Yet another m42

[Atreta]

Hi again

Sorry about creating another topic.

this is my latest effort with m42.

I want to thank everybody who helped in the lens test topic, the tips were very helpful.

The specs are about the same, just this time i tried star mask to not blow out the stars and used bias frames as knigt of clear skies said and tried with the lens wide open just to see if the nebula would be better caught.

50 x 2s subs.

20 x 2s darks

20 x bias frames.

Please share your thoughts.

[wxsatuser]

Sorry but forget using it wide open, it's really poor.

I would look at getting longer exposures so you can stop it down.

I just got a mint second user Sigma 50mm f1.4, not just for astro, and it's really poor for astro although

Sigma rate it for stars but its got naff stars way out at f5.6.

This one is purely for daytime me thinks. 

PS. it's a nightmare to focus as well. 

and now looking at the Sigma 70mm Macro as the macros tend to have a flatter field.

The famous flying bird at f1.4.  

[Atreta]

Yeah, i agree.
Did it wide just as a test to try to catch the nebula.

With f5.6 i got good star shapes but very faint because of the low exposure times and i couldn't make the virtuoso help anyway.

I think I'm gonna order the heq5 tomorrow.

first time i hear about the flying birds.

[mcinek82]

It is nice, altough the picture orientation is quite strange. I couldn't make out the magnification / field of view.

[Atreta]

Thanks, don't know if i understood orientation, did you mean the camera orientation?

I ordered the heq5 synscan and it's on it's way

[Atreta]

The Heq5 arrived and i did some test shots with it.

This is the unprocessed stacked image.

Specs:

30 x 30s lights

10 x 30s darks

10 bias

Lens 135mm @ f5.6

For a first try i'm very happy with it.

Please tell me your thoughts, i'll try longer lengths as soon as the weather permit.

thank you.

[Atreta]

Does it look like it was properly aligned and focused?

[Thalestris24]

Hi

That's a lot better! Can't really tell about the focus - maybe you could post a crop of the nebula region? I'm not sure it's worth doing darks with such short exposures. Actually, you should be able to get quite long exposures with good PA. It's worth doing the bias frames and flats.

Louise

[Atreta]

Louise,

here is a crop from the nebula, i did some editing to see how far i could go, but i can't seem to do it properly.

the noise is so high that it's showing everywhere if i try to stretch it. guess i'm gonna have to wait till the clouds break and get longer exposures.

Maybe if anyone want to try to see how it goes it would be nice.

thank you.

[wxsatuser]

Thats better.

30secs at f5.6 will no doubt be noisey.

Try and get longer exposures so your histogram is at least 25%, if it has not already reached there.

If you can get very good PA you could get 2+minutes unguided, I managed it a few times with my HEQ5 and 200mm lens.

My sky conditions here normally allow around 300secs at f4/4.5 with the Borg and camera lenses.

If you have no LP you could get much longer with guiding.

[Vox45]

Wow lot better indeed

Longer and the more subs (with a properly aligned mount) you take will help decrease the noise.

Noise to signal ratio increase with the square root of the signal... In other words: 1 sub has a noise to signal ratio of [1], 9 subs would have a n/s ratio of [3], 100 would have a n/s of [10] etc. As you can see, it gets harder and harder to increase the ratio. For a s/n ratio of [15] you would need... 225 subs

...you just need to find the right balance.

[Thalestris24]

Louise,

here is a crop from the nebula, i did some editing to see how far i could go, but i can't seem to do it properly.

the noise is so high that it's showing everywhere if i try to stretch it. guess i'm gonna have to wait till the clouds break and get longer exposures.

Maybe if anyone want to try to see how it goes it would be nice.

thank you.

crp.jpg

Hi

The crop was just to help judge the focus really though it's helpful for framing the target too! Anyway, focus looks ok to me - I'll let others judge...

Louise

[Atreta]

Thanks everyone,

tonight looks promising so far, can't wait to try again

[Maximidius]

Cool, you got M42, The running man and the Flame nebula in the 

The Heq5 arrived and i did some test shots with it.

M42.jpg

This is the unprocessed stacked image.

Specs:

30 x 30s lights

10 x 30s darks

10 bias

Lens 135mm @ f5.6

For a first try i'm very happy with it.

Please tell me your thoughts, i'll try longer lengths as soon as the weather permit.

thank you.

Cool... you got M42, The running man and Flame nebula, Its possible that you got a little of the red emission from IC434 too, The Orion molecular cloud complex has many targets, seems you got more than you bargained for. 

[Atreta]

cool, i can see only the running man in there, my eyes are no very trained yet .

[Atreta]

This is last thursday attempt.

I spent some time trying to do the DARV method and aligned as good as my patience would allow

Though is not perfect, with a bit oval stars, i think it's a lot better than the previous ones.

This is about 48 x 60s subs with 10 darks. What is better for that length, bias or darks?

This one is crop from the nebula region with running man.

Comments and critics are welcome.

thank you

Franklin.

[Atreta]

This one is the same last picture but with some more processing done, i tried carefully to not black clip any data.

the flame and running man nebula look much more prominent.

[stargazerlily]

Hi,

Sorry to ask just a dumb question  ... are you taking these fantastic images just with a camera and lens mounted on a HEQ5?

Pete

PS: Need to read the thread again before posting as I've just answered my question ... I must have my dunce cap on today

[kalasinman]

Good start. Better than mine. I missed where you listed your ISO. You are overexposed by a fair amount. Reduced ISO will reduce noise too, and I think flats would help a lot.-Jack

[Atreta]

Hi,

Sorry to ask just a dumb question  ... are you taking these fantastic images just with a camera and lens mounted on a HEQ5?

Pete

PS: Need to read the thread again before posting as I've just answered my question ... I must have my dunce cap on today

Thank you, yes i'm using just the camera with with heq5, i have a 4.5 inch newt but it

Good start. Better than mine. I missed where you listed your ISO. You are overexposed by a fair amount. Reduced ISO will reduce noise too, and I think flats would help a lot.-Jack

[Atreta]

Hi,

Sorry to ask just a dumb question  ... are you taking these fantastic images just with a camera and lens mounted on a HEQ5?

Pete

PS: Need to read the thread again before posting as I've just answered my question ... I must have my dunce cap on today

Thank you

Yes, i'm just using it with the heq5. I have a small f4.4 newtonian but it isn't suited for astro imaging because it lacks inward travel, then i'm using it with a 135mm f2.8 lens but stopped down to f5.6, at full apperture it's terrible. Next i'm gonna try with an 80-205 f4 vintage zoom lens i got.

Good start. Better than mine. I missed where you listed your ISO. You are overexposed by a fair amount. Reduced ISO will reduce noise too, and I think flats would help a lot.-Jack

Thanks you, they were taken with iso 800. Yes, i need to research more about flats before i aventude doing it

ps: can a mod delete the previous reply? i accidentally hit the post button before time.

[kalasinman]

You inspired me to try my 100mm macro lens last night. I'll post elsewhere when finished, thanks.--Jack

[Atreta]

Looking forward to see your pictures.

[wuthton]

M42 is so bright it's impossible to capture any detail without burning out the core.

What you could do is take another image using shorter subs (+/-15sec) and combine it with your first image using the HDRcomposition tool in Pixinsight or you can use Photoshop.

There's nothing stopping you adding an image with longer subs either.

[Atreta]

Wuthton,

i have some previous night sessions with about 30s exposures, how can i align it with this one to do it?

i don't have pixinsight, it's a bit expensive for me right now.