WolfieGlos

I assume you are talking about this thread ? If so, as michael has referred, just know the limitations and don't expect the incredible images you see taken with large SCT's and Dobs. A picture says a 1000 words, so to give you an idea, the following links are to images with my Starfield 102ED refractor + 2x barlow + ASI-585MC. Jupiter and Saturn , Jupiter with Ganymede shadow animation . Remember that that's nearly double the focal length of your 72ED and, crucially, using a high-speed planetary camera. The effective focal length was around 1500mm if I recall correctly, and the ROI reduced to increase frame rate. I've not tried it with a DSLR. Here is my rig I used to image the Moon with the 72ED from indoors, and I note I stated I didn't have enough focuser travel to achieve focus with a barlow. And here is my 102 ED. The barlow is a 1.25" nose piece fit, and both scopes come with a 1.25" clamp fit. Planetary imaging is completely different to DSO imaging; this superb FAQ over on CN helped me a lot in getting started. Pay particular attention to section 6 to establish the best barlow length to suit your scope, camera and seeing conditions. Presently, most of the planets aren't visible. Take a look in the Planetary imaging section too; you won't find many posts being made now, but it is a hive of activity during the season. Hope that helps.

Final process, I promise! Given that it's a very recent image, I decided to give this the PI and XT treatment now that I'm full on learning this software. Noise has gone, tidal tail from NGC 3628 more visible and, to my eye, a better colour balance. Comments welcome as always 🙂

Ah, actually the filenames of the stacks did have the 21x15 and 8x10, I forgot to list them above. Thanks Olly, and thanks for clarifying the equipment used. Like others, I can scarcely believe this is only 9.25 hours of data! Sad but true! Especially 15 minute frames, in that time we'd experience cloud, sun, night, snow and anything else. Hell, probably an eclipse the way this year's going 🙄

I recently made a post stating my intention to upgrade to an astrocam later in the year, either OSC or Mono, currently unsure which way to go. @ollypenrice got in contact with me, and kindly offered me a set of data in LRGB for M51 to have a play with a mono set and trial it. Olly did all the capturing (a few years ago maybe?), provided me with the calibrated and stacked, unprocessed LRGB files. I have then pulled them into PI and processed to suit. After some trials and tribulations, learning PI, LRGB and the use of Blur and Noise XT, this is my first attempt at an LRGB image! I ignored separate star processing for this image to avoid complications, so they are a little blown out. There's quite a lot of tidal stream here, which I was amazed to see coming out of Olly's data! Again, thank you to Olly for the data and giving me a go at using some incredible data 😀

Great image Lee, and some nice details in the spirals too. That's clever. I have PI on a trial, an image I produced was littered with quasars that were not visible. I'll have to find out how to do this 😉

Good job Lee, nice capture. I kept trying to capture it from our way last night and didn’t catch a glimpse of it. I stopped trying by 11, so looks like I should have carried on.

Ah, sorry. I choose a star in Stellarium and slew though that rather than NINA. If there’s a nearby DSO I choose it in Nina.

Nice image Sarek, good detail in there too. Was this with the Starfield 102?

We were predicted clear skies for the last two nights. Monday was accompanied by 25-30mph winds so didn’t even try. Just opening the door was enough to stop me! Last night I was imaging in broadband from 9:30 (before darkness!) until nearly 3am when it clouded over. Got to take anything you can get this year it seems. Clear skies (allegedly) for the rest of the week and we’ve gone away 🙄 We had exactly the same last night about an hour before I set up (minus the rainbow). None of the forecasts I look at showed a chance of rain above 0%.

I plate solve to a nearby star or any DSO, and then manually move the mount via EQMOD. Having a camera on video mode helps with this as you can see the Moon move on screen. Alternatively, I’ve also done it by just going outside and physically moving the scope to aim at the Moon. If you’ve got a DSLR, liveview helps a lot with this.

When it’s finally clear for extended runs, of course it’ll be Moon affected! With the way this year has been so far, even with the Moon I’ve decided to make the most of it with two rigs on the go, and a pair of binos for observing. Main rig of the Starfield 102 with an ASI 585mc on the HEQ5, with a smaller rig of the trusty Canon 800D with SY135 on the star adventurer operated with an AsiAir. One of the few times I’ve had a chance to use the Air that I purchased back in the Black Friday sales! Not 100% sure on it though, I really like Nina and the laptop control so I’m struggling to see if I’ll keep the Air long term.

