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Hi,
We have enjoyed some amazing spring weather in Scotland which let me capture some deep sky targets with my Canon SX530HS camera. Amazing what StarTools and a little second hand camera can achieve.
http://starrydave.com/?p=1115

Here is a shot I took with my Canon SX530HS at maximum zoom. I deliberately overexposed so I would get the faint outer regions. These superzooms are great fun to use.

I use my SX230HS for all night meteor watch. You can use the CHDK https://chdk.fandom.com/wiki/Script_commands#set_backlight.28.29 command to turn off the screen. CHDK also has a hot pixel removal setting. I use a £10 USB power adapter/dummy battery I got on AliExpress to power my Powershots. It run...

Thanks Ivo - I couldn't have done it without your software. I have supercharged my Powershot with the free CHDK hack which uncovers all sorts of unofficial camera features, like very long exposures and raw shooting. I do have astro scopes and cameras but there is something very satisfying about taki...

Hi, I have been quiet for a while mostly due to weather. Recently I bought a second hand Canon SX530HS camera which has a 50x optical zoom. I used it last night to image the Flame and Horsehead and was pleasantly surprised by the result. Kudos to StarTools for making this possible. http://starrydave...

It bears all the hallmarks of stacking artifacts. I think I can indeed see some near the borders. Zoom into the edges and see if you can see any. Cropping a couple of pixels and trying Wipe again, will also help determine whether you are dealing with stacking artifacts. Great call, Ivo. I cropped 5...

I just came back to deep sky work after a few years. I tried my usual workflow of Autodev>Wipe> etc on some DSS fits and got results like shown in the attached screenshot. Images were shot on a Canon 1100D with a 300mm lens at f11 and iso 1600, 11 shots at 180s each. The camera was guided with PHD2 ...

Hi,

Scottish skies are now dark enough for deepsky stuff. Here is my cheap and cheerful M31 shot with a stock 1100d and 75-300 zoom lens on an unguided HEQ5 Pro. Stacked in SkippyStak and processed in ST.

Dave

And here is an M42 I took on the same night using the same parameters except that the exposures totalled 104 minutes. The Moon was up by the time I took this so I am very pleased at how dark the sky turned out after processing.

The winter sky is now dark enough in Scotland to try some more deep sky work and here is my first go of the winter. It was taken with a stock Canon EOS 1100D and a 75-300USM lens at 300mm F5.6. The camera was mounted on a HEQ5 Pro and was unguided for the 1 hour of 15s exposures at ISO 6400. Taken f...