Gina

Can't see any nebulosity... Trying 6m...

Captured a couple of 120s OIII subs and auto-stretched one in PI but can't see anything of the DSO. Now trying 240s.

It would appear that I have 98 120s Ha subs of Simeis 147 of which 62 were used with wrong darks to give the interim result posted above. I now have 50 odd more subs tonight so I reckon I now have 150 plus subs of 120s making a total of 300m = 5 hours. The 62 processed before make up about half what I now have and that was a reasonable result so I think perhaps I have enough Ha subs and should try OIII.

Looks like Simeis 147 does have OIII nebulosity and even SII so maybe I'll use tonight to try those or at least OIII depending on how things go and how long I can stay awake Here an image from the 'net.

Looks like I didn't capture the 120s g600 darks after all - at least, I can't find them. My memory seems to be playing up! Firstly I find nearly 100 Ha subs of Simeis 147 that I don't seem to have processed and now I can't find the 80 120s g600 dark frames I thought I'd captured. I think I'll have to get a notebook to log what I do - separately from posting here - I mean pen and paper Tomorrow I need to capture 80 30s g600 darks and 80 120s g600 darks. I already have the 60s g600 darks and master. Then I will have to feed all the lights and darks through Blink to reject duds followed by using BPP on the data.

Here's the result - screenshot of auto-stretch in PixInsight followed by a bit of histogram fiddling in GIMP - background gradient that wants removing but tomorrow I'll collect some correct darks and run the process again.

That's useful

Captured 125 30s Ha subs of the California Nebula, fed them through Blink and 6 were dud so I have 119 left which I'm feeding through BPP though with a master dark that doesn't match because I have yet to capture dark frames of 30s at gain of 600. Now capturing more 120m Ha subs of Simeis 147. I've found a collection I haven't processed yet - don't know how I missed them I'll feed them through Blink when PI has finished the BPP run.

This is another nebula I haven't imaged before

This shows my alignment error. As usual with CdC, south is at the top

Yes, could be.

It's rather small for this FOV. This is a single 30s sub.

Sky's cleared - Simeis 147 is still down in the trees so I'm capturing something else as a test. The California Nebula (NGC 1499).

I see. Set up my all sky cam ready for dark to see when/if the clouds go away - no sign yet - I think it could be 8 or 9pm but we'll see... The grey area is solid cloud the rest is very dark nimbus.

I guess wideband would be fine for finding stars and if you know the location of the DSO with respect to a star (or stars) within the field then this would be a perfectly viable method Thank you I don't seem to be thinking straight ATM! I could simply swap out the Ha filter for a WB one for finding using the current rig. EQASCOM Alignment Clear as mud

I guess I need to do a three star alignment of the mount then it should be right. Do you know, I've never done that - relied on AstroTortilla in the past. Should be simple enough As for comparing cameras, I still have the Astrodon 5nm Ha filter which should give an idea when looking at a hydrogen rich nebula. I don't need a matching lens exactly - a faster lens stopped down would do. eg. I could use a 55mm f1.8 lens on the Atik with 135mm f2.5 on the ZWO. When opened up to f1.8 it could act as an electronic finder if the Atik camera is sensitive enough and will work at around an exposure of a minute or two.

Was that a zoom lens? My memory isn't what it was... A zoom lens would be good if it had a decent aperture. Trouble is they usually have a rather small aperture. I have a Vivitar zoom lens from way back when I had a Pentax Spotmatic SLR film camera. Quite a decent lens actually as I recall, so might give it a go for imaging. 35-105mm focal length and f3.5. Something to look into later. Maybe two stepper motors for control - one for focus and the other for zoom - that would be a nice versatile imaging rig Before that I have Simeis 147 to capture more Ha and I'd like more OIII for IC405/410 I think. Not sure about SII. But I will have to find Simeis 147 first I could do with a wider field finder camera but it would have to be at least as sensitive as the ASI1600. A nice setup would be to have two ASI1600MM-Cool cameras with different FL lenses Guess I should sell one of my 460EXs to pay for another 1600 Of course, I'm assuming the 1600 is the more sensitive as seems the case but is it really? I need to find out! Only sure way would be to have both set up to look at the same area of night sky at the same time with matching filters and lenses of same aperture. I have two of some of the lenses but not filters.

Yes, give it a try - nothing to lose. Maybe it will sit at infinity focus if not controlled which is what you want, though you'd have to find another way of focussing it.

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...