ollypenrice

Very, very nice indeed with invisible processing. The little details are delicious.

Olly

Moving is a nightmare and I fervently hope never to do it again! Very best of luck, Louise.

Olly

22 minutes ago, carastro said:

Yes, think that’s where l tried to reduce their size.  Think l may have to do process 6. 

Try reducing contrast in the stars-only when they are a layer on top. You can do this using the Ps Brightness and Contrast tool or do it manually in Curves, lifting the bottom of the curve and pulling the top down.

Olly

Well I certainy love the latest renditions but I was really responding to what you said yourself.

Great stuff, Francis. I'm glad you have returned to the RASA fold.

Olly

This is the Federation of Astronomical Societies' list of affiliated clubs.  https://fedastro.org.uk/fas/members/members-location-by-county/

If you were to contact the ones in your area, explaining your situation, I dare say you'd soon be talking to a human being willing to help you and, at the same time, help his friends/fellow members find their way to some bargains.

My policy has always been to sell cheaply and sell quickly.

I hope you won't be so sheltered as to leave SGL!

Olly

It is a nice one. It looks as if you have a bit of the dreaded tile pattern showing through from star removal. I find I can't predict when I'm going to get this and when I'm not, nor do I have any real fix for it. I hope the developer is working on it. In this case it's only slight.

Olly

Subtle processing. Nice.

Olly

Lots to enjoy in the image, particularly the extended red emission, but the halos would bug me, too.

Olly

As with your NAN-Pelican, how about a compromise with smaller stars? In both cases I think your nebulosity is stunning.

Olly

Two things have perked up my enthusiasm for imaging (which hadn't left me but was diminished.)

1) Using an automated rig which means I don't have to be up all night. Running Les Granges, the all nighter had become a lifestyle for about 200 nights a year and it became too much as I headed for seventy.

2) Switching to super-fast F2 systems with CMOS cameras. This lets me capture images which are not just shorter in exposure, but which give a different perspective on objects. In a nutshell we get more faint dust and less emission gas for a refreshing new look. The speed also makes large mosaics very attractive.

Olly

This is a very good framing and not one we regularly see.

Olly

I've had lots of these things and I'd always go for the Telrad. It's quite large but it lasts for decades and uses normal batteries which you can find anywhere and is so logical to use that you can lose the instructions and not worry about it. A circle is way better than a dot because it gives you a scale on the sky. It 'just works,' which is a minor miracle in astronomy.

Olly

2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

 

I'd rather have slightly under sampled image with higher SNR that I can sharpen a bit more rather than potential for all the details but not being able to sharpen as much as I want because of noise issues.

Me too.

Olly

On 20/09/2023 at 11:06, Tomatobro said:

Daystar quark. Having seen images taken with this device on the internet I just had to have one. Try as I might it just never lived up to the hype. Thankfully the supplier took it back. My 500 year old  second hand Coronado PST out performed it in every way. I know some have had a good experience with quark's but I was not one of them.

The net is packed full of problem Quarks. When they work they're great but I'm not inclined to risk it.

Olly

M31 reaches well beyond your present field of view.

This will give you an idea of what's to be had within your field and either side of it. You certainly need a lot more signal but this won't do you much good unless you can flatten your image effectively - that's to say remove sky gradients.  In this orientation the upper left half of your image has a very bright patch of background which will probably be coming from LP. It is certainly not signal from M31.

Because I shoot from a dark site I'm not very experienced in fighting severe gradients like this but the starting point would be something like Dynamic Background Extraction in Pixinsight or one of the other gradient tools from another astro-specific software. These will all be more successful with more exposure - much more.

Olly

Having once split a slab with expansion bolts, I use only builder's epoxy of whatever make they have in the store. I drill a snug hole with a big hammer drill, squirt in the two-pack epoxy and tap in the threaded bar with a hammer. I don't hit the threaded bar, only a nut and locknut threaded onto the top of it.  This method has never failed for pier fixings and we have 8 piers here.

Olly

7 minutes ago, Rodd said:

Thanks Olly. I wonder how different the image would look if the same data was taken from Bortle 1 with seeing < 1”, a guide rms of .25”, and live focus (like innovative foresight) with pe TV fee Ed ct focus at all times 

I think it would depend on the resolution at which it was presented. At normal screen resolution only pixel peepers would find any difference.

Olly

That's exquisite, Rodd, on all counts. How could a NB rendition of this region be better? I have no idea.

Olly

I really do like these. To my eye, NB images look so much better with a reasonably light, dusky-looking and colour-neutral background sky, of which this is a perfect example.

Olly

That has something to say!

Olly

That's a very clean, crisp image. Good stuff.

Olly

1 hour ago, tomato said:

Even with the myriad of processing repair tools now available, I don’t think you can get away with neglecting  the first four of the six Fs as defined by Steve Richards:

Find, Frame, Focus, Follow

However, with fast wide field imaging set ups, am I going to spend a clear night (or three) fiddling with tilt and spacing when I can use software tools to fix peripheral stars, no, that’s not for me.

Maybe that’s why I prefer small galaxy imaging, I only need the bit in the middle.😉

TBH, the recent AI based tools have transformed the imaging processing part of AP for me, turning it from an arduous frustrating grind to a smooth, fast and rewarding exercise, knowing that the end result will be superior to the starting input.

Woo Hoo, Me too!

lly

Just now, andrew s said:

Now look what you made me do!

thanks Andrew 

Our last guest, an SGL member, is a designer of fast video cameras which record, among other things, crack propagation in glass. May I suggest that you buy a new screen (a self calibrating Eizo would be a good choice) and repeat the attempt while filming it in a 2.5 million frames per second camera? Then you could post the video to provide a unique entertainment experience for us all!

Olly

You need red. The main reason is that Ha stars will be much smaller than broadband red ones but, also, not all red in the sky is from Ha. A lot of it is found in dusty regions or in regions of ERE (Extended Red Emission.) Note how blue your stars are.

In my view, the filter to dump would be the SII since it makes the smallest contribution to Ha OIII SII palettes on most objects and because 2 channel NB like HOO works so well.

Olly

23 minutes ago, alacant said:

Surely we can't possibly comment until we've seen the now customary starless version!

No starless versions from me! I've never posted one.

Olly