Astro June another new camera 4K

New camera and trying guiding for the first time, lots to learn and not much chance to get out with the weather recently. I only got the back focus right last night but have not been able to get any shots yet. With the bigger sensor on the 2600 vignetting is a problem and the moon has been bright each time I have had a chance to get outside so not a fair sample of the new set ups capability.

[@liveandletlive8264]

😲Aa so nice !! 🙋‍♂️from Croatia !🙏❤

[@KJRitch]

Interesting usage of the 533. Giant guide camera. Have you got guiding to work reliably to increase your exposures with this setup? What average RMS guiding error does ASIAir report? Still processing with Affinity? I'd be interested in you rworkflow using Affinity after stacking. I've been testing some of the stretching macros on my OSC data of galaxies and find with some of them I can't get good background extraction. In Cloudy Nights I have added some posts to a thread "Astrophotography Macros for Affinity Photo" in the Vendor and Group Announcement forums. I was hoping James Ritson would frequent this forum to answer some of my questions but I guess he's too busy with other activities probably due to Serif being acquired and astrophotography features are not high priority. Have a look at that thread if you use Cloudy Nights. Thanks.

[@stevemiller3128]

Hi again, as I said in the video the weather has not been very helpful so most sessions have been a failure due to cloud, others only a few shots as there were only small gaps in the clouds but it allowed me to eventually get the back focus right and prove the guiding works. The bloke at the telescope shop advised that a colour camera is not ideal as a guide camera so I wasn’t expecting too much. However so far it seems to pick up the stars quite quickly and start guiding, finds them again after a cloud and seems to guide in the under 2” range. I suspect the backlash in the mount may be the biggest cause. Have taken 1min and 2min subs without issue, but with the patchy sky reverted to 60sec subs as that way I got more between the clouds. Also I have changed my processing as (and it was probably mostly the full moon) had vignetting and a big central hot spot. Tried using flats but so far that over compensates and I end up with a dark centre and bright ring around the edge. Have resorted to just stacking and then “live stretch” in affinity as it allows me to work out the green tinge that seems to be inherent to this camera. There is probably a bit of colimation to sort out. With the G9M2 and 533 I had no issue with background extraction buy with the gradient on the new camera I can’t get it to work yet. I am hoping that once the moon is gone , and cloud, I might get some clean shots to process and I will try longer exposures say 3 min for a start.

[@AstroSoundscape]

Hey Steve - Youve made a nice start with these the 2600 is a great camera. Not sure what you're applying to your images but flats should take care of the vignetting and of course darks to get rig of any hot pixels. Which telescope is this and what is the focal length of your guidescope. Clear skies 👍

[@stevemiller3128]

Hi, so far any flats I have tried make it worse, over correcting. The guide scope is stated as 900mm but ASI reports it as 700mm the shots were taken on the C8 with 6.3 reducer so 1280mm. I have an IR cut filter and Optolong L extreme on the way so that will be interesting. The thing I need most is some clear nights to get more time actually using the gear, the back focus is right now, I think, so getting the guiding settings right and perhaps tweaking the columation and of course trying new things when processing.