russ.carpenter

Hi Catshill, Superb tutorial on collimation. Good on you! Russ

Hi John, I was wondering about the best way to post images to the forum--thanks for the advice! Is there a limit on the size of PNG or JPG files that will be shown within the browser? Some astro forums have very strict limits. Russ

Hi Lisbon, I'm glad you enjoyed the image. Maybe we could put together some kind of subgroup of people who are using Affinity Photo for astrophotography. We'd learn a lot from each other. Russ

I’m not sure about the best way to share astrophotography processed with Affinity Photo. I decided to try the “Share your work” forum, but if there is a better way, please let me know. I am an experienced astrophotographer who has used a wide range of specialized programs for pre and post processing of astro photographs. These days I’ve been experimenting with my favorite general purpose image processor, Affinity Photo, along with the remarkable collection of astro macros developed by James Ritson. I have much to learn, but so far the results have been excellent. NGC 1955 is an emission nebula located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. (Technically, NGC 1955 is an open star cluster embedded within the nebula.) To collect this data, I used a remote telescope in Chile: 20 inch Newtonian, F 3.6. The object was imaged in three narrowband channels, Ha, OIII and SII. I processed the image with the Hubble palette, which is SHO, modified with a large shift in the green channel toward reds and golds. The built-in tools of Affinity Photo, and especially the innovative JR Macros, made this project a pleasure. NGC1955 SHO.tiff

I would like to commend James Ritson's extraordinary contributions to astrophotography. I've been doing astrophotography for 10 years and am familiar with most of the standard software tools for pre and post processing, including PixInsight and StarTools. They are both impressive achievements, whose authors are world-class. But the imagination and energy James has shown are unique. We are very lucky that he has taken up astrophotography with such dedication. Russ

What a magnificent contribution to the community. Thank you!