Xiga

Lovely image Mark. I like the framing too. Most seem to present this rotated 90 degrees CW, to show the Wizard in an upright position, but i actually find it too distracting. I much prefer your framing. The only thing that springs to mind is the magenta tinge to the stars. Most imagers don't seem to like this (i actually don't mind it so much, it reminds me of Hubble's images, but i seem to be in the minority here), but a simple solution is to invert the image, then run SCNR Green (or HLVG for PS users) and then re-invert it again. Here is the effect of applying it at 100% in PS (jpg). Although if it were me, i would lower the opacity to something like 70% to allow some of the warmth to filter through to the stars.

That's really something special André, congrats! I also like the Fov that Spacecat gives. I know how hard a target this is, having tried it myself a year or two back, before giving up after the realisation i didn't have the gear or skies to really do it justice.

That's gorgeous Richard. A sea of golden stars, punctuated by the Dark nebula. Subtle, yet striking, at the same time. Can't wait to see what you've got in store for us with your Autumn/Winter project.

I was away at the weekend so only saw this on my phone. Now i see it on the computer monitor, i can fully appreciate it. I like the framing too. The Lum looks awesome Adam. That Tak 180 really does suck down the photons! The plethora of teeny-tiny stars it's picked up throughout just look amazing. Looking forward to the final version.

Thanks Sam. Nice to hear from another local member on here 👋 Great to see someone else trying this out too 😀 I agree, for NB work you don't need expensive glass at all, so there's plenty of opportunities for adding a cheap widefield setup, as long as you are prepared to accept it's limitations. It's early days yet whether or not i'll suffer from differential flexure. I'm just using an arca-swiss adaptor screwed to the bottom of the camera, but the lens isn't heavy, so fingers-crossed. The whole thing is sitting on a manfrotto 'thingy' (can't remember what it's called, lol), but it allows for about 150 degrees of rotation (in one axis only), which should be enough for most situations i hope. I also was thinking about Drizzling. However, my plan is to only capture about 100 mins (max) per panel in Ha (either 5 x 1200s or 10 x 600s), which won't give me enough subs to take advantage of it. Did your stars look significantly better after you drizzled? I'm currently at 8.4" and i was a little worried beforehand that they might come out a bit blocky, but i think they look decent enough. Not the best of course, but good enough for a big mosaic, where the focus will be on large-scale nebulosity. Nice image btw 😎

Thanks Adam. I've been wanting to do some widefield work (just as a change really) for a while now. Cygnus is a veritable NB treasure-trove, so i'm hoping to start a long-term project of doing a mosaic of this area in either bi-colour, or possibly all 3 channels. I did think of opting for a lens with a slightly longer FL, but with my imaging time being so low these days i thought 135mm might mean i actually have a chance of finishing it before retirement! Thanks Richard. I'm really liking mono i must say, although it's still early days and i've only really done one full NB image. At the moment, for broadband imaging the plan is to use the D5300 for colour and the Atik383 for Lum. I can't see me having the time to capture separate R, G, and B channels, but the jury is out until i actually try it.

Thanks Ahmed, you're too kind. The mount is getting on a bit now, and is in serious need of a re-tune tbh. Even still, it can handle 20+ min exposures just fine. My max imaging scale is only about 1.5" (with the D5300) so nothing too strenuous, which plays a major part obviously. Thanks Martin! Not sure how comfortable i am with being called an 'expert' though, lol. Happy to finally get using the camera i have to say. Thanks again for the sale, and the nice chat we had prior to it. 😀 Cheers Mark.

