Thorney

Thank you all for the comments it’s really appreciated. 
 

10 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

I had a wee play with PixInsight and came up with the image below.

Sometimes I fine the first attempt is the best, then I go back a few months later, when I've learned more processing skills and try again. Sometimes I think it's better, other times I scrap the attempt half way through.  

Wow thank you for sharing this. Definitely a lot more details than I have and it’s good to see what can be achieved so it’s something to aim for. 
 

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I think your image is well processed. Firstly nothing shouts or pokes you in the eye. The background is neutral and the black point well judged.  (This is tricky on the NAN because there are patches of dust which are much blacker than the  background sky. Stars are small and tight, noise is low and there is no visible noise reduction. There's no star colour but that's the filter's drawback. I wonder if a short unfiltered run might let you get hold of some?

Other than that the only suggestion I can make would be to try to give it a bit more punch in the form of stronger local contrasts. Since you use Photoshop (wise man!) do you have Pro Digital Astronomy Tools, formerly known as Noel's Actions? They are excellent. 'Local COntrast Enhance' would probably work on this. Normally I use it as a layer and don't select the contrast enhances stars when flattening.

Olly

Thank you for the feed back. Regarding the star, yes I’m looking at getting some unfiltered images hopefully round a new moon. I am just unsure of how to combine them, would it be a case of just stacking onto what I already have or is it best to created a layer mask and go down that round? 
 

I do have the Astronomy Tools which is heavily relied on 😆.  I will have another play though and see how I get on. I think on one of my first attempts I over done it so I’ve held back a bit in this one. 

Finally manged to get out for a couple of nights last week since late Feb early March time and shoot the old faithful North American Nebula. I've done about 4 attempts at processing the data but I'm still not quite happy with it.  Every time I think, right that's it. I then save it and sit there looking at it and change my mind. So I reprocess the image and it comes out totally different.  This is probably my best  so far but I'll no doubt have another go at some point. I still feel like I am at the very basic stage of processing so in time we'll have a better outcome. 

This is about 12 hours with 30 Darks, 30 Flats & 30 Dark Flats. Shot with a Redcat, ASI2600mc, Optolong L Extreme and ASIAIR pro. Stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop.

I've also attached the tif file incase anyone would like to have a go.

Autosave.tif

I’ve had this happen before but I found ordering new equipment will fix the problem. 

Did you ever go a head with this setup and if you did, how did the mount cope? I currently have a heq5 pro and thinking of buying the esprit 100 so It will be a similar setup to what you have. I will be getting a new mount later next year so if I  could get away with the heq5 for now then happy days. 

I’m hoping to go to this event. My wife is out for the day so it just depends if I’m brave enough to venture out with our 10 month old twins 😂. At least I would be easily to spot. 

I can literally walk to this venue and only just found out about these events 🤦🏻‍♂️  I’ll definitely be popping in to have a look. 

5 hours ago, Adam J said:

Sure you have tilt but I honestly do  i see a little coma in the centre of the field and that should not be the case as the result of tilt alone. 

Best thing to do is a star test to examine the optical alignment of the scope. Centre a bright star in the FOV and then de-focus it until you have about 5 rings visible. Do this either side of focus blow it up and post the result and i will be able to say for sure if there is a problem. 

I use one of these at about 10metres to do this without having to wait for good seeing / clear skys. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/other-collimation-tools/hubble-optics-5-star-artificial-star.html

Adam

Thank you for the reply. It’s showing a couple of clear nights this week so I’ll have a go and post my results. Appreciate your time. 

19 minutes ago, Laurin Dave said:

I would suspect the most likely culprit is the camera chip rather than the scope,  several have reported tilt issues with the ASI2600.  I'd have a go at adjusting the tilt screws on the face, probably just a fraction of a turn  required to fix. 

Thank you for the reply. I’ll have a look into this and see if I’ll be able to fix it. Hopefully it is just a minor tweak. 

30 minutes ago, almcl said:

Don't think it's coma so much as tilt.  Here's what ASTAP measures (28%):

Thank you for looking at this and highlighting the issue. I’ve seen a few people use these graphs but they are a bit complex for me. I guess I need to do my research and do some more learning as it proves to be rather helpful. 

Below is a full frame shot with a Redcat 51, asi2600mc and optolong l extreme filter. 
 

I’ve only just recently noticed that the star shapes in the corners of these images seem off and I have read a few things online from people saying they had to return the Redcat due to coma issues.
 

