Congrats on reaching 20,000 my friend ! You deserve it!!!!

I love astrophotography and there are very few KZfaqrs who do it, I just found your channel and I’m glad I did! I’ll be sure to check out the rest of your videos! ♥️

The epic bull suit intro had me rolling!!! Only to be outdone by your night time snack LOL!!! Your comedy is 5-star my friend!

Walt, congratulations on 20k. What you said towards the end of your video couldn't be more true. It's not a competition and sadly that's the mentality many do have. You were one of the very first guys I watched when I picked up this hobby and continue to watch your video's a year later. Thank you for all the wisdom and laughs you've given me so far! Still totally waiting on you to set up a patreon, too. Awesome work, as always.

I cannot possibly imagine that "snack" of yours tasted any good, but it sure made for entertainment - as with all your videos, the production is next-level. Well done. I imaged with a ha-modified T5i for years, and recently purchased a cooled Player One Poseidon C-Pro (also aps-c size sensor). While the Canon certainly produced what I thought was really nice images, they just could not compare to the clean and pristine ones I got from the Poseidon. I had originally planned to combine data on a lot of targets seeing as the sensor-sizes were so similar, but I found that the canon-data would just end up muddying the Poseidon-data.

This is an amazing production and so full of information that I needed right now. Thank you so much! I also appreciate the humor and general overall peacefulness of the viewing experience. Kudos!

Nice Job, the Ghost of Cassiopeia looks like a Specter, it's next to the star Navi and it's a challenge. Congrats on making 20k.

Great video Walt. Fun and educational. Well done

Another super video there Walt. Keep them coming 😁

Nice work Walt - thanks for sharing!

Man I love your videos! Congratz and keep it going!!

I love it 🎉great work

Imperfection is what makes your videos more relatable and impart more learning than, as you said, someone's who is using the latest and greatest equipment all the time. Especially for new amateur astrophotographers, like me, who have just started this journey. Congratulations on 20K and many more to come.

Over 20k, fantastic! You are by far one of the best on KZfaq.

Congrats on 20k brother! Keep doin your thing, and i'll keep coming back. 💚🌌

I'm just starting out and came across your vid's I love your humor and simple training guides. You get into the subject enough but not overwhelming to a newbi's to understand. In this video I learned a lot, one thing was using Stellarium and putting in your Telescope equipment in setup and seeing how it turns out that was great never knew that. As of now I have a Redcat 51,ZWO AM5, 120mm guide scope, Asiair Plus, and I just purchased a ASI2600MC Pro and a Optolong 2" L-Ultimate filter. I took my first shot of Andromeda Galaxy one shot came out great for the first time ever doing it. I took it with a Canon 60D. Look forward to more vids keep up the great work Walt. Chow..

Another entertaining and informative video👍. Congrats of the 20k subscribers.

Loved the video. I think you're right to show that it can be a struggle sometimes. Too often things are made to look easy, when in reality you need to work at thing and learn from the mistakes. Keep up the good work. Congratulations on reaching 20K.

Walt! I always enjoy your vids!

Congrats on 20k!

My 1st scope after coming back to astronomy was that Explore Scientific 1000mm 102mm doublet refractor bundled with a too small equatorial mount that I tried to use, but nope. Mount was wobbling and I called them and they told me how to take it apart to "possibly" fix the problem. I just sent it back, I'm not into buying new things I have to fix. I bought a C6-N Newtonian from a pawn shop cheap and sent the mirrors to get recoated for $88 special sale that included the secondary for free. In the meantime I joined an Astronomy club which I highly recommend to everyone. They had scopes I could borrow to see if I liked them. I know how you feel about dealing with what you have, but congrats on 23,000 subscribers now.

Love This!! ❤❤❤

Both beautiful images Walt I've imaged with a RASA 11 on my AZ EQ6 GT with cameras etc on it has more than maxed out the weight but it still imaged & guided beautifully.

Amazing results !!!

Congrats on your 20k subscribers Walt. I found the setup completely facsinating; and the end images are superb

Please don't be disappointed with those images they look great

Great photos man, nice work! I think you can fix your autoguide problem by increasing the values of Calibration step and Max RA/DEC duration in the ASIAir app. I usually do that when shooting so close to Polaris, which I have to do a lot due to my balcony location :-)

Defo agree on the astronomy camera, bought the ZWO 533 mc pro and haven’t looked back, also take a look at Sirils new stretch technique, you’ll be amazed at what it can do tbh Keep up the great vids

After getting my ZWO ASI533MC Pro, I only use my astromoded T7i for wide field. What an improvement! Even so, I wish I had the processing skills you do. Like the Teac. 20k, yah!

Is crazy how underrated this hobby is

Gorgeous final image. The Pixinsight Clone Stamp process, while typically Pixinsight backwards compared to other editing software, will let you eliminate those large halos from bright stars.

Cool video, thank you

I enjoy watching your videos. While they always contain helpful info, your 'journey' is always fun to watch. It also shows that what is important is the journey. After all, we could spend alot less 'astro-equipment' money and just print NASA photos - BUT with no sense of personal accomplishment! That means something! I think your finals look fine and I would be proud had i done them! You mentioned the limiting noise (I don't think it's being introduced by the scope), on my screen it looked like a pattern. Do you set up dithering on the ASIair to combat that type of noise? In any case, keep up the good and entertaining work!

Really nice images! Congratulations on 20k subscribers. Have you ever looked into a tri-bahtinov mask for collimating the SCT? We have one for 14” at our astronomy club’s observatory.

