stepping beyond Loc: usa eastcoast

I think Winter is already hear after Michael , from Summer to Winter . I can accept that woohoo.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

I know you don't think much of my opinion but I must add this is some good work!

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

You're Welcome, John!
It is a Beautiful image!

The induced vibration was something I learned when I had to do my really long single exposures with my Orion GIII camera.
If a fly farted nearby, it showed up in the image.
I got to using "Sniper still" when doing those old picturds. No movement, regulated breathing, perfectly still.
But like I said, now I'm a remotest. And a lot warmer at night, too.
And the Infinity is far and away a better camera for me.

I figured I would beat my modest DSLR to death if I had used it.
So I decided to learn with Astro Cameras. (I guess I like boulders in my climb up the learning curve. )

northcoast42 Loc: Puget Sound, Washington

It's not that I don't think much of your opinion, you probably know more than I do about astrophotography. What I had a real problem with was your overt and public assumption, accusation of fraud and absolute rejection of my honest explanation...you didn't bother to ask, you accused and made yourself judge and jury when it could have been handled with a single polite question and/or request. That's what I didn't think much of. That aside, thank you for your compliment.

northcoast42 Loc: Puget Sound, Washington

You make an excellent point Sonny. Thanks to you I think I've discovered the source of why some of my images show elongated stars and some show round stars despite the fact that they are of the same exposure lengths. I haven't automated my processes yet so I found myself doing a lot of walking between the house and the telescope during exposures. I just didn't think about the vibration that my steps might send to the telescope but I think that's exactly what happened. Ahh...the learning curve....I don't suppose I'll ever venture onto a straight-away. BTW...do you have any recommendations for a good dedicated deep sky astro camera? I'm thinking DSLRs just aren't optimum for this sort of thing.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

You are right! I cannot disagree with a word you just wrote! Not too sure what else I could say other than - I totally wish I would have handled it differently......and I wouldn't have ended up causing this mess. But that being said - you are doing some nice work with your DS photography!

northcoast42 Loc: Puget Sound, Washington

Thank you. Apology accepted. I'm still a newbie at deep space imaging. I think I need a different camera than the DSLR I'm using and I need to start guiding instead of just tracking...still waiting on a replacement control panel for my LX850. I haven't even looked into different filters and what they can do...just starting out. The planets won't be in descent positions from 47N until at least 2020 (for Mars) and 2023 for Jupiter and Saturn so I have lots of time to focus on deep space imaging. So many targets, so much to learn....

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

I started with a Nikon D800e....then had it modified with a heat reduction system by Spencers. I had made up my mind I would never go mono. IE, my handle Nikon Shooter. I bought an Atik 383L OSC CCD camera and my Nikon out performed the Atik which I still have and don't use. I have used it several time in the last year only to get frustrated with the quality of the signal. I added the Nikon D810a .....which has some nice bells and whistles but my D810e with the heat reduction system rendered a better signal. So in a weak moment I added the ASI1600MM-C mono camera....and together with Astronomik filters have not used a Nikon since.

I wish I had some of the money I have spent on "poorly thought out purchases" but that was then and not to much I can do about it now.

So best advice -> research. From my little part of the world that biggest advantage of the mono narrowband imaging is the signal you can still get in light polluted skies. Even the full moon (I rather not have one) but it is not a detriment to getting good signal when using NB filters. So when I do have a decent night..... I have no reason not to image in NB unless I have to work.

Lastly, thanks for your response!

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Best advice I could give anyone doing up pictures is to: watch these two videos on how to PhD2 guide and either add Astrotortilla (Plate Solving) or spend the money for Sequence Generator Pro. I do not know the stars in the sky....I am better now than I was but navigating the sky is not my strong suit. Once I got Plate Solving down....I took my finder scope off. When I go out to image. After polar alignment - it takes me less than 5 minutes to boot up software, cool the camera TEC, and be centered on target. I do setup the sequence beforehand using Sequence Generator Pro. Before platesolving it took me an hour to run the Star Alignment procedures....center the target and begin imaging. Also, when I use multiple nights to image....plate solving will return you to the precise part of the sky you were at the night before....pixel on pixel.