Nice shot, despite the LP, it looks great. We were up there last August, lovely part of the UK. We went over to Lindisfarne for a day, and found out that you can stay there. I did wonder whether it might be a good location for the Milky Way season.

7 sessions in 3 months must be demoralising (I thought you had been quiet), but I'd say from this one image it was worth pursuing. The detail in that core is really nice, Ha isn't overdone for me, and the 25 hours shows across the whole image. It could even be one you return to with more data next season? If not, it's one of the best Pinwheels I've seen.

Thought I'd revive this topic. I currently have PI and Blur/Noise XT on a trial license, and want to revisit old data to see what it can do. I know most people have already been down this rabbit hole....so thought I'd give it a go too. I've just had a very quick re-process of my data from M33 last year. I think a year of additional experience, and using different software.....the result speaks for itself by comparison. I would never say that this had been captured with a DSLR - it seems "too clean" compared to what I'm used to!!! That's thanks to Blur and Noise XT all used on default settings to be fair. Blur XT even sorted out the horrible corner stars that my 72ED always showed. In fact, given that the XT tools can create an image like this...I'm partially questioning myself over whether there is any need to upgrade from a DSLR to a dedicated astrocam....

Holy moly, that's an incredible image of M51 and the tidal stream you have there Olly. Well done 👏 In fact, you've got nearly as much of the stream as the 250 hour collaboration that team did (last year?), although I think they had a lot of Ha exposure in that time. I wonder what 250 hours of RASA imaging would reveal ........ 😉

Here is a 4 panel mosaic of Caldwell 41, or the Hyades Cluster. Captured on 30th March when it was already low in the sky, this is a 4 panel mosaic using my ASI 585mc with an Astronomik L2 filter with a Samyang 135 wide open at f/2. Each panel comprises of 30x5s subs at gain 252, under less than ideal conditions, which ironically assisted with emphasizing the brightest stars especially Aldebaran. Stacked individually in Siril, Mosaic created in ASTAP and then processed with Pixinsight and Blur/Noise XT.

I’d agree with this, I’ve just got the 45day trial for PI and whilst it’s similar to Siril with its tools (but more of them, and easier to control… I feel), it’s the XT tools that really do it. Which you can also get on a trial, for 30 days, and I think some are available for PS. Honestly, the image I posted this week of M106 I have tried several times using my usual processing workflow in Siril, Gimp, Starnet and Topaz, and despite 2 years of use, I cannot get anywhere near the result of PI (coupled with Noise and Blur XT). And I did that in PI with fewer processing steps than usual, and on my first real attempt at using it. I was utterly blown away sat at the screen watching this image unfold. Ultimately I’d suggest it’s down to the AI trickery for sharpness and lack of noise, and I would never suggest capturing less data, but the fact I have a presentable image with only 3.5 hours of data is unheard of for my system at f/5.6 - it’s usually too noisy, but it has possibly been helped by it being a fairly bright target. If we were to have permacloud for the rest of the year, I’d be happy to leave that image alone, but alas, I plan to add more data when I can.

I agree, that's a very photogenic barred spiral and nicely processed. I'm disappointed to read that for something you've paid for, that you get sub-par data in return. I always think of these remote sites as being able to provide the best kinds of data due to the dark skies. Saying that, you'd never know from that final image 🙂 I get what you mean about unsatisfying. In the recent IKI competition for the Crescent, I really didn't feel the same satisfaction and didn't have the same "will" as if it was my own data. I had the intention of trying more of their past collections (for free!) because I have been thinking of going to Mono, and trying my hand at free data would be a good learning experience before deciding to take the plunge. With all of the cloud we've had it would have been ideal, but in truth, I've only tried one other set (M81/M82) and I have to say, I didn't find myself enthralled by it. Perhaps the chase and collecting our own data has more worth to it, psychologically, to some of us than we realise.