A few months back, i bought my first mono camera, an Atik 383l+ from Martin @Xsubmariner off here. I hadn't had a chance to give it a whirl until last night. I thought about getting the 80ED out, but i've been wanting to do some widefield stuff for a while, so i attached an old Tamron 135mm F2.8 vintage M42 lens i picked up last year for next to nothing. The lens needs to be stopped down to F5.6 (perhaps less, i haven't tested though) to produce acceptable stars in broadband, but i was hoping it could be used more wide open for Narrowband. I used step-down rings screwed on to the end of the lens hood to bring the aperture down to 37mm, which is about F3.65 (i did briefly try it wide open in Ha, and it wasn't that bad tbh, but i could still make out some comet-shaped stars in a few places so i opted to stop it down a bit to play it safe). I have a TS Optics filter drawer in the optical train, so i can still swap out filters without too much fuss. I still have about 3-4mm of extra backfocus space to spare, but i can already find focus as it is, so i'm not sure if it's that important that i haven't fully used it all up. Focusing was tough. I was focusing using a Bahtinov mask on Deneb, and i had to use 10s subs (subframes) at 2x2 bin to get bright enough spikes for Bahtinov Grabber to pick up to the spikes ok. Even then, it was showing the focus error moving about quite a bit, even without me touching the focus ring. In the end i just got it as close as i could and went with it. Conditions were not great. Some clear spells, but there was a lot of cloud passing through. I figures it would be good enough for a test session. The Phd guide graph looked horrific, and was somewhere in the 1-2" range (image scale is 8.4" so not a big deal hopefully). I bodged together a couple of old dovetails to add enough weight to counter-balance the 5Kg counterweight. It just about does. It's not perfect by any means, but hopefully sufficient for this purpose. I would ideally like to shoot 1200s subs, but couldn't last night due to the constant clouds (Phd lost the guide star countless times). I was about to give up, but persisted and aimed for 600s subs. Glad i did, as i ended up with 6 useable subs, even if a couple were affected by some thin cloud. Did a quick stack in APP and a 10 min process in PS, just to get a rough idea of what i can expect from this. I used Flats and a couple of Darks just to do a rough calibration. Didn't do any gradient reduction, was in too much of a hurry after packing up last night. Overall i'm fairly pleased with how it performed. I'm obviously not aiming for Samyang 135mm F2 levels of performance here, but for purely NB bi-colour mosaics i think it can do a job. I've included a picture of the rig below as well, in case anyone's interested. CS. 6 x 600s (1 Hr) Atik 383l+ 2" Baader Ha 7nm Tamron Adaptall2 135mm F2.8 (@F3.65)

Congrats Adam on a great image! 👍 And just like you say, nice to see somewhere close to home get a nod amongst all the global images 😀

All the best to you and the Mrs @vlaiv. Hope you are both back fighting fit soon 💪

Thanks Chilli Thanks Sunshine. I only ever use ISO 200 on the D5300.

Last Saturday night (Jul 18) i made a trip out to a local dark sky site. I had the pleasure of having the company of Adam @tooth_dr who lives nearby, who very kindly agreed to join me and show me the way around (big thanks again Adam!). It was a great night. I got to see the comet naked eye, and the length of the tail was truly amazing to behold, once i managed to get away from the laptop screen and finally get some dark adaptation! Conditions started out great, then started to deteriorate when a heavy mist came in from nowhere. Because i was using the mount, my setup time wasn't the best, so by the time i actually started capturing, the best of the conditions had already passed. I then noticed that the scope had also already started to dew up. With no portable psu for dew control, i had no option but to just keep capturing and hope for the best. In total i captured 66 subs of 30s. Some were very dubious, to say the least. I tried doing several Comet-Only stacks in DSS. Best 8, 16, 25, 49, 60, 66. Apart from the obvious decrease in noise as the stack no. went up, i was surprised just how little difference there was between them all. The dust tail looked no different at all , and the Ion Tail looked better as the sub no. went up. I can only assume that the dewing up of the scope had acted as a collar on the quality of all the subs. So in the end i only ditched the worst 6, and just went with the remaining 60. HEQ5-Pro, D5300, 60 x 30s (30 mins), no filter, no guiding. ISO 200. Subs calibrated in APP. Comet and Stars stacked separately in DSS. Gradient Reduction and star colour calibration done in APP. Then everything combined in PS. Considering everything, i'm 'content' with how it came out in the end. I'll just have to wonder how much better it could have been if i had a means of dew control and the mist hadn't come along when it did. The 80ED also was never the right tool for the job, but it was the best one i had available. Note to self - time to get a proper lens for AP! 😄

It's not hard at all. Create a new layer and do a Selective Colour adjustment. Target the Blues only, then increase the Cyan and Magenta sliders, while decreasing the Yellow slider. You may have to do it more than once. Then just use a layer mask so that it only applies it to the Ion tail and nowhere else.

