Well done! The fun is in the experimenting!!!

I think you are headed in the right direction by dialing up the ISO and exposure time down. The difference in the glass BTW, besides 1600 dollars in price spread - is the 70x200 F/2.8 is so superior in every way!

Now, my guess is there is something wrong with your other lens....at 10mm and F/4.5 everything from 2 ft to infinity should be in focus. One thing you can try, trip pod your camera outside and 10 ft away take a yard stick and lean it against something so that it is on a 45 degree angle with the one inch mark closest to you and the 36 furtherest away. Take a red marker and mark the 18 inch mark to make it easier to see and focus on it. Take a picture while focusing on the red 18 inch mark. Then load the picture in LR or PS and see if the 18 inch mark is in focus....if not, scroll up and down the ruler to see where focus it obtained if at all.....if the focus is achieved in the 19 or up area you have back focus problems......or 17 inch and back to you front focus. Nikon and all companies calibrate their lens to work with all camera bodies....but it is not a perfect world. I have had to calibrate all of my bodies to the lens I use most. You have settings in your camera that will allow you to do this.

If you cannot focus achieve anywhere up and down the ruler, take a pencil eraser and clean the contacts on both your camera and lens - this is where the camera and lens connect. Just lightly run each of the metal contacts and be sure to blow off the area . I routinely do this to eliminate "on site" focus issues. If you still cannot achieve focus anywhere up and down the ruler. The lens is not communicating with the camera and needs to be serviced and if new, returned.

I have posted a pic of the calibration tool I use for calibrating my lens/cameras.

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I assume that you shot this on a fixed tripod - 30 second exposure at about 1600 ISO. Your stars are not out of focus in this image....what has happened is you have motion blur. The stars moved enough in your 30 second exposure to look oblong.


That's my two cents!

I thank Pixel Math and the advice/criticism/suggestions of so many PixInsight users for any progress I may have made! I have all but eliminated PS.

Thank you Ed for the kind words......not too sure I can BUY "too old to face the learning curve" - I begin this hobby 5 years ago at age 68.....and at that time I didn't know which end of the telescope to look through! Since you are looking through the telescope...you might as well find an adapter for your telescope and connect whatever camera you now own. My guess you will be off and running!

That is good news - hope the cable puts an end to lost clear sky nights. I have been imaging with two systems at a time on different targets and have (knock on wood) not had any serious malfunctions. Those are inevitable and part of the hobby....but so far so good.

I did have both of my Atlas Pro mounts hypertuned by DEEPSPACEPRODUCTS..... and can't say that I see that big of a difference but it may be that I would be fumbling around with guiding problems had I not had that done.

I got the AVX mount out last week with the SCT 8 inch to see if it was still working and low and behold - even that worked ok ...so those two nights I had three kits imaging. Sorta had a one man star party.

This is the Devils Head, NGC7822. Not a lot of detail.....but I ran out of imaging time. 50, 3 minute exposures of Ha, 30, 3 minute OIII, and 30, 3 minute SII. When I get another clear sky night I will add another 40 of each as there is a lot of missing detail.

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Bloody brilliant - seriously - I just looked and there is a serious smudge. Not too sure how I will clean it but appreciate your help! I clean my camera DSLR sensors but that is, for the most part, dust. This smudge will take a little research and will probably end up with my breath and magic fiber cloth

Of the three images - Orion was taken with the Atik383L OSC - I am not a fan of this camera but decided to give it a whirl, again. I mounted it on the AT65EDQ ...a sweet refractor. I took 100, 3 minute images plus supporting files and processed in PixInsight.

The other two images were all taken with the SV70T refractor plus .8 reducer using Ha 6nm, OIII 6nm, and SII 6nm filters.

The Jellyfish Nebula was 15 hours of narrowband 5 hours of each....plus supporting files.

One thing I am curious about are the diffraction spikes in the M42 Orion/Horsehead image. I am use to these when using a NEWT but not a refractor - esp a wide wide field. Not sure how this is happening unless the Atik is have a problem with light bouncing down the tube.

All images were processing in PixInsight.

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Nicely done!

Way to go!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and some great family time over the holidays!

Humm.........have you called Ron Newman at Moonlite. He walked me through some issues I had. I have three of these focusers and SGP has been spot on focusing. Now I don't fool with creating offsets for each filter. The way I see it......that is a waste of time. It is far more accurate and easier to run the focuser every 5 degree change in temp and filter change. Now to do that you have to be tied in to local weather on SGP which is easy to do. So far....all three systems have done well when applying those scripts.

Considering you have come a long way - you will soon have it ALL figured out!

Although clouds will be hit and miss.....this Saturday through Tuesday is looking pretty decent. I will be forced to use NB filters (moon). I will see if I can add some more Rosette and start on the JellyFish nebula. These long nights are awesome! ..and thanks for the kind remarks!

Merry Christmas

Cool!

I added another 4 hours of imaging time - I now have over 20 hours invested in this not including the time to take the RGB stars ....and I went ahead and removed the stars on the NB image and added the RGB stars.....not too sure if was worth the time it takes to do that.

Rain is due in tomorrow and it looks like late Saturday night will be the first of 3 days of minimal clouds - I plan to revisit the Rosette and add another 10 hours or so clouds permitting. Really curious to see what happens with 20 plus hours of imaging time.

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