kirkster501

I have 9x10mins of OIII Olly. I tried to put a HOO on top of it but it didn't work. Interesting idea to overlay just the OIII on top. Will have a go at that tomorrow. Thanks for the idea.

M97 - The Owl Nebula, March 2020. Eight hours of exposures Friday night. LRGB. TEC 140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera. 20 x 10 minutes luminance 15 x 5 minutes each in RGB Astrodon filters. Very hard to control the star to the upper right.

Thanks, yeah, I reckon there may be more data in this in the IFN that I haven’t managed to bring out, the luminance especially is loaded with IFN. I intend to play with this further.

Also, be careful with expectations. Don't expect to see the core and faint dust lanes in full colour. No one gets to see that by eye alone.

Thanks. It's always better - IMO - to leave a remnant of noise rather than try to eliminate it completely by over-clipping, or pressing the noise reduction tools too far and losing precious detail. I am still learning where the line is drawn. Consequently, when I'm processing the data and moving sliders around with insouciant aplomb, I am always saying to myself when I move the sliders"that's 6 x 10 minute subs you could have killed there......."

I was careful not to "over denoise" the image. That is a very easy hole to fall down trying to kill the noise but it ends up killing the picture with it. I'd rather leave a tad of noise and preserve the details.

With FSQ85 and about 10 hours of exposures, data gathered in 2019. LRGB. Very careful not to kill the IFN.

16 x 15 min exposures in Ha 3nm and 80 minutes each (5 min exposures) in RGB. FSQ85 and GH2-8300 camera and Astrodon filters. Data from January 2019 and just found it and processed in PI and Photoshop. Forgot to take flats so had to use aggressive DBE to eliminate gradients.

I have read good things about the Hoya red enhancer filter. With cheap step up and step down rings this could fit multiple lenses. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoya-Y1RA60082-red-enhancer-intensifier-RA60-filter/dp/B01M6XC78P/ref=pd_ybh_a_7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=B7XKWT2Y5CGX7CNC2AC9

I have been extremely pleased with both sets of my Astrodons. Their ability is far in excess of my own.

If I could get a noise pollution filter for my XT2 I would use that and the magnificent Fuji 16mm F1.4 that I have instead of the Canon. Something I need look into.

Yep, agreed about the Astrodon 3nm. Moonlight hardly bothers them at all. Be prepared to shell out some serious coin for Astrodon and Chroma.

Here is my wide-field Samyang 135mm setup.

Yes, familiar that plate solve will get you to so the object in the centre but then getting the camera at the right orientation by eyeballing it is a PITA and I end up that my registered subs have to be cut significantly and I am fed up of this now. I've never quite worked out this rotation thing in SGP, it never seems to work when I have tried it. I wish SGP had that frame markers feature too like that APT has.

Thankyou guys!

Olly, you mentioned framing your objects in a certain way by aligning north and south or something like that then letting the star drift to see it's lined up in a certain way - I recall you mentioning something like this??? Can you let me know please how you do this? This reframing the object after the camera has been moved is a big area of weakness for me and I need to get it sorted pronto.

Nicely done. You've inspired me to revisit my dataset on this.

Very true. It is very hard to be disciplined and focus on the one object in our skies for so long. By the time you've got the data on one subject it's possible that two, three or four months can pass sometimes and the object disappears from view! I have about six data sets I am working with like that. For example, my deep-detail, multi-panel Andromeda project with my TEC140 is going to be a decade long one at this rate. I hardly got anything on it this/last year, the weather has been so diabolical.

Thanks Steve. It's not what we want to hear in the UK with our clear sky time at such a premium but the truth is that more subs equals better result. It's as simple as that isn't it..... We are told this all the time but still try to do 10 subs instead of 25 to try and get something in the can. There are 46 in this picture. OK, maybe that is overkill but forms the basis of a good experiment. I'd say based on my experience now of struggling with processing and noisy images is that the luminance or Ha master providing the detail on any subject needs 20 lights at least and this picture is an epiphany moment for me - 8 - 12 subs like I have been doing is not enough for a super result. I hardly did anything to this picture. So many subs and the noise averages itself out

Here is 46 x 10 minutes with FSQ85 and Moravian G2-8300 camera and Astrodon 3nm filter. I had forgotten about this data set that I captured in 2018! I have been desperate to process something with not getting anything in the can lately due to shocking UK weather so was looking into my data lake and found these unprocessed jewels. As it happens, with a huge dataset like this, you hardly need to do any processing at all since the output from image integration is so good. All I did after preprocessing was do an Automatic background Extraction, a masked stretch and a bit of HDR with a mask. That's it. I hope you like it and it gets you looking forward to summer again. This will be an excellent foundation for a colour North American/Pelican project as well.

What do the individual subs look like when stretched? Share a few of them. Are you being ruthless enough throwing out the bad ones?

Yep, more data needed. The edge of the galaxies is a bit noisy as well.

Hi, it was made with my FSQ85 with reducer and KAF8300 camera.

Had a reprocess of this ready (hopefuly) to get more data on it this comign spring. This is seven hours from last year.

Brilliant, I really like it. I like the colours and how you have kept some colour in the background sky. Many, myself included, can have a tendncy to obliterate the sky to make it black and reduce noise. It's a delicate balanciong act - but you haven't done that here due to the quality of your data set and the delicate processing. Good job!