alan potts

I have moved this to a location where you are likely to get a reply, I would have thought the D60 was a decent camera for deep sky imagaing, I use a Canon 40D for a couple of years with lovely result once I got use to all the other stuff.

Alan

1 hour ago, Zummerzet_Leveller said:

Thanks for the positive feedback.  Unfortunately cloud cover and seeing in the UK has been dismal for a while.  So i had to shoot this one a bit lower than I would have liked so was shooting through a fair amount of atmosphere.

Thanks for the feedback Alan.  It was nice to be able to capture some data for a change, although back to cloud now with no end in sight.

We have the bad weather now, snow rain and generally damp. When we do get clear skies, which is fairly often they tend to be 3-4 on the trot. Only down side of late is they always seem to be at full Moon period. Still I guess it is winter.

Alan

A beautifully detailed capture, just feel the blue is a little too over saturated.

Alan

A lovely image you have taken there.

Alan

17 hours ago, scotty38 said:

Yep I know, I just didn't think when I posted the link 🙂

 

I have the Optolong L-eXtreme and so far so good. There is a halo around the brightest stars but other than that it's great and a fair bit cheaper too although not cheap as you say.

Kind of you to think of me and post a link in any case. I had the Optolong LEnhace but did not like it at all, I actually sold it on before I had paid for it on my card, so a member here about 50 quid I think it was. The filter in question is much cheaper from the link that the poster highlighted for me, at a tad under 200e and in Europe, which he is himself. He actually drove all the way to me to buy my 18 inch Dob, it was nice to meet him.

Alan

7 hours ago, scotty38 said:

Here's one:

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/stc-astro-duo-narrowband-filter-2.html

Thank you for that but I live abroad, not cheap is it.

Alan

17 hours ago, Wiu-Wiu said:

@alan potts @scotty38 it is taken with the STC Astro narrowband filter. I first bought it when I only had a filter drawer, not having a mono camera, nor filterwheel at that time. It was/is the perfect solution to do some narrowband imaging from my lightpolluted garden. 
 

the images come out looking like this, no extracting or recombining needed.

Alan, your filter is in my visual case. It gets rotated out in the field on challenging objects. 

nowadays I do have a filter wheel, but I only have this one and my idas lightpollution filter in it. The wheel is handy to keep dust out of the system.  I shoot narrowband on nebulae and when the moon is out. The idas D1 is used on comets and pretty much everything else. On dark locations, I shoot through one of the free slots. Maybe I’ll get a mono camera in the future, and put LRGB filters in there. (But I’m still not really convinced to make that step) 
 

Dave,

I know that filter I gave you is just classed as a visuai filter and like I said I did find it a help on a few faint objects, this has been reported by others. I don't even believe it is available now but was originally for street lamps I believe, it must be 15 years old but is a genuine Lumicon.

I have never seen this duo filter before or heard of it for that matter. The one I bought and actually sold before I paid for it using a card as I did, was an Optolong L eNhance Filter, I was not at all pleased with the results and I know one other on here that was of the same mind, still can't please everyone. Where did you buy that as I have not seen it anywhere.

Alan

Very nice image Dave, I was maybe a bit hasty with getting rid of my filter, I just didn't like it but I don't believe it was the one you have, mine was am Optolong filter.

Alan

Don't think I have ever seen an image of this one. I know what you mean about not being happy I never am with mine, this has turned out very nice and you have not over saturated it as is so often done.

Alan

Still very nice which ever way you look at it, wouldn't be the first time I have cropped something before it got into photoshop.

Alan

Not one I have seen done before, and to my eye it looks very nicely done too. Might just try this one myself

Alan

15 hours ago, MartinB said:

This is a great image Alan.  I like the way you have managed the core

Thanks Martin, I had 3 goes at the core expanding it a little each time, it's so easy to mess up and even though I am happy with my result I am sure some could do it even better.

Alan

3 hours ago, Nugs said:

No expert, but ....... I like this Alan, especially the subtle appearance of dust lanes in the galaxy below M31. 👏 and a non blown out core of Andromeda.

It does look like one of your layers may have rotated slightly though as there is definite darkening of the blacks at bottom right and top right.

