WolfieGlos

Thanks Oni, I’ll give that a go - but how do you stack both datasets to 1 image? Is that using Sirilic? I know how to do it deep sky stacker, but that’s all. I have generally been using scripts up to this point (and then reviewing the graph to cull the worst subs and then restacking), but I’ve decided to learn to do it manually and this is the first image I’m trying this on, and doing a comparison I achieved a better result. So far, after culling, I have 162 x 120s spread across SIX sessions such has been the poor weather - the initial session I retained 90 frames, whilst some of those sessions have resulted in about 8 frames retained. So I already have the “stack the stack” going on - which is what I’ve always done to date for multiple sessions in Siril. Out of interest, how is stacking both datasets to one image any better? Isn’t it taking the same data to produce a final stacked image?

See, this would be appealing to me if I was looking for a RASA system based on the superb images posted by you all here on SGL. A RASA was something I considered before quickly ruling it out and getting my 102ED. It came down to, if I wanted a RASA8, I’d need a mount upgrade too…so just for the OTA and let’s say an EQ6r…that’s £3734, not far off this Origin 6, and that’s without a camera or any accessories. As it happens I don’t (and didn’t) have that kind of money to spend, but people like me at a beginner/intermediate level (with a bit more cash to spare) could be a possible target audience for this, or those who have a Seestar and want more oomph and have money to spend. In both cases, I guess those audiences are quite small. I’d agree that if it was being sold as an OTA only, they’d probably be shifting them pretty quickly.

Sorry to read this Lee, but you have to do what’s right for you 😊. I also saw Nicks video last night and he’s spot on, and I’m glad he’s seen his YouTube demands for what they are, and to just take time out and try to get back to what he enjoyed; imaging. On a side note, I’m surprised he’s bought all that gear and not even used it! For you, I guess that’s a bit more difficult with the stairs. I’d love to see some more of your nightscapes if you decide they are viable, the ones you’ve posted have been great. I suppose if you wanted a DSO fix you could always take it with you in a car for a weekend, camping or otherwise and you’ll have it to hand at ground level then - possibly even a star party. Just an idea, is that you could also simplify and perhaps look at wide field imaging with a very fast lens (like a SY135) but of course funds would be needed to purchase it depending on your financial situation / willingness to sell other items to fund it. Best of luck with it, look after number 1 and get back to enjoying the hobby, no matter what form it takes.

Thanks Olly, and that was my thinking for the faint stuff. I would have stacked the images from the two setups separately (with their own calibrations) and then “stacked the stacks”. Assume this is what you mean by co-registering? Using Siril I think this is the only way I could do it. However. Right now, with 4 different forecasts showing it as clear until midnight, of course….its cloudy. So I might not get to try it tonight anyway 🙄 Hopefully the forecast is correct for later this week.

It all depends how deep you want to go, and how good of an image you want really. M45 is quite bright so you should be OK with a few hours. I hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs so to speak, but the key for astro imaging is total integration time of all your individual frames. It's all about signal vs noise (SNR). 1hour is OK, 4 is better. For a bright target like this you might get away with somewhere inbetween, but if you want to pick up all of the surrounding dust then a lot more is needed. So with 1s subs, that's a lot!!!! If you've got a faster lens (say f/2.8) then you can get there quicker. A single 1 minute sub at f/2.8 is the same as a 4 minutes at f/5.6. This is what I achieved in 5 hours last year with a 72ED refractor at f/5.8 in 5 hours, with a Canon 800D. The nebulosity (for me) looked pretty good, and the surrounding dust is showing but is seriously noisy. I don't think I used any noise reduction software on it, which may have helped. By all means give it a go, be great to see what you get 🙂 And if you like it and want to invest, then a simple star tracker (say a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer) will allow you to track the sky and use longer subs, a lower ISO - and fewer files. Great for shutter count, less stacking time and less storage on your HDD. Hope that helps

Nice! Did you sort out the spikey issue in the end?