My question is do I have this problem? Is it down to poor focus? or am I just being over fussy/ paranoid?

Any help will be much appreciated. 
 

It’s in the latest issue. Decembers issue isn’t out yet? 

Hi Adrian. Thank you for this, appreciate the time you took to have a look. it does look a lot better after more of a stretch so I’ll give it a go and see what I can bring out. I’ll also see if I can go back through the steps I took and ease off on the smoothing.   

After many nights of failing to get both targets in the same frame I finally got it how I wanted it. The plan is to get this image printed  to hang on the wall in our new borns bedroom. I may revisit this when time allows to see if I can do better but for now I’m rather happy with it. 
Shot over 2 nights. 38x600 & 40x300. 30 darks for each night. Gain 100 -5c 

Asi2600mc…..Redcat 51……Optolong L extreme…… heq5 pro……ASIair pro. 

Any comments welcome. To my untrained eye I feel as I’ve done to much noise reduction so the detail isn’t as sharp as could be. 

Anyone going to see him or seen him live?  I’m going this evening to see him. Quite looking forward to it. 

I have just taken some flats with a light pad. .420ms. The preview looks ok to me but we’ll see once stacked. If these fail I’ll try with a white T-shirt or think of some other method   

Last night I thought I would try and capture the heart and soul in the same frame. I’m using a Redcat 51 and ASI2600 so I know both targets will fit. However I chose NGC1027 to slew too then I would manually move the mount  until everything was in frame but no matter what I done I would be cutting out either nebula.  
So I’m wondering is there an easier way to frame up the targets or is it just get close then manual move? 
Once I have got it how I want it, I’m hoping I can plate solve and then keep going back to that position and already be lined up. 

I haven’t had my camera long but I’ve used darks to match the lights then flats and flat darks. To me I think it’s just experiment  though and see what works best. 

I have seen a few people do it on the internet, all been DIY jobs though and unsure how the performance was as I couldn’t find any feed back for it. 
 I did come across one of these which I’ll be giving a try. 
https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-accessories/zwo-wifi-extender-for-asiair-pro.html

8 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

 

Maybe you just thought that histogram is clipping - but it's not. 

 

My apologies if this is the case. I’m still at the basic stage of processing and the main histogram looked as if it was cutting into the data. 

12 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

 

If you don't mind - I'll have quick go at processing the data as it looks nice and can't help myself

 

Feel free, will be nice to see what can be done. 
 

7 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

But long exposure darks, definitely camera off.

I shall experiment with this. Thank you. 

Thank you all for the replies. I’ve been using the ASIair for my capture software. Gain was at 100 and i believe there isn’t a way to change the offset so I’ve been running that at default which I think is set to 50.

The darks were made about a month ago with the camera attached and lens cap on. (I just used the master dark in DSS) 

I have used the darks before but it was the first time adding flats and dark flats to an image  so didn’t know if these were wrong? 
 

I’ll try add the frames to some old data to see what that the outcome is and I’ll take a look at Siril to see what that produces  

I was out the other night to capture a widefield of the Bubble and Lobster Claw.  I got 3 hours and 20 minutes of data and stacked with 30 darks, 30 flats and 30 dark flats in DSS. When i came to process though in photoshop the data on the histogram seems to be way over to the left and clipping into it.  However i stacked the lights without any calibration frames and it leaves me room to play with on the histogram. 

Is this normal and i just need more data to move the histogram over  or have i gone wrong somewhere? Equipment used was a Redcat, ASI2600mc and Optolong L-extreme filter.

I have attached the two files in case anyone wants to take a look, the first is with and the second is without.

Many thanks.

Bubble.tif Bubble no calibration.tif

Made the switch from a Canon 600D to a ASI2600mc and finally got to try it out a couple of nights ago.  Still a complete novice with the whole thing but with the difference between the DSLR I was blown away. Can’t wait to get back out and get more data.  
 

Shot on a Redcat 51 and Optolong L extreme filter. Just over 1 hour of data with no calibration frames and a quick edit in photoshop. 
 

Arrived Wednesday, my first dedicated Astro camera. Going to be a couple weeks before I get to use it but looking forward to seeing the difference from my dslr. 

I’d be interested to know if anyone has experience with ordering direct and if there are any additional charges. I’ve been delaying buying a dedicated camera until I can start to use it later in the year but now might be the best time. 

Love this 👍🏻