Thanks all, that's really useful feedback. Yes the difference in aperture is stark - that extra resolution makes such a big difference. I'm not going to chase aperture though as mundane storage and mounting logistics make a strong argument against that for the foreseeable future. I'd much rather have a scope I'm more likely to use than a big beast which feels like a burden to set up, and a burden sitting guiltily in the corner when you're not using it! Plus, sadly, the seeing here supports 7" at most on just a handful of nights a year so I'm not sure it would ever get to 10".
The colour/green point is interesting - I will try that. Luckily the camera I use is a colour one, but in IR becomes mono so I often use it in that mode (both to cut through inner city seeing conditions, as well as the better resolution that a mono sensor would give(?)). But I have tried it with a contrast booster filter in OSC mode, so I'll do that a bit more to see how it comes out.
Yes the difference in brightness is also very palpable. I don't like to boost brightness too much in processing - preferring to let the natural lunar shades come out as they are, but I can push it a bit more without clipping the histogram. The brightness slider on astrobin is actually quite handy b/c playing with that shows the benefit that would bring too
On the capture side, I normally take 2000-5000 frames, and usually keep just the top 1% (unless the AS4 quality curve shows that conditions were good enough to take it to 3% - usually not the case).
Thanks again all - v helpful, and exactly what RCC is for. Much appreciated!
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