Hi, Untracked is possible but you will be limited on sub length by Earths rotation or else the stars will be trails instead of circular objects. You'll need to avoid star trails, and to work this out commonly it’s the rule of 500, but I found 400 works better (some even say 300). Basically divide your focal length by 400 to get the sub length before trailing occurs in your subs. So allowing for the APSC sensor, you’d be looking at 400 / (350 x 1.5) so less than 1s per sub. You’ll need a higher ISO, probably 3200 if not more, and then manually track the target as it moves across the sky. I’ve never done this with longer focal lengths, only 10mm or 35mm lenses (20s and 7s subs) so good luck with it 🙂

Thanks both. All of the data will be RGB (no narrowband). It’s M78, and it isn’t visible to me until it reaches SSE (circa 150 degrees) so I’ll have a few hours to get it setup. Allegedly we have some clear skies tonight so perhaps I’ll give it a go and see. I suppose worst case scenario is that I’ll have a load of unusable data from the 585mc - or two versions of the same target with different camera/scope combos. Edit; I just remembered, I did combine 72ed and 102ed data for M31 before Christmas now I’m thinking about it, and it seemed OK. If I get some data maybe I’ll post the individual and combined results.

Hi all, With some apparent clear skies forecast this week (fingers crossed....), I'm thinking about possibly dual rigging to obviously capture more data, and to try and finish a target I started in November. It's suffering from a measly 5 hours so far, after culling the worst subs. To date, it has been imaged with a Starfield 102 + 0.8 reducer with a Canon 800D. Given the equipment I have to hand, I can mount a Canon EF 70-300L zoom lens on top of the tube rings and connect a 585mc. If I set the zoom to 240mm I get basically the same FOV as shown below. However, the resolution will obviously be different. The SF102 will be imaging at 1.34" p/p whilst the zoom lens would be at 2.49" p/p (and circa f/4.5 instead of 5.6). Will this have a detrimental impact on the final image? The main core of the nebula is already looking great, but it needs more data to reduce noise - and then hopefully pull out the dust for a more satisfactory image (currently it's very mottled). I know zoom lenses are not ideal, I'm just trying to use what I have to hand and to understand the possible implications of doing this - and before I decide to make a more permanent dual setup using something like a FMA180 instead of the zoom lens. If this is not a good idea that's fine. Thanks!

Chile? Wow, that would be an exceptional place! What’s the deal if a piece of equipment (say a camera) dies? Would you have to buy the replacement and then fly over to install it yourself? If so then that’s another cost factor to consider, flights out there must be in the region of £1500 or so. Of course, if you go for it and go over go set it all up then a visit to the VLT would have to be on the cards too… Ah nice, I did look out later and it was patchy at best so perhaps it cleared here in the early hours. Oh well.

Why not keep the green in the image and use it for your profile pic? Mr Green? Geddit? 🫣 Anyway, nice result. Which filters did you use? Did you get a SII or duo SII/OIII filter?

I’m impressed anyone had some clear skies. Also, the image isn’t too bad 👏 Thats a very dramatic looking object, if anything looks like the death and remnants of a star, then this is it, nicely processed and framed goran! What’s the object near to the top right, at first I thought it was a galaxy but zooming in it looks to me a bit like an LBN object?

More reason for that remote imaging ey @tomato ? Our sky was mixed all day, matching the forecast. I went to bed at 4 feeling a bit rubbish, woke up fine at 7:30pm with clear skies! What?! This wasn’t in the forecast! Quickly convinced the wife to cook food, I set up the rig, ran autofocus… slewed to target and the cloud rolled over right as phd2 was settling before the first sub…and our meal was ready. All of the apps I look at, including the met office cloud forecast, show I have clear skies tomorrow night, Tuesday and Wednesday. Let’s see what happens.

Hard to tell, I mean my culprit does appear to have been a loose and moving filter. I assume yours is a 1.25" or 2" screwed fit, so surely that couldn't happen? Have you disassembled your imaging train lately? I can only think of taking the filter off and using a UV/IR to see if the spike still appears. If not, then try putting the lenhance back on and seeing if it still happens. I can't see any trace of it in your image with Alnitak centred, but it's odd in your new image with it closer to the corner that you've gone from a more pronounced single spike to a fainter double spike? It's almost as if it's a diffraction spike from a reflector or Newtonian! Does it happen in the other corners? Perhaps it is related to tilt, have you checked the subs in CCD or ASTAP? HTH

I’ve only had this happen to me once. When I first bought my lenhance filter over a year ago I tested it on the NA nebula with the Evostar 72ed with flattener and a DSLR, and it seemed to happen on bright stars near the edges - see below. I had the clip in filter for a DSLR (which didn’t clip, it just “sat” in so it was able to move around…until I taped it in), so I was under the impression that the filter was moving, it wasn’t square to the sensor and thats what caused the spikes. The below image was 2 hours if I recall and it didn’t happen in the first hour, but as the scope tracked the target it started to occur in the later subs and gradually got more pronounced. It may have also been tilt/backfocus related as you can see below all over the image, but I’ve never had it happen since on any image or sub with the 72ed, and certainly not on my Starfield 102. Looking at yours, you may have some slight tilt/BF issue in the top left? Does it occur if you position Alnitak elsewhere in the frame away from this corner? Hope that helps.

