Pacman Nebula

[decay]

Hi Klaus,

sorry for the late reply, but I needed some help to solve donut correlated problems, as you might have read.

Last but not least, Startools does a tremendous job making presentable images from so-so data

Definitely, ST is awesome in this regard! It made my day with my first poor data sets and convinced me to go on with AP.

Open - AutoDev - Crop - Wipe (NrwBnd) - AutoDev (ROI, IFD 2.0) - Contrast - HDR - SVDecon - Color (Sample, Highlight Repair 4px***) - Shrink (Tighten) - Shrink (Unglow) - Shrink (Dim) - SuperStructure - Denoise.

That seems to a lot effort to get decent stars? I was thinking about buying a high quality refractor some day as well, but this is sadly not what I would have expected. Have you considered buying a Newtonian? If you like, take a look for example on Stefan's (Stefan B) images here on ST forum, they have an awesome quality and he uses a 6" f/5 Newtonian which is pretty affordable compared to APO refractors ...

Best regards, Dietmar.

Edit P.S.: Of course, there are a lot more people here making incredible images with Newtonians - Martin, Mike ... without claim to completeness. It was just my first thought.

[decay]

Hi Klaus,

all of which is not necessary w/ my RedCat

sorry, I just reread the thread and I recognised that you already upgraded to your RedCat. I've seen your images on AstroBin, they are looking indeed much better then the images with your TecnoSky.

So obviously no need for a Newtonian.

Best regards, Dietmar.