Official StarTools support forum

Thanks to the M106 thread, I now have 3(!) followers on astrobin. More importantly, I learned from Stefan's abin profile that we are both biologists in our non-astronomy time. Though I hope to retire soonish to become a full-time cloud-complainer.

I was of the understanding that one shouldn’t switch midway through processing in ST and use other software as ST is actively tracking the data from start to finish until saved. I only thought one could tweak ST with other software once completed in ST as ST would be compromised and not provide opt...

Thanks for your like, Ron! ;) So now you have two followers in total, Mike and me. If you want to get likes, just drop me a line. ;) I've often wondered if part of the game is to Follow a bunch of people in hopes a few of them Follow you back, increasing views and Likes. That's pretty exactly what ...

AndyBooth Very nice - thanks for posting that! Do you know if the Altair 130EDT uses the same glass as the AstroTech, or the upgraded glass as in the TS version? I suppose, with the triband filter, it would not make much difference for you. Some day I'd like to see someone with that type of filter ...

I was able to get out to the club dark site Monday night (having the week off from work). I had my SQM with me for the first time there, the sky measured 21.06 - quite an improvement from the backyard (18.9-ish), though nowhere near "dark" to anyone with access to really good skies. This was also th...

Quite nice, Dietmar! I hope to image this Spring a similar field with the AT130EDT. I'm encouraged by the nice details and rich colors you got from only 3.5 hours. Roughly converting in my head from your f/5 to my f/7 and your B5 to my B6/7, I should be able to get a decent image in maybe 20 hours.....

I went back to see when I last used the 0.8x (things are fine with the 1.0x flattener). It was August on the Propeller Nebula. Here's ~2 hours of OSC for the star colors - I don't see the artifacts propeller_OSC_AT130_0.8x.jpg So I'm a bit perplexed. Maybe I'll change the reducer-sensor spacing? Run...

That "light touch" with the Ha was actually something like 170% strength in the accents. Remember, this is Ha through a Bayer filter, so my 9 hours is equivalent to what you'd get in about 2 hours 20 minutes, with your fancy-pants mono setup. Bear in mind also that I have absolutely no idea how choi...

I think I'm done collecting M81 data for this year, time to move on. This stack is 11:45 of OSC plus 9:15 Ha (from the duoband, so quite inefficient vs proper mono). M81_OSC+Ha_v2.jpg Not yet totally ready to call it done in terms of processing (mostly because it is both cloudy and full moon), so no...

Ah yes - green. It's always the green, isn't it? I have played with more drastic green throttling - and apparently I should, if you're seeing too much green cast to the blue stars. I was trying to leave a touch of green in the core, because (I think) there should be a bit of teal there. I'll return ...