Was able to go out the other evening even just for a short time. 27x 1 minute exposures, 20 Bias frames. pre-processed, calibrated and stacked in SiriL. Stretched in FitsLiberator3 then the RGB channels recombined in Affinity Photo.

I was having tracking errors. I need to re-tune my mount today. It sounded a bit rough while slewing during star align and I knew I'd have errors despite good polar alignment.

[Adam]

Was able to go out the other evening even just for a short time. 27x 1 minute exposures, 20 Bias frames. pre-processed, calibrated and stacked in SiriL. Stretched in FitsLiberator3 then the RGB channels recombined in Affinity Photo.

I was having tracking errors. I need to re-tune my mount today. It sounded a bit rough while slewing during star align and I knew I'd have errors despite good polar alignment.

Fascinating- thanks for sharing!

[MikeNArk]

This image came out very good. Any problems that you encountered must have been overcome. What focal length is you telescope?

[aitrus3]

This image came out very good. Any problems that you encountered must have been overcome. What focal length is you telescope?

ooof, this was a long time ago. I no longer have this telescope but it was shot with a William Optics Z71 ED doublet at around 333mm with the flattener/reducer. In fact, what you see here is not tracking errors but a rookie mistake when i changed the distance my field flattener was to the camera. This was under corrected, or in other words my field flattener was too close to the sensor. Not only did I make that wrong assumption, but when I went to adjust my mount, I screwed up, got confused and instead of tightening one set screw while loosening the other, I was tightening both. This caused too much force to be applied to the worm gear housing and the housing snapped, sending the mount in a free spin which ripped the electronic cables from the main PCB. I had to order a replacement worm housing from Skywathcer who had to have it manufactured in China at the very start of the pandemic. It took 6 months for the replacement to come in. In that time I fixed the electronics, sold the Z71 ED and bought an RC6 telescope, guide scope and guide camera. I am much happier with this current setup than the one I used for this image so in the end, it did all work out, but it took a long time.

---------- Post added 12-29-2022 at 08:25 PM ----------

This image came out very good. Any problems that you encountered must have been overcome. What focal length is you telescope?

Here is a comparison from last years M42 attempt, shot with the RC6 at 1370mm instead. This is only 45 minutes of data before I got clouded over. I love my RC telescope, it has it's minor issues but overall it beats the pants off of less expensive refractors like the Z71. The Z71 with Field flattener would have cost around $900 CAD new at the time.

[MikeNArk]

Thank you for providing all of the additional information and the new image. I have a telescope, but haven't used it much lately. My older brother was very much into Astrophotography for several years. I may attempt some soon, weather permitting. I'll certainly have it out for the solar eclipse in 2024.