 

Yes it was rather fanned out like a pack of cards and I knew about the corner, I think the rest is removed. Shame really as I lost a bit of the outer arms but I feel on the whole the data is decent. Still time for me to add to it but the Moon is getting a bit big now.

Alan

I always find this a bit difficult to process with regards the core which can so easily dominate to the shot. This is just over 7 hours of data which was taken over a few nights two years apart, not all images lined up but I feel it is near enough with only the very bottom right edge still showing that I can see. This is a blend of 3 and 4 minute exposures with calibration frames and dithered.

I have masked the core three times in the stretches in an effort to show some inner detail, not sure if this has been done well of is a mess, I look to you experts to advise.

Taken at 800mm with an APO and a Zwo 071 OSC.

Please feel free to offer advice on any aspect.

Alan

That's as good as any I have seen, well done.

Alan

14 minutes ago, Stu said:

That’s an excellent image Alan, you are certainly making great progress.

A question, and bear in mind that I know nothing practical about imaging apart from what I read on here! I see greenish and perhaps magenta ish sections in the outer spiral arms which I don’t recall seeing in other M33 images. Are these a processing artefact, and can they be removed or toned down?

Stu

Absolutely correct, I rather liked them so actually saturated them so they showed, May well be wrong and can easily be removed Stu. I tend to treat AP as something of an art form and often change things about, there is no right or wrong really I guess, just personal taste.

Is this more to your taste

Alan

I have collected this over a couple of years and it is now 20 hours with many frames dumped that are with aircraft and the like. This is a mixture of 3 and 4 minute subs with calibration frames and it is also dithered. 320 frames in all. It did take a while in DSS.

Because it was taken over such a period there are some with various Moon phases and there is a fair gradient across the cropped shot, I have tried to add a synthetic gradient using PS which I am sure some of you eagle eyed folk would spot a mile off, I know Olly did last time I did such a thing and there was me think I had done a good job.

Feel free to comment on improvements.

Alan

3 hours ago, Rodd said:

Thanks Alan.  If only we could take out all the cloudy time in between imaging sessions!

I've not been great this year out here but in general I do better than the UK, lost a large amount of June this year 23 days of rain and had a load of nights where it started nice and clouded over after a short while. I always seem to get great nights at before or just after a full Moon. I lookd at one of the Optolong filter and bought it but didn't like the result I got. I viewed some work by Goran the other day where he was using an IDAS filter, this seem rather better than I saw from mine but he is a very good imager.

Alan

Feel you have just been responsible for a name for it, The Loch Ness Monster Nebula.

Alan

That's got to be about the best I have seen, 25 hours, that's nearly a whole day.

Alan

Nice. just what I though, Loch Ness the second I saw it.

Alan

I think that is jolly good, really can't imagine what it would be like trying to capture anything from London, I have about B2.5 here but that use to be better before the LED's were put into the town 4.5 miles away.

Alan

37 minutes ago, gorann said:

Then I assume you cannot leave the suff and go to bed like I do. I would also get bored looking at a scope for 4 hours 😉

I could without a problem here, very few about in the village and no one bothers me. You have to be careful of fog especially this time of year. I rather like sitting out with the scope a couple of hours or an hour, depends what I am targeting. I can view it from inside the house too which is about 40 meters away. I dare say it wouldn't take much to make it completely automatic with the roof sliding back in poor weather, but I don't try to be up there with your superb skills but always take inspiration from the likes of you Olly and a few others   

Alan

2 hours ago, gorann said:

Thanks a lot Alan! My previous attempt with 12 hours from my Esprit 150 (f/7) was a rather frustrating exercise in stretching and noise reduction. Never pleased with it but I did get something thanks to my dark sky here.

https://www.astrobin.com/fa83rs/E/

Maybe I mislead you, I did get the bright part and a hint of the fainter stuff but 4 hours is a lot for me, that normally my top end, then I get bored. I have wonderful sky here and it is close to overhead.

Alan

Outstanding as usual Goran. I tried this a couple of years back and at 4 hours (F7) basically got nothing, so gave up.

Alan