Walt, you mentioned the C11 really needing flat frames. I have two Meade LX8s. One is an LX10 which is still forked and I used for the past year only with an SVBony SV305 (tiny chip) for Jupiter and there was no vignetting BUT I recently procured an LX90 (OTA only) and mounted it on an EQ5 (which holds it perfectly well for imaging at least up to a minute (I don't have my Polar alignment fully 'dialled in" at the moment but it's close) and was extremely concerned when I started taking shots of the Leo Triplet and Whirlpool galaxies with an F6.3 reducer and a Nikon D5500 APSc camera and got harsh vignetting (like a 'reflection/circle in the middle of frames). I thought there was something seriously wrong with the LX90 but have now researched it and found that with an APSc sized sensor (and even smaller), with the reducer, the vignetting is normal. It appears (although I haven't yet tried) that, at prime F10 focus, there should be no vignetting but, generally, we don't tend to take too many shots at F10, do we? I haven't yet done any astrophotography with flats and biases (only occasionally darks) and while I have tried Graxpert to remove and it works to a degree (pretty well actually), I'm going to have to start using flats with the SCTs to remove the issue entirely. I just watched this video again to see if you mentioned the issue and I saw the vignetting effect in your subs so, to be honest, I was pleased to see it since it confirms it isn't just a fault with my LX90.

When people talk about cooled astronomy cameras, I always laugh. Where I live, I can only see the stars during winter. The winter nights here go easily below 20°F sometimes below -10°F. I don't know how much more cooling do you need 😂 I like my newtonian, because the main mirror is so deep inside the solid tube, it never fogs or freezes over when I'm shooting. The top of the scope is usually covered in frost and my finder lens too, but since I don't use auto-guiding, it's not a problem. 😊 I don't even have a polar scope. I just eyeball it and keep my exposures at around 10 seconds. Since I'm so far north, all my targets are slow moveing northern targets, so I can get away with it. Also my FL is only about 700mm. I'm still pretty new to this hobby. I think it's my third winter. I shoot with a stock Canon 70D. The splotches look weird on the big stretch. I know old Canons do that, but I would have thought dark and bias frames would take care of most of that too. How many darks and bias frames do you usually take? Anyway, nice to see new faces in astronomy on KZfaq.

Walt, I found the way you set up autoguiding very interesting. I’ve been setting it up when pointed at my intended subject, which seemed the intuitive way to do it. However, you set yours up on Deneb so as to not use something in the northern sky. It seems that when it finished the calibration routine, all you did was a GoTo to your intended subject for the evening and the autoguiding just automatically switches to new stars in the region of the target. Do I have this correct? I’d like to give it a try the next time I go out. BTW, I’ve really enjoyed your videos for the last couple of years. Your zany sense of humor is great and refreshing.

Awesome video! What tablet do you use?

Hey, a very enjoyable video. That looks like a 50 or 60mm guide scope. Do you find that sufficient for guiding considering the FL of your large scope? I'm asking because I have a C8 with Hyperstar and haven't had to guide yet because of it's 390mm FL. But when I start shooting from the back with a reducer I'd like to use a guide scope but have been told I'd need an OAG to get good guiding.

The iris nebula looks amazing!

You can photograph the ghost nebula with narrowband, i actually just did an integration of 35 hours and i have the "reflection" nebula just outlined in hydrogen

Ive found the 1/2 mount payload capacity 'myth' a joke. Why pay 2x as much to only run 1/2 rated capacity? Balance is key. Run it.

Technics speakers! I hope you have a Carver amp to go with them.

I'm curious why you jump out of PI for the stretching. Maybe it's because i didn't know PS first but I've found that i can just do everything in PI pretty easily. Thanks for the reminder to check collimation. I've never had an issue with mine, at least not that i know of, but will def check next time!

Loved this video! You just pulled off asiair workflow on C11, pretty impressive. Did you struggle with plate solve after slewing to the target?

Try “ draw a selection on around the color splotches- then go to fill - content aware “ it will generate what it sees around the selection field and fills it up. They even have the AI content aware you can get rid of everything in photoshop these days with 3 clicks

So after doing PA on asiair, you go back to home from the 60 degree tilt the mount slews when initially plate solving. I just leave it. Then goto object. This works for me. Thoughts?

Hey walt, when adding telescopes to Stallarium ( camera lenses ) if we are use a crop sensor do we add the focal length of the lens which includes the 1.6 crop factor ( for canon ) or do you just put it in as it is? example 135mm or 216mm which includes the crop factor?

With 11inch why don't you get Starizona 0.7x large format coma corrector? You will be able to accomodate the full frame camera coma free OR ASI2600 DUO and have guiding spot on. The celestron correctors don't correct for coma. I made the same mistake too but then got 8HD instead, as that one has also focus lock screws that lock primary in position and prevent the primary from mirror shift as it changes it's center point of gravity. Celestron also advises that in order to reduce mirror shift, the last movement of the focuser should be counterclockwise. Also I made myself a cardboard dew shield and the contrast difference was so big especially at bright moon nights or from the city, I am having it on all the times now.

Collimation has been my bane so far - had my old Meade SCT worked on - and it is close but not close enough (the doughnut hole is not center)

Walt, I feel your collimation pain. I think it is time for you to get a cooled camera. Then…. A dark library and low noise. I like my ASI533MC Pro.

I'd love to see you test the star zona LF reducer against the one you're currently using. I've used two different .63 reducers, so far both have been absolutely horrible. One had tilt inside its own lens cells. 😬 *cough* celestron *cough* I got the Starizona LF .7 reducer corrector and it's been like night & day for me.

I use the ASI533 and it’s a dream unit.

Moving to a cooled camera you can pretty much eliminate calibration frames.

Walt, is that your music?

Boh images are great, but iris Is amazing

IC 63

1960mm :)

Wow, as soon as the food foolishness started I left.