WolfieGlos

Interesting target, not come across this one before. Nice image too 🙂 I guess the tails are fairly bright if they've come out so well with the short time?

That trick of Asinh to 1000 @ONIKKINEN told me about too, on a post a while back now (might have been M33?), and I still use it to this day. Often dialed back from 1000, but I always use it as a start point.

Personally, I never had much luck recombining in Siril with Starnet. The stars always lost their brightness and often the brighter stars had a transparency about them. Those stars also came back in with artifacts, like a colour checkerboard pattern. This pattern would also be repeated on the starless image, a real pain.

I would also find this would happen using Starnet in the standalone version, so I came up with a different routine using GIMP.

I used the following:

1. Process your image as normal (with the stars) to a point in the non-linear (i.e. after stretching) and then SAVE. Ensure the stars are as you would want them in your final image.
2. Run Starnet in Siril.
3. Immediately save the resulting Starless image under a different name (call it stars2).
4. Reopen the starless image, and further process it as required.
5. Open the original image BEFORE starnet, and then add stars2 as a new layer, and set the layer mode to Subtract. This should leave you with a perfect image of just the stars, no artifacts, etc.
6. Create a New Layer from Visible.
7. Open the processed starless image, and overlay the starless image on a SCREEN mode. Sometimes lighten only works, but mostly it's screen.

If you then want to reduce star sizes (if not using Deep Sky Astro's script in Siril), you can use Value Propagate in GIMP on the stars layer. Change the mode from More White to More Black, and adjust the sliders to suit. You can even change the Blending Mode (at the bottom) from Normal to Multiply to really cut the stars out drastically, if you so wish, and control it with the Opacity slider.

HTH.

That's a superb image Lee, congrats and nice work.

On 05/05/2024 at 11:16, mcrowle said:

As an experiment I used the Comet Stacking and Kappa-Sigma Clipping algorithms in DSS to nuke the stars and better reveal the tail of S3 PanSTARRS. The result is not very clean, but it does show how much tail is there and otherwise lost in the stars. The background emission nebulae are also clearer, though smeared out due to the stacking on the comet.

I've never had much luck with DSS or Siril with the stars on Comet images, but the Ha you have here is a really nice addition. Nice tail showing too.

Nice image, I've not heard of or seen these before, but it's an interesting field. 

7 hours ago, tomato said:

It's definitely has less of a bling factor now and is perhaps more faithful to the 'real' colour of the galaxy?

I'd like to see the thread discussing the colours, I'll have to search for it. Especially given that I raised a thread a year ago asking why I'm not getting enough blue in mine 🤣

Agreed it looks better without the Ha in the stars, and lovely Ha in all of those spirals 👍. To my eye, there's a bit more colour noise in the outer edges of the arms when held side by side. But let's face it, they are both superb images in any case!

After seeing some superb images of M63 recently, I decided I wanted to reprocess my version of M63 which I captured last year, but now using PI and the XT tools.

Using the same stack as previous, here is 12 hours captured with my DSLR throughout last May on 3 clear nights in a 5 days with no Moon, this scarcely seems believable nowadays!

I'm both impressed and surprised at just how much more detail, lack of noise and general image quality I have been able to get out of this one. I honestly thought that it was one of my best images to date.

Starfield 102 + 0.8 reducer + Canon 800D (modded) + HEQ5.

144x 300s lights at ISO-400. 6x darks, 50 bias, 40 flats.

Stacked in ASTAP, processed in PI, Starnet, Blur & Noise XT, and GIMP.

Comments welcome as always.

At the very top of the widefield view is this interesting looking object. According to Aladin, it is listed as "KISS F1316-4836", an emission-line galaxy. I can't find any other information on it though.

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Nice! Must have a look at this one.

Olly

Thanks Olly. If you do take a look at it, I'm sure the RASA will do a great job 👍

Nice work so far 👍

And wow, I don't think I've even seen those spiral arms in NGC 5477 previously :

2 hours ago, cfinn said:

 

What a difference, nicely reprocessed.

Really nice image, nice colours too. Glad you finally got around to imaging this year after your previous post 👍

Must admit I'm looking into the route of a mini PC too, for a future upgrade.

If you are set of a Beelink mini PC and don't mind the higher price, then FLO have a few left of discontinued ranges in their offers section.

3 hours ago, clarkpm4242 said:

I do now.  Soundtrack seems very atmospheric  😀

Worth a watch too, really enjoyed it, especially as it is based on the Anglo Saxon chronicles. They had displays of a lot of the props and costumes in Bamburgh castle last year. 

This is some data which I've managed to rescue, well somewhat, that was captured back in January. I was nearly not going to post it, but what the heck.

Through all of my processing through Siril and GIMP I couldn't get much out of this data at all, compounded by noise, star halos which I suspect came from the filter and other issues, so I gave up on this target a while back to focus on others.

I decided to run it through PI whilst I still have it on trial, and I've managed to get something from it at last. Mostly thanks to Blur and Noise XT I have to say.

I captured 127 x 180s images on 18th January (half Moon) and then a further 38 x 300s on 26th January (Full Moon)! Why I did this I can't recall, but with hindsight, I suspect a lot of my data has been lost not only by the Moon phase, but by underexposing whilst I had better conditions during the lesser Moon phase. This, I suspect, has also had a detrimental effect on LBN 766 (which Stellarium lists as the blue reflection nebula to the top-left of NGC 1579, and so in a different location to PI's annotation).

It might just be that this is a fainter target than I first thought, but for 9.5 hours of data I was expecting a bit more. In any case, I may pick this one up again towards the end of the year when Perseus is better placed in our skies.

ASI-585mc + Askar D2 filter, Starfield 102.

3 hours ago, Gerr said:

20 images at ISO1600 f/3.2 60secs

Wow, for such a short integration that's a superb image!

Congrats all, stunning images as always 

Great shot again!

As for a title, how about Destiny Is All? (If you know of The Last Kingdom…)

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 🙂

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

I don't think I gave Chris this info but it's Lum 21x15 mins, R,G and B 8x10 min each. TEC140/Atik 460CCD. Not all that much, really.

Olly

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! 

57 minutes ago, fireballxl5 said:

Just 9.25 hours,  approx 3 months worth here atm, so not that much 🙃

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.

On 19/04/2024 at 08:48, geeklee said:

TypeCat in PixInsight had 1,369 Quasars listed in this field.  On closer inspection a lot had nothing visible to my eye.  I trimmed down this list and scripted some simple output from Simbad until I had the four with the highest redshift (z) that were visible.  I created a custom catalogue (yellow) which shows their designation, redshift and Light Travel Time.  Sadly I didn't break 12 Gyrs this time, but it isn't really that much integration. Fascinating working through this and I hope it's correct.

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?