They are absolutely beautiful.
 
 
I took a bunch last night of the fire nebula, but I just got Deep Sky Stacker, and it wont read my pictures like my camera does.  What am I doing wrong?
 

 
Also it randomly flips the pictures from horizontal to vertical halfway through the shoot.  grrr.  Not sure how to lock it into a certain perspective. 

I am still figuring this all out

Captured the leo triplet mid processing.  This is the first time I touched the program.  How do you convert these processed 200MEG files into a jpg to actually show people?
 
I will have so many more questions.
 
As for the telescope dilemma, I will keep the shower poles, and get the plastic.  Reason being, if I damage a pole, id rather just pay $6.00 to replace each.  I did check lowes for the electrical conduit.  WAY too thick and heavy.  I just have to suck it up and make 1.5" clamps that screw to the mating rings.  
 
More later.  
 

I use photoshop for touch up and save it as a jpeg. I do not know how to is gimp but it’s a free photo editing software you can try. Now if you want to turn the raw into a JPEG I use cannons software.

Thanks Notfordman
 I came here just browsing to see if there was any info about video cards, but this astronomy thread caught my eye. But as I figured the miners and Chinese have the video cards market upside down. What 2 cards that are available on newegg cost as much as a Ethereum coin . I bought a new 2k monitor and want to upgrade my 1060 6gig video card to a 1080" Grrrr I will have to wait and hope AMD or Nvidia start pumping out some more cards.
 
 Nateman I do not know why PHD could not calibrate, two ideas come to mind. Did you put the right focal length of your guide scope in the software and was the software talking to your mount (lose cable)? besides I am still very noobish at the whole astrophotography world but the best advise I can give is just play with the software.
 
 A little about me I have 2 main hobbies Gaming and Astrophotography. But wait we are in EVGA's forum and I'm sharing my astrophotography photos. I would tell anyone who wants to get into astrophotography is this hobby gets expensive fast and pictures are free online. I always think back to the matrix movie when I buy something for the telescope. "You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." Man I fell in the rabbit hole and sometimes wish I took the blue pill, but I love astronomy. Now days when I ask my wife if I can by something she just says "Now what do you need for the computer or telescope!"
 
 Nateman or anyone else if you wanted to have a friendly competition of picking a deep space object and see how the pictures turn out.

So is the purpose of DSS to just get an image?  As in you can mess with the image to get a good grayscale image... then get the colors out in a photo editing program?  @ 250 megs of data I know the colors are in there, but i cant really get good color in the DSS software.
 
Here is the visual picture of the fire nebula in Orion:

(bonus horsehead nebula)  Taken with a 1600 ISO, 82 second exposure time.
 
Now when I stack the fire nebula I get this:

 
 
Still not the same red's as visual light.  Here is me screwing around with light levels in GIMP:

 
I truly know NOTHING about photo editing.  I am a dumb as a brick.  How to select layers, fuzzy select.. all if it means nothing to me.  I will stick to globual clusters for the time being as stars are easy enough, and leave the nebulas alone until I have had some experience with the software and astrophotography in general.
 
speaking of.... Can u make me smart on the darks, flats, bias etc?  I got the "light" pictures and the darks (just put the cover on the scope and take the same exposures as the lights) but the bias and flats I just dont get it. 

Horse Head Nebula, GRRR the star Alnitak was just to bright and I do not know why it shadowed on the Horse Head. I took 50 pictures at 60 seconds 1600 ISO and only had 27 good pictures because of bad tracking and frost. As always stacked and lightly touched with Photoshop enjoy. I got part of the Flame nebula at the bottom. My CAT scope is not made for astrophotgraphy of Deep space Objects.
 

 

 
Said clamps.  This will secure the poles from both rotational motion, and sliding.  I figured just make one set really long instead of 2 shorter sets.  Half the work, same outcome. 

ope is "finished" and mounted.  Now comes the improvement stages.

The mounts secure to the mating rings, but being that they are plastic... they do flex.  Custom cut-to-length bands will be arriving today so that should help sturdy it up slightly, but I think I may have to bite the bullet and make the rear mating rings out of Aluminum.  The upper tube assembly plastic can stay.  Thankfully someone here showed a cheap place for aluminum.
 
Vixen rail mounted:

So far the center of balance is in front of the tube.  Not desired, but it "works" for the moment being.  Has a springboard effect when touched.  Not sure if that is related to the plastic mating rings or because the bands haven't been installed yet.  Currently I have to wait a few seconds for it to settle down.
 
 
Sitting in the mount:



Must add counterweights in the back.  Thankfully that was incorporated into the design.
 
 
Finding out that the threaded rods (aluminum) flexed when weight was put on them, I used some of the scrap plastic to fashion a way to use the combined strength of all 3 to hold the counterweights.  (remember, they are only screwed into wood).  So I came up with this:



 
The counter weights are 2 lbs each.  Since the scope clocks in at 33 lbs (1 lbs above the calculated weight - due to the addition of the aluminum rear clamps) I can afford to put a few of the factory weights back on and still be under the 40 lbs.  The guide scope will be added to the rear section of the scope putting more weight in the back... and mostly because I wont be able to reach the focuser without a ladder.  
 
Since I dont plan to use the scope for visual I will be using the camera up in the focuser.  If the guide scope is dialed in well, then I can just use the camera as the visual inspection when doing initial alignment.  The image will be projected on a laptop, so I can use the reticle of the screen or camera to center stars during alignment.
 
This thing is HUGE.  I want to test it as-is to see if improvements will actually do anything, or just save the money and use the 10" scope, and just use this as a visual scope back in its factory configuration. 
 
But " know thyself..."  I never give up.  Finances be damned.  Invested enough into this project... may as well spend more and make it work.
 
 
 
 

No light pollution?  Must be mid west.  I am so jealous of those wide open fields you can scan from horizon to horizon without anything in the way.  You could probably even see Mercury.  August I plan to see it, as its already setting.
 
BTW, Total Lunar Eclipse next Wed (31 Jan) .  Been soaked with rain for a few days... I think the North East earned a few days of clear skies =/
 
Sadly I am not in a position to see any part of the eclipse.  Check in your area if you will be able to see it.  It will already be setting by the time it starts (6 am East Coast)

I read that if you go in various positions and flash your light (while your camera has its shutter open) it gives the objects in the ground some nice depth.    
 
I would love to drive out there and spend a week observing.  But that is quite a drive.

After a short evaluation of the setup, I am going to take the plunge and go for some aluminum.  I ordered aluminum poles, and I decided the rear plastic rings have TOO much flex in them.  The front plastic mating rings can stay, so that will help with overall weight reduction, but you absolutely need the rigidity afforded by aluminum.  Especially since its the rear mating rings bearing the weight of the entire structure.  I don't like the spring board effect.  Especially when taking long exposures.  Since the current steel shower poles are 0.04" wall thickness I opted for 0.065 wall thickness structural anodized aluminum poles.  Should still be much lighter then the steel while being as strong, so it may end up weighting the same based on the additional weight of the aluminum rings, with the reduction of weight from the steel poles.  We will see.
 
While waiting for the aluminum poles to arrive I broke down the scope.  It breaks down smaller then ONE section of the original scope:

 

rigid aluminum tubing is EXACTLY what the dr ordered!  0.035 wall thickness!  Also came up with a secondary counterweight "design".... More on that later.  

I am going to upload this data to Google drive, if anyone wants to mess around with the pictures and see what they come up with.

The extent of my gazing was the eclipse and the awesome Wolf Moon we had... pathetic I know, but I do really like space and and would love to actually travel out there one day. Thanks for the pics of setups and cool shots, it's inspiring.