Active Areas on October 23, 2013

Here are a couple of images I took today--with the inevitable Newton's Rings. I tried a couple of things to reduce them. As I track the scope manually, I can't take well-registered flats. My solution was to take an original image and add Gaussian blur to eliminate the rings. However, the final, processed product was unusable (all detail disappeared apart from the rings!). I then tried tilting the DS filter using the gold wheel, but that changed only the brightness of the image and the rings remained unchanged. Lastly, I pulled the imager almost clear of the barlow and refocussed the scope. I then tilted it by 4-5 degrees. Depressingly, the rigs remained unchanged. They are also there if I don't use the DS filter, and/or remove the barlow. I will try building on of the "tilting" devices described on several websites to see if I can fix this problem.

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