Gina

Thick fog now!

It's misty here too so doubt there'll be any imaging tonight but I live in hope

There are gaps in the clouds now and the moon is showing

Just popped out and turned the rig 90 degrees. Also, capturing 8s g300 t-30C darks. There is a sign that the clouds might part

Just seen that myself and was going to suggest this coverage

This screenshot shows the coverage when rotated 90 degrees.

Thanks Ken OK I can go for shorter exposures as well as lower gain. I'll take some more darks in readiness Here is the current result with matching darks but the amp glow is still showing. BPP followed by BDE then into Photoshop where I applied levels and "Enhance DSO and Reduce Stars". I'm thinking of rotating the rig 90 degrees so that I can cover this area while cropping out the amp glow. OTOH I'm wondering why the amp glow hasn't been calibrated out.

I could probably reduce the gain further or even the exposure time and increase the dynamic range to help capture M42. This is quite a bright area of sky in Ha This area would be better captured with a narrower FOV though.

22 was the number of subs captured and of those one failed registration leaving 21. I'll grab more any time there a few minutes of clear night sky Currently capturing 80 15s g440 -30C darks.

Same but with "Enhance DSO and Reduce Stars" from Noel's Actions. This shows great promise considering it's only 22 subs of 15s - just 5m 30s integration time.

I've saved this as TIFF and transferred it to Photoshop - levels and curves only and saved in PNG format for upload. Here's the result Using wrong master dark - I'll grab some matching ones shortly.

That worked - including rejection 22 15s g440 -30C subs. Here's a screenshot.

I guess the next idea would be to use the separate ImageIntegration process.

Yes, just looked at one of the registered subs and it's fine. So the problem is in the integration stage. Here's a screenshot of a single registered sub auto-stretched in PI.

Same result except that for no rejection images.

Yes, I could do that.

To clarify above... captured a couple of dozen lights and checked them in Blink then used BPP as usual. Data in the rejection_high integration but nothing other than a few dots where M42 should be in the main image. I don't think BPP likes M42 with present settings

That doesn't work !!! Result - blank frame!

The sky has cleared again so I'm imaging. Didn't know what to image as I think I've covered all I want ATM at this FOV so I'm trying something different. Gone over to Orion and the Flame to M42 area. With M42 having an enormous dynamic range I'm trying a lower gain and short subs. 15s at a gain of 440.

In that half hour or so of clear sky just after dark this evening I managed to capture 35 60s Ha subs after rejecting bad frames in Blink. Calibrated these with the appropriate masters and simply saved the result in PNG format. Here is the result. No post processing no background leveling etc.

It's calibration. Don't know why yet. I probably did something wrong. I've saved the image as TIFF and transferred it to Photoshop where I applied levels and Noel's Action - "Enhance DSO and Reduce Stars". Just a relatively quick post process. Cropped the bad edges off. Saved in PNG format and transferred back to main desktop. I'll read some more of the PixInsight book soon and see if I can manage better post processing. Also, I want to capture some RGB to colour the stars and add the Ha to the red. I think that will need masks to separate the stars.

Processed Simeis 147 Ha in BPP then auto-stretched and cleaned up the background with DBE. Screenshot of PixInsight edited in GIMP with levels.

Clear sky gone!

Partly clear sky tonight Weather forecast was for solid cloud!