I bought two 360 gizmos (scope covers) and can't brag enough about them. I leave my two kits up year around (we just went through two hurricanes) and they did awesome. So I don't polar align anymore either.

These two videos are will done - easy to follow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRY2jN3xTBQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--y1mk_ylSo

Also, Glenn Newell helped me to setup Astrotortilla and I would watch all of his videos....he has some great pointers. His videos are awesome... He addresses PhD2 as well...in fact he leaves nothing out. He also uses a DSLR and Backyard EOS. I used Backyard EOS for Nikon for a long time until I switched to Sequence Generator Pro.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzKIrQdzoy9n-s1VYaFOLJA/videos

Great videos to watch when you are itching to image but the skies say otherwise.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Sorry for being so tardy to reply.
No, I am far to narrow and inexperienced with Astro Cameras to advise on which one.
I can, however, point to the members here who have a great deal of experiences with a wide spectrum of different pieces of hardware, and wide ranges of far greater successes than I.
JimH123, Bwana, and several others here seem to collect different Astro Cameras, and use them successfully. I would recommend PM'ing them for specialized specific answers.
As a Po Boy I tend to take whatever is at hand, or my choice, then make a Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear.
For my simplistic approach, and my lazy ways, the Atik Infinity has proven to be stellar for me. (No pun intended ) I can usually tell if a given night will be good, or poor, for imaging. Poor nights are often used for practice or fine tuning, if not just ignored.
But not being able, or willing, to buy and try a myriad of offerings, I take what I have then wring out the last drop of capability of it. The G III was a marginal choice in bottom end cameras. But I did manage to eek out some pictures with it until it finally died altogether.
Many of my Friends here on UHH tried their hand at the data from the G III, but most realized it was just too crummy to work with.
I do admire the work I see presented by many here with their choices of equipment. Some amazing imagery! But my capabilities are to take the bottom end, then do my best with it.
But I have a great deal of fun along the way.

Many of the new "Hot Ticket" Cameras are, as I expected, CMOS type of sensors. CMOS is overtaking the tried and true CCD types. What I was watching and waiting for was the CMOS to come out with cooled sensor versions.
CCD's have been cooled for years now. CMOS's are finally coming of age, IMHO.
I am, and remain, a Post Processing Minimalist. I don't like manufactured images. I did not like Photo-shopped pictures in the 1990's, and don't like re-manufactured images today. But the razzel-dazzel crowd seems to.
A prime example is the well known Hubble Telescope images. They are, or were, all Monochrome (Black and White) images. Then they were colorized by laboratory processes. The colors were manufactured into them.
Kinda pops the bubble for me. I can't believe what I'm seeing in the image. I can say you can find thousands of examples of green moons on the Internet. But you will never see one looking up at it.
So my choice is to get it right in the camera, with a color matrix, and to do as minimal of PP as I can.

If you do choose to use a Monochrome sensor and filters, you do need to also consider focusing for each filter change because you are putting a different element into the light entering the camera. So for that, best to consider an electronic filter wheel, and an electronic focuser.
I built my own electronic focuser and control it remotely. Ronnie and I collaborated about remote operation and he helped me become a WiFi Astronomer. My laptop was my outside computer. But when it died, my "new" Baby Dell 2-in-1 computer now does that detail. And being a late generation, it does WiFi much better than my old laptop did.
But I like being able to run everything at the mount with the Baby Dell to do alignments, or do a Tight Vnc connect and have a virtual screen indoors.
If you'd like help doing a computer control for a mount, I'd be happy to share what I know about it.
But it stops the walking around the mount, and can give you fine focusing control without contact with the mount at all. Cool as a pocket on a shirt.

DickC Loc: NE Washington state

That's an awesome photo, thanks for sharing!!!