alan potts

Had a couple of goes at this this year and got miserable results due to poor focus and poor technique with the Borg and poor guiding on a night that actually looked good. I had a similar night last night and after having a think. Many members have helped me no end. I decided to spend time and line up the guide camera, which was a fair distance out. Then did a re calibration, things seemed better after this. I just don't know how this guide scope keeps moving, seem well bolted down.

So M42 with the 183mc 16x 3mins with darks at a modest minus 5 and no flats. Taken at 635mm on the 115mm APO, the ghosting that I was getting last year when using this reducer seems to have gone, never did find out what it was.

I only masked the core and didn't bother with the twin exposure method.

Advice always welcome,

Alan

21 hours ago, Nicola Hannah Butterfield said:

Thanks.

I know, basics first though, solid mount, first thing, I am pretty sure there is not enough back focus on the 200p for a coma corrector, though might be an option if using a Barlow for the smaller objects.

I have to crop extensively with the 6d severe vignetting even with flats.

I have only been at it a week, well two nights with the neq 6, previous stuff had been static.

I did these last night, only quickly stacked as still learning the software.

 

I only use a Paracorr coma corrector in my large Dob and know nothing about their use with AP. You talk of vignetting, I had this fairly bad on my ZWO 071 used with a Borg EDII 77mm which is 330mm F/L. One of my biggest helper tells me Flats will remove this but the flat I had taken were of no use, I am still to get round to re-doing them. Basically they were too over exposed to be of use. May be worth having a look at yours or posting one for the more experienced to view. Your doing very well for one week, I spent the first two weeks trying to get guiding to work, I now have 5 cables, only one worked, mount fault I think.. There is so much to go wrong.

Alan 

Both very nice images.

Alan

Very nice image Steve, I did this the other week, sadly though it sits over the house where there always seems to be heat rising and smoke from the wood burner.

Alan

Very nice image Nicola, keep at it, coma is annoying but can be dealt with at a price.

Alan

Lovely shots Gina, love the B&W version.

Alan

9 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

This is the Crystal Ball Nebula.

Peter

Lovely shot Peter, so small most of these PN's

Alan

15 hours ago, char555 said:

I think you're getting confused with NGC 1514 (the Crystal Ball Nebula discovered by Herschel), which is a PN in Taurus. IC 1514 is a galaxy in Aquarius.

You may well be correct but this post is from 2014, why bother, I am sure Roger just made a simple mistake.

Alan

Stunning and so so different from what we normally see posted, great work!!

Alan

22 hours ago, PhotoGav said:

Thank you Bob.

Thank you Alan. I am yet to find the point at which I have too much data for one image! The more you collect the easier it is to process and the better the result. I’m down to one image per New Moon, if the weather allows. I was out showing one of my GCSE pupils how to do astrophotography recently and we took one 60 second frame of six different objects. Quite a different approach! The shriek of delight when the image of M42 popped up on the camera back was priceless!

I am sure you are absolutely correct about lots of data making processing easier, I have sort of found that out myself using PS when I have just got 1 hour and other times when I have 3 hours. I think once I am a bit more into AP and sort of done a year I will add to various targets and re-process them, I never dump data unless it's rubbish.

Alan

I have had a week without a clear evening but tonight looks set fine, UK had had terrible weather from what I see and read.

Alan

Always a pleasure to look at your work Gorann.

Alan

I feel that's very nice, one can see the shape of the fish. Maybe another day exposure will help bring it out better, some of these Sharpless objects are very faint.

Alan

I am sure your going to add to this , very nice start. Is it me Steve or are the stars slightly off their normal perfect, I had this the other night with the wind. Something I rarely have a problem with here, damn annoying.

Alan

Superb shot Gav, 31 hours, that more than 10 times what I spend on an image, may well account why I'm not in your class.

Alan

Never seen it so large without a big image crop. I will have to explore the 2x2 binning ability of my 183mc on my 805mm APO and maybe on my 190mm M/N . Hope you manage to find the colour parts somewhere. This is not in the best place for me at the moment as it is over my fairly large house from the obsey, so heat rising will not help or the smoke from the wood burner heating system.

Alan

Nice report Stu, clear here too but too windy, that in itself is strange, not something we get often.

Alan

I was going to say exactly the same as Martin, except instead of exquisite I was going to use superb. Great image and very well done.

Alan

A lovely shot on the original, I feel you got a bit over saturated towards the end of the posts. Says he that always gets carried away with the colour controls.