Same ole **** different year it seems!! Our forecast has changed in the last 24 hours. Only yesterday it was predicting most of next week to be clear. Last night, it changed to Monday+Tuesday and then Saturday and Sunday (typical as I'm away on the weekend....). Now, todays forecast? Tuesday and Wednesday, partly Saturday and rain on Sunday. I mean...it's so changeable, I think it'll be putting our heads to the windows every night it "might" be clear 😕

I caught that fireball at 11:50 as well, it streaked for what seemed about 7 or 8 seconds, slowly through the head of Pisces. As you say, an incredible sight.

It was perfect for an hour, then it was a few gaps between clouds…and that was it sadly. I probably jinxed it by making that post 🫣 However, being outside keeping an eye on clouds for a while I saw a few meteors including the brightest meteor I’ve ever seen at 23:50, streaking for about 7 or 8 seconds, slowly through the head of Pisces. I had a huge smile for about 5 minutes afterwards, despite looking at clouds! Fingers crossed the forecast for the next 10 days is as Paul has said.

Our forecast has it clear from 2am tomorrow morning, with hazy conditions up until then…it’s been clear since at least 21:30 when I looked out the window on the off chance 😳 Straight outside, rig set up and getting data. I’m in total shock given the recent run of weather. I hope everyone else has the same 🤞

Really nice image, this one’s on my list but that’s a lot of time to get a result as good as yours with our poor weather! Agreed on the spiral, I can just see it in your image turning up the screen brightness, and in fact Euclid appears to show it in a slightly overexposed view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_342#/media/File:Euclid’s_view_of_spiral_galaxy_IC_342_ESA25170723.jpg

Absolutely tremendous image Olly and co 👏 The colour and depth is superb, and this must be APOD worthy surely. I agree with the Wow emoji sentiments! Ive never noticed before how the cone nebula with its surrounds looks a bit like the head of a flower, with the stem running down to the rosette. I suppose this is the extension you were on about in an earlier post. What’s next, up to the Pleiades or down to the Seagull! You must have enough data for a “northern hemisphere” mosaic by now 🤣

If you're able to move to a different part with a garden or roof access after a while, would it be feasible to put the mount and scope into one of those secure storage centres near to where you're moving to? I've never used one, but it could be worth looking at a few prices to see if it's worth doing (along with anything else personal or otherwise you may want to take with you). Alternatively, if you're on a 4th floor, does it have a balcony you could use your kit from? Obviously you would still need to look at ways of getting it all there. I assume there's no way the airlines would allow it even if you paid for the extra luggage and weight? Another thought, are you be hiring a removal company / man with a van / friend on a roadtrip who could take it over?

Close call, glad all of the kit is OK. Our winds were also much higher than forecast, and it lasted all of an hour and it brought a tree down across the road from us this afternoon. Luckily it just blocked the road but if it had been 3m taller it would have gone through our fence and onto the house. So at least that didn't happen to your shed, or that could have been a lot worse. Luckily for me also....it's removed an obstacle from my southern horizon view 🤣

If I wasn't planning to go to mono later this year then I would be picking one up. I see no reason why it shouldn't work.

Cheers Adam. I did think of shooting at f2.8 for the background, and say f4 for stars to combine them but it would require a lot of faff having to connect a DSLR to stop down the lens - which obviously uses a different connection compared to the 585mc I intend to pair it with. Refocusing would also be a pain - so I’ve ruled this out. Another option would be to pair it with a DSLR in the first place I guess. I like the idea of the FMA 180, I’ve just been looking at it and the FMA135 and they are well priced - much more affordable than a Redcat which I’ve always struggled to justify for the price for a similar FOV and aperture. I’ve just had a quote from Wex for the 200/2.8 and I can get £275 for it in a trade in (or cash) - pretty good considering I paid around about £350 for it. I’ll check a few other places but as a ballpark figure that will basically pay for either of those in the Askar range. Although I’m saving for an astrocam later this year (533mm or 2600mc), I can probably justify this and it seems to be the best option to get a working wide field view.