My plan was to add some more exposure time to the Rosette that I took last week.....but got sidetracked when i saw the Tadpole on Astrobin and decided I wanted to give that a try. One of reasons was I could start at 7 and shoot until 5 the next day. I imaged Sunday and Monday night.

I have not processed the RGB stars yet and when I do I will remove these mushy looking things and add the RGB ones.

This is 120 Ha, 120, OIII, and 120 SII - each 3minutes...plus 100 bias, 150 flats, and 30 darks - also taken - 30 R, 30, G, and 30 B each 10 seconds.

The target, IC410 Tadpole Nebula. It is too widefield to see the Tadpoles but that part of the sky ...though feint and a truckload of nebula to image. It was a surprize to see it.

I used the Stellarvue 70T, ASI1600MM-C camera, Astronomik Filters 6nm, an an Atlas Pro Mount.

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You are starting out doing the right thing.....visit the astronomy forums - read reviews and ask questions.

Then, when you are ready to pull the trigger on your first purchase - buy your wife a dozen roses - any wife that gives her husband a 3,000 Christmas budget is a saint!

Most of us have to hide our crap in the trunk of the car until it is safe to bring into the house! ....and practice saying, "hey honey, look what I found on the side of the road! Can't believe someone would throw that away"

Kidding, not sure why I wrote that, my wife could give a rip what I buy as long as she has a checkbook and Amex card.

Welcome to a terrific hobby - cherish the hair you have as you will soon be pulling it out.

Clear skies and Cheers as my friends across the pond say!

Well done!!!

Actually, a decent DSLR and lens on a decent mount can take some terrific pictures. Focal lengths from 35mm to 400mm are a super range for wide field deep space photography. I shot with a Nikon D800e and D810a for several years and was REAL reluctant to put it down for CCD/mono.

This a 5 or 6 year old image taken using a Nikon D800e, 200x400 Nikon lens on a Celestron AVX mount and it remains one of my favorites.

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Not with narrowband. It does not help. Now, in PixInsight ..when I am processing ...the first thing I do after combining into an RGB image is create a luminance image (extract one from the RGB image)....and the second to the last thing I do is apply that luminance image using LRGB.......when I do that, the image loses some contrast so the last thing I do is apply an S curve to correct for that. The only time I shoot for Luminance is when I am shooting RGB.

I sorta have a permanent setup. These mounts stay put along with the OTA's ..I cover with Gizmos and leave them up year around....but I also two other portable mounts, Celestron AVX and ZEQ25 that I setup for both visual and solar...usually in the front drive way. Our HOA does not allow outbuildings like what I need.

...and hello neighbor....if you are in our neck of the woods, stop by and I will give you a tour.

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I had a 6 hour window last night - clouds have returned! It is crazy lousy how many few clear sky nights we have! At any rate, this is the Rosette - NGC2238. 120 exposures, each 180 seconds - 40 Ha, 40 OIII, and 40 SII. I plan to add another 120 (also some RBG for stars) when the clouds/rain leaves. Camera, ASI1600MM-C on the Stellarvue 70T with a .8 reducer/flattener. Filters were Astronomik 7nm. The stars have issues but I plan to remove them and add RGB stars on the next imaging round. I will post this work-in-progress as soon as I get the additional images on this thread.

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Whoa! I am running autofocus routines throughout the night...especially when the temp changes ~3 degrees, which is every night. I run it with every filter change as well. It is the first thing I do before running a sequence and it changes a few steps each time I do.

Have you called Ron Newman at Moonlight? His number is Ron Newman (570) 437-2232. I had a little trouble getting the driver to work and he walked me through it. I have been using their focusers on three different kits without issues in SGP. Sounds like a driver problem to me.

We have a couple inches....not much. I am ready to image tomorrow night....Tuesday. The forecast says It will be ok ..not great skies but doable.... if the weather holds.

Both Levels and Curves and luminosity masks. Yep!

I forgot the poncho - left in car when I decided to consolidate gear at the last minute into two bags....that was a huge mistake. I was drenched by gametime, cold, miserable, and hated both photography and football by halftime so I left. The paper was bummed that I didn't get post game shots...esp of Dabo, Travis Entienne, and Trevor Lawrence. So, I was the only fool that didn't have rain gear on. The only plus to photographing a game in the rain is that you never have to take a pee break during the game.

The star field is driving me nuts.....plus the brights are not bright enough and darks have gradient issues. When that happens for me it's off to photoshop.

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Nice work!

Maybe this will make you chuckle!

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One of the better moon shots posted anywhere! N I C E !!

I don't think I have ever used any of the other Topaz products - excepting denoise and remask! I have had their suite of plugins for years and have left the rest alone. I will revisit!

BTW, "remask" is by far one of the best selection tools. Does an awesome some of selecting foregrounds (including hair and smoke) off of any background. I bought the suite because of remask....and then started using denoise when someone on this forum was touting it's excellence.I think that was you Jim.I will have to give ai clear a spin.