Gina

Clear skies forecast for tonight - after that it looks dire. I want more Ha for Simeis 147 - not sure whether to bother with OIII or SII as there seems to be very little image to capture in those wavelengths - probably better to go for other objects. Simeis 147 is in a clear direction almost down to the horizon so I should be able to start imaging soon after it rises in the east. Lots of atmosphere to see through though. Just have to play it by err... eye!

Been designing the 3D printed parts for the 45mm lens. Mounting bracket and focussing gear.

I like the idea of "Gina's corner" Never written a blog "Imaging-tips/tricks and techniques" sounds like a possibility

When I get what I consider appropriate images I do post them in the Imaging Deep Sky forum. Otherwise I don't know where else to post this stuff.

I have adapters to connect this big lens to the ZWO filter wheel with T2 thread so all it will need is 3D printed mounting bracket and focus segment gear.

I can't stand this - every time I go to post what I've written it disappears!!! I'll try a bit at a time... It might be me - I'm tired from a run of late nights. After IC405/410, Simeis 147 and maybe a linking frame, there are things that would want a wider FOV. As I've said before I'm keen to capture Barnard's Loop in Orion and most appropriate for this is the 45mm f2.8 medium format camera lens as this screenshot of CdC shows.

Still plenty of data on other DSOs to process but I think I feel like a change...

BPP finished - simply saved in PixInsight as PNG. Not as many subs as the Ha but here it is. Nothing like as clean as the Ha but might add to the Ha to give a reasonable colour result. OTOH more OIII subs would probably help. Forecast no good for tonight but tomorrow looks like it might be clear.

Flats capture finished and checked with Blink and now onto BPP for the full works on the OIII lights for IC405/IC410. Almost nothing in IC406 but good in IC410 (Tadpoles).

OIII subs captured and run through Blink - 186 passed - just over 3 hours of data Now taking OIII flats to go with them.

Now capturing OIII 60s subs for IC405 and IC410. Seeing is excellent tonight - about 1 or 2 pixels. IC410 is also known as the Tadpoles.

Trying to locate the gap between IC405 and Simeis147...

Home now after after a social evening out Just opened to obs roof - luckily it wasn't frozen up - hard frost here and a plethora of stars out

Max gain seems to work well Of course this is with over 4 hours of integrated data but I have to say I'm very pleased with this result - I didn't expect to be able to post just a pre-processed image - I normally need to tweek it a bit.

BPP has finished at last so here is the result simply saved in PNG format with no post processing. 259 60s Ha subs g600 -30C. New calibration data.

BPP still going...

300 bias, 80 60s dark, 30 flat frames captured and checked with Blink - 5 darks rejected. Now using that lot to calibrate 259 60s Ha subs of IV405 the Flaming Star Nebula and integrate in BPP.

Yes, that's what I was thinking Don't know when - forecast isn't good Mind you I've got plenty to catch up on

I've taken the images of the two DSOs in PixInsight and arranged them to match the image above and there's quite a gap.

Here's an image I found Googling which shows both DSOs in one image. I don't think my images overlap, unfortunately, so I'll see if I can capture the bit in between next time there's a clear night. Just a few 60s subs should be sufficient to capture alignment stars though I guess keeping the noise down on the joining strip would look better in the overall result. Had I realised these views were so close I might have been able to adjust the framing to give a small overlap.

Initial BPP on IC 405 completed and result put up beside the interim Simeis 147. Screenshot of PI auto-stretch.

The last few nights have been great for image capture but now I feel I'm drowning in data Data processing seems to be taking all my spare time! There are several projects that have taken a back seat and that I would like to progress. No!!! I'm not grumbling - how can an astrophotographer grumble at too much data??? Nooooo!

I've run the IC405 subs through Blink and have 259 60s Ha subs to use so that's over 4 hours of data - should be able to get decent results out of that Lens cap on and capturing 300 bias frames currently then I shall capture 80 subs each of 60s and 120s all with gain of 600. After that it's flats.

Currently downloading the overnight data - transmission speed has dropped again - may be damp as I found it foggy this morning and everything dripping. Closed roof and wall flap and switched dehumidifier on.

Pretty close - here's a screenshot of CdC showing the image rectangle for the Flaming Star (IC495) and the "Find" circle on Alnath. The big rectangle FOV is for the 28mm lens. If the two areas don't overlap I could probably capture an overlapping frame between the two. A small number of subs should suffice. Then I could make a mosaic. That would be good