Alan

7 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Stick with it Alan, this hobby does throw these kind of problems at us sometimes with regularity but they are all solvable, even though often it doesn't seem that way.

Steve

I just find that this problem is somewhat ironic, a camera designed to work better below zero freezing up by all accounts. I have the camera in the boiler room which is a very dry 25-27 degrees to dry out the insides that people suggested may be damp. What is next I wonder CO poisoning.

Alan

21 hours ago, Sunshine said:

The detail you've captured in those wisps of clouds is pretty darn sweet, don't throw in the towel yet my friend, i can see your good work through whatever has obstructed the view.

I just feel that way sometimes, it is just one thing after another. I dare say though most are my fault no matter how much money I throw at the hobby there is always something new to annoy me. I too was fairly pleased with the general data ignoring the melted area.

Alan

11 hours ago, R26 oldtimer said:

Hi Alan. Is this a single sub or the stacked image? I have seen some checkers artifacts with dss from time to time, which are not present in the individual subs.

I took 14 subs and it was there in all of the ones I checked which was only about 4 but I am sure that was a cross section of what they were all like. It was also on those I checked from the night before, though not as bad.

Alan

9 minutes ago, Skyline said:

Do you warm the sensor after your imaging session.  I cool my 294MC Pro down to -10c then use the warming aid to raise the temp to 6c before unplugging it.

Nadeem.

Yes I do, I am always aware of the outside temperature and warm it back to about 2-3 degrees from outside, of late that's been plus 12, and minus 5, all in the same week. Start temp the other night was 22c.

Alan

50 minutes ago, symmetal said:

The anti-dew doesn't stop the sensor icing up, it just stops dew possibly forming on the outside of the camera front glass due to the sensor cooling removing heat from the front glass. Your image effects are too 'in-focus' to be the front window I would think. Dew would cause loss of contrast and large diffraction effects on bright stars. My Atik One often suffers from dew on the rear of the field flattener and internal filter in damp conditions. It doesn't have a heated sensor window.

I never found cooling the camera more slowly helped. If the humidity is  very near the threshold of ice forming it might do. 

It's worth just storing the camera in a box with desiccant as I mentioned even if you don't remove the access plug on the side. Now mine has thoroughly dried out internally, I don't remove it now either. The fact that the internal tablets do get damp implies the camera chamber isn't airtight anyway so spending days in a very dry environment can only help keep the internals from absorbing moisture.

Alan

Your advice is always sound, I will do that, it's raining at the moment so I guess that's not going to help matters, I always keep them outside too so maybe not a clever idea. I just get fed up of always taking Flats and Darks, which as you pointed out I don't do correctly, will work on that. I will put the camera in the boiler room, it's very dry in there and warm (26c) but not not silly hot.

Alan

47 minutes ago, symmetal said:

My 071 suffered from bad icing when I first got it, at any set temperature below zero. I did open up the camera and replaced the desiccant tablets though I could have dried the existing ones in the oven/microwave.

As I found out the desiccant tablets will release their moisture at room temperature if the surrounding humidity is lower than they are, to save opening the camera remove the access screw plug on the side of the camera under the black plastic disc. Just gently lever the disc off to reveal the screw. Then place the camera in an air tight food container with a bag of fresh desiccant crystals, like those sold for use in drawers or small cupboards. It'll take several days to work, but the internal tablets should dry out to match the humidity of the air around the large bag. I keep my 071 like this when it's not in use (pretty much forever at the moment ) and just replace the plug in the side of the camera to make it airtight (hopefully) again when you take it out to use it. Haven't had icing problems since. I keep a humidity meter in the food box and it reads about 20% all the time.

Zwo used to supply a little container that screwed onto the access hole in the camera and contained two tablets. This wasn't sufficient to dry out the tablets inside and Zwo don't seem to supply it with the 071 anyway.

Alan

It could just be me not having the Anti Dew on, I have not un-checked it but when your a novice like me it is easy to undo things and not realise. It is the first time I have had this since the first time out back in July and it has been wet of late albeit with clear nights. I will try to reduce the cool down and maybe go back to minus 5 again, I had no problems there or at least that I saw.

I can't say I can see any difference anyway, zero, -5, -10, all appear much the same to me. I don't know if it was my imagination but the camera , for what ever reason did seem to get to minus 10 rather quickly these last 2 nights nights.. I have since run the subs from the night before and they are also similar but nowhere near as bad.

Hey, who know Alan, maybe one day I will get right, even if it was an accident🙂.

Alan