Over the past week I've had exactly one clear night to try and do some imaging from my house. This is NGC 1499 aka The California Nebula, this was my first time ever trying to image it.

Pentax K-1

William Optics White Cat 51 and Optolong L-Enhance Dual Band Filter

Stack of 40 x120s Unguided

Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop.

It needs more time and I need to get rid of the walking noise so I might try and reprocess.

Unguided?! Then your tracking is quite good!

The only way to get rid of walking noise that I know, is to use dithering, but to do that you need to be able to control the shutter of the camera and the guiding together. This is the problem with Pentax astrophotography in that there is only one app I know of that can control the pentax and that is Kstars. The problem with Kstars is that the developers are not very careful with their releases, which can lead to bugs and user frustration. So I've abandoned Kstars and my K-5II for astrophotography ;-( and now use a ZWO camera.

The mount is a Losmandy G-11 so tracking is pretty good. I need to get a lighter counterweight, since my 11 lb ones are too heavy. I'm resorting to using a couple of water bottles taped to the counterweight shaft which is not the best.


I'm about to get a Stellarmate and ZWO 30mm guide scope to use with the whitecat.

I had the Stellarmate too and was really happy with it and Kstars when things were working. My advice is to use only the software version that is shipped with or released on the Stellarmate site. It should be a relatively solid release. Good luck!

Before you have another solution it might help a lot to shift the frame manually (with the hand controller) in DEC and RA every 10 exposures or so.

I decided to reprocess the image.This time I did all the calibration, thru stacking in DSS this time and final processing in APP, PI and Capture One.

I think it came out better. DSS did a better job of the first step than I got out of Sequator or APP by itself.

Concur. Do let us know if you have StellarMate questions, since there are several of us with experience.

I actually got the K5-iis working pretty reliably with my 'Mate once they released a version of gphoto that supported the camera. But, unlike a personal computer or server OS, security is not such a big deal and so it pays to be super-conservative with updates once you've got a working setup. I actually bought a new MicroSD card and put the newest version of StellarMate on that instead of overwriting what I had. Glad I did, because my filter wheel didn't work out of the box, so for now I've reverted to my older version.

It sounds as if Jasem and the gang have gotten a lot of the teething troubles worked out of StellarMate OS for the Pi 4, so 1.4.6 should be quite usable (I'm hearing pretty good reports on the SM Facebook group and on the INDI fora). Doesn't look as if they are selling a Pi 4-based gadget yet, so you may want to seriously consider buying the parts and putting together your own (it's super, super easy). The Pi 3 gets pretty logy if you're loading it up much at all. Plate solving, in particular, is totally hit or miss for me, occasionally it works and often it doesn't. Not only does the new version of SM use ASTAP instead of astrometry.net for that, but the 4 has a much faster proc and up to quadruple the memory.

So at the risk of WAY too much info, here's the shopping list for my 2nd-gen on-scope computer. I'm using the 4G version of the Pi 4 so it won't hit the swap file as often, which I suspect is what's making mine thrash so badly. To get 5V to the Pi, I added the DockerPi Power Board HAT, which takes 12V through a standard barrel connector and also routes that back out again -- this way, I can run the cooler on my ZWO camera and my notional autofocuser without any wires dangling from the back end of the telescope. It also sports a fan, plenty of folk running SM on the Pi 4 have noticed that it runs hot enough to throttle down the CPU otherwise. Finally, I wanted plenty of fast external storage, so I added a 120G SSD to the stack.

Pi 4b 4 GB, $55.00
DockerPi PowerBoard, $18.99
ADATA SD600Q 240GB USB 3.2 3D NAND External Solid State Drive - Newegg.com, $44.99
HighPi Raspberry Pi Case for Pi4, Black - PiShop.us, $9.95
TOTAL, $128.93

You would have to add $49 for the StellarMate OS license. You can pay once and download both the Pi 2 and Pi 4 versions, if that's any reassurance. So the whole package is $20 more than the StellarMate gadget, but you're getting a heckuva more powerful system. Snap-together assembly required, tho .

Wow, I'm frankly amazed that DSS outperformed APP for your calibration and stacking. Sure is a nicer result, though.

I also use Stellarmate, it’s still not possible to set ISO and exposure time on my K-70 from KStars, so I have to set it on the camera before shooting. Otherwise it works fine with my ap setup (HEQ5, ASI120mini guide cam, K-70).
I have a RPi4 4GB sitting on my desk for testing purpose, waiting for the sw to be sufficiently stable. The AP setup runs on an RPi3 with an older Stellarmate release.
Yesterday I decided to pull the trigger on a ZWO ASI533MC Pro, I had the ZWO294 in mind but AstroBackyard Trevor made me change my mind, I’m checking DHL every 2nd. Hour to follow it on it’s way from UK to DK
Have to try it with my DA*300

Sigh. Enjoy your starburst-amp-glow-free images!

Thanks Rick, I will keep using my K-70 for astrophotography though, all the widefield stuff cannot be done with an 8” newtonian
Also to stay in touch with where it all began - right here

OK, you're all invited to my show in Madison!

No, really, I'm going to be April's featured artist at Janet's and my favorite breakfast café. I have to get about 18-22 prints made, matted, and framed by then (gulp!), and all but two or three are astro. I'm not planning on making any money but maybe I can sell one or two and defray some expenses, at least. Janet is going to have to keep me from sitting in that room every morning with a big "THESE ARE MY PHOTOS" sign attached to my hat...

A perfect excuse for getting some new gear?

Trust me, if I manage to come out in the black on this shindig I am TOTALLY buying some toys.

Seems pretty unlikely, though. At a wild guess I'm going to be sinking several hundred bucks by the time I get done with printing, mats, and frames. Although, heck, that's only two or three sales, right? In a WHOLE MONTH! Maybe I should be shopping now, just in case. Hate to get caught unprepared when the riches descend.

Just a moment while I go tell my wife about the plan. I'll be RIGHT BACK.

How did it go informing your wife about your plan?
I did the same yesterday, informed my wife about potential future astrogear expenses - it’s being processed