Thanks Clarkey. For me it wasn't wind, just standing outside told me that and the guiding graph was very consistent with it's fluctuations (no sudden wind gusts causing a spike). The only thing I can put it down to, is PHD was showing a green text for the SNR, but the SNR was around the 10 mark. The best guiding I had all night (post meridian flip), the SNR jumped up to around the 20 mark. What confuses me, is with the DSLR, if I'm hitting those kind of guiding stats I have star trails. But I didn't get that here. Either way, it worked, so I'm happy. Just on the Ha, I found this example on Astrobin. If I can get two more clear nights, I'll try and dedicate one to RGB and another to Ha. The Ha in that one is seriously impressive! Thanks Lee! Thanks Olly, appreciate it. I have to say, SPCC in PI makes it a lot easier to get the colour balance more natural, and it's probably one of a few of my processed images that "looks right" to me. And it's your fault for showing me Noise/Blur XT on that Triplet image....blew my mind!

Something I've been wanting to try and test this year, hampered by the clouds obviously to date, was to pair my Starfield 102 with the 585mc. Coupled with the 0.8x reducer, essentially I get a huge "zoom" on the target due to the small chip. Being an astrocam, the benefits of cleaner images vs my usual DSLR noise is a major bonus and something I've wanted to explore before I pull the plug on a cooled cam hopefully later this year. The main reason for testing was obviously for galaxy season and to try and put theory to practise, especially given that this system is operating at 1.05"/p. Last night was the first time I've had to try this combination, and with clear skies I was all set. For whatever reason my guiding was all over the shop, spending most of it's time around the 2" mark - low of 1.4" that I spotted, highs of 2.8". Not good. I checked PA, RA/DEC balance and possible cable snags and nothing stood out. My guiding usually sits somewhere between 0.7-1.2, so it's something I need to review. The initial subs captured in NINA varied from 2.4 up to 2.8 HFR, so circa 6 FWHM (Siril reported this as max of 4.8 FWHM 🤷‍♂️). Luckily the individual subs looked fine, so I decided to plough on until cloud ruined play. Having just downloaded PI on the weekend for the trial, I've also now downloaded BlurXT and NoiseXT, and OH MY GOD 😲. What have I been missing out on!!!! Other than the M44 cluster I posted the other day, this is essentially the first image I've fully processed with PI (and a finishing touch of sharpness to the galaxy cores in GIMP). 103 x 120s subs (03:26:00), calibrated with 15 darks, 20 flats and 25 dark-flats. I intend to add more exposure time when the opportunity presents itself, so I haven't focused much on the background here or that horrible star halo. But for a first test, I think it was pretty successful. Comments welcome, and thanks for looking 🙂

NINA should handle it automatically (as long as you enable it), so if it did flip, then well done 👍 I've been doing them for over a year now since I got my HEQ5, but I still watch it when flipping just in case 🙂 I'm also going to be investigating this for myself, along with the multi-star guiding @Clarkey mentioned. I set PHD2 up following a guide (might have been Astrobackyard) early days and it uses single star, and I rarely have issues, but my own guiding last night spent most of the time above 2", which is atrocious. But then none of my images showed trailing and my HFR's ranged between 2.4-2.8...usually they are circa 2.1-2.3. Sometimes we can get obsessed with the numbers, but just looking at the output with your own eyes sometimes can suggest otherwise, but it's definitely best practise to get it as good as possible.

I don't know about other software, but in Siril it can be applied through manual stacking. I've tried it recently with my 800D and it made a small difference to the image statistics, but to my own eye looking at a stack, it made no difference. You would apply it in the flat preprocessing stage, and just type "=2048" instead of specifying the stacked bias master. I don't know about the 600D, but personally at this stage, I would say don't worry about it and sort out the fundamentals of guiding / dithering / flat issues. You can return to bias later. With regards to flats, NINA is great for astrocam flats but I don't find it much so with my DSLR. If you're really struggling, you can try using Aperture Priority (Av) mode on the DSLR and it will automatically set the exposure, I find a white t-shirt and IPAD screen with a white picture on max brightness to be best. Much easier, and I've never had any flat frame problems, from the first time I ever used them. I've got to say, you've certainly come a long way so far Tiffs, lots of questions which is great 👍 I learnt a lot of this over a prolonged period of time, but you'll get there faster than I did 👍

Nice job so far, can't wait to see the final process. I tried it with about 8 hours with a DSLR, it took numerous attempts to process and masking of the core to do it. It was difficult, especially as a beginner at the time. Are you not using the 533mm anymore? I know the weather's been rubbish, but wondered how you were getting on with it?

Nice job on such a small target and limited data.

Thanks @900SL 🙂