panel-specific directories. <target>_11-sub, <target>_12-sub, <target>_21-sub, etc. The method most people have been using is to take each panel and do the beginning of a process with each one: stack, crop, and gradient removal and noise reduction I think. But do _not_ stretch at this point. Then once you have each panel prepped, use ASTAP. (www.hnsky.org/astap.htm). You can load the panels in there and it will generate the mosaic. Then you can do the remaining processing. (I really need to do a video on this!) When you export the schedule, it _should_ go into your browser downloads directory. (It's a small file and it happens quickly.)

@@erewhon42 I made a mosaic from last night's photos with Microsoft ICE. I just used JPGs for this test, it doesn't work with FITS files. I have another question. I assume that one must do a mosaic all in one session. Is that correct? Or is there a way to do a row per night or something like that? Thanks

@@darwintea Microsoft ICE is another tool I've heard people use. Even if you were just using JPGs, at least it allows you to see if your overlap settings are good. You could potentially do a mosaic over multiple nights, but you'd have to adjust the central coordinates of the mosaic each night. (i.e. center of row one on night one, center of row two on night two.). Now, with field rotation I'm not sure how it would work. What I've been doing is the entire mosaic each night. I export the schedule and just reload it on subsequent nights. It won't be exactly the same, since I manually kick it off. But if I had the schedule kick off at a fixed time it would be very similar from night-to-night.

@@erewhon42 What I have done is load the panels into Siril and save them as TIF files. That lets me make the mocais with ICE. Then I load that back into Siril. It seems to work. As for the multiple night mosaics, I thought I could use the same one. Use the first panel on the first nigh. On the second night, let it start and stop it and SeeStar ALP should start the second one, right? And just keep doing that every night. Do you think that would work? I did a 2x2 mosaic of M31 last night and was pretty happy with it. One hour for each panel. I use an equatorial wedge and spoof my location to the north pole, so there is no rotation. I really appreciate you teaching me how to get SeeStar ALP running. It really is a game changer

@@darwintea Oh, I see what you're saying. Hm. It might work for skipping the panels. Basically. Glad you're getting good results. Equatorial really makes things better, especially when it comes to longer sessions and field rotation. And glad I could help get you started with Seestar Alp!

Elephant's Trunk Nebula is in Cepheus. Right now for me it's pretty high in the sky to the Northwest.