I decided to purchase an SBIG ST-8300M to replace the 10D and 5DMkII for astrophotography. Although these camera are amazing performers they just don’t hold up without modifications for deep sky subjects due to their muffled sensitivity to hydrogen-alpha light. I also own an SBIG STV and SBIG ST-5C and the company makes great hardware. The ST-8300 is a bargain when compared with most other dedicated astrophotography cameras and when combined with a filter wheel and good filters you can take extremely high quality pictures for a fraction of what the ultra high-end hardware costs.

I’ve started evaluating PixInsight as a replacement for MaxIm DL and Photoshop and so far I’ve been extremely impressed. Here are the results from re-processing the previous image and adding the color data from a really old, low quality film image I had of M31. It’s amazing what you can pull out of the data when given a good set of tools and some practice.

• Astrophotography
• G11
• Takahashi
• ST8300