Nice one Adam! Were you able to sort out the stacking in the end? Did you do a split approach of comet + stars? How many subs made it into this image? The sky background colour looks fine to me. The artefact running across the screen is a strange one alright. One possible solution might be to run starnet+ to get a starless version. Then susbtract it from the full version to get just the stars. Then go back to the starless version and use the clone stamp tool to fix the artefact. Then finally add the stars to this in blend mode lighten. ps - Loving the wee galaxy photo-bombing the image on the LHS btw! Crazy to think the difference in distance between the comet and the galaxy!

Yes it was a great night, totally worth the drive out 😀 I'm still working my way through the data, hoping to have an image soon (although it's proving tricky as the conditions weren't great by the time i finally got collecting data). It was nice to see the comet with the naked eye (i would never have been able to do so from home, too much LP) and it's always nice to have some company too in this all-too-often-lonesome hobby of ours! lol. Thanks again for the meet up Adam, and showing me around the location 👍

🤣 Please tell me it was only this 1 sub Adam 😳 At least I managed to intersect the comet nicely 😋

No probs Michael. I was suggesting it for @vpsj

If you have Photoshop and are up for doing it manually, then you can actually stack in PS. It won't be as good as using DSS or the like, but it might get you out of a jam. Have a look at this video, it shows very well what you need to do:

Thanks Ken, much appreciated.

Love this one Ken. It really gives the impression of the comet zipping through space. May I ask, were you just hedging your bets by doing various exposures from 5s to 30s? Did they actually prove useful in the final image, or would the 30s subs have just done on their own? Just thinking, did you use the shorter ones for the comet's core?

It's still a while off yet, so could all change, but the forecast for Sunday is looking promising Adam. If it holds up, I might take a run up to Beaghmore to get away from the LP. It's only a 70 min drive from home, which isn't too bad. I might ask you for some advice on the lay of the land closer to the time if that's ok?

I'm a glass half-full kind of guy (usually more concerned with what's in the glass!) so I'm quite sure that another opportunity will come up to see it 🙂 I feel your pain mate. Fingers crossed it will still be photogenic for a while yet. Have you thought of getting to a dark sky spot the next clear night?

This is spectacular. Easily the best one I've seen so far. Congrats Ken!

Clear Outside is showing 100% cloud cover here every night until next Saturday night! 😢

What a frustrating night. I was just about to go to bed (Jul 12, 01:15) when i decided to have a quick look outside (it was supposed to be completely clouded over) and lo-and-behold i could see stars! So i decided to ignore the fact i had already had a few beers, and try and set up the scope in double-quick time, in case i could grab a few quick snaps of Neowise between the clouds. There was only 80 mins of Nautical Darkness left, and i had to set up from scratch, so i decided early on that i would only aim for 30s subs and not even bother guiding or even connecting the dew bands. As it turned out, i couldn't even see Polaris through the polar scope, so had to rely on Sharpcap for the full PA routine (normally i would do a rough PA using EQMod). This took a good 15-20 mins, instead of the usual 5 mins, but i was just happy to get a good PA done! I wasn't prepared at all, so i had to get the RA and Dec co-ordinates from Heavens-Above, and quickly set up a sequence in SGP. Found the comet with no bother and got framed and focused. Then just started shooting 30s subs and hoped for the best. By this time, it was 02:45 and Nautical Darkness had passed. I was just hoping for a 5 min window with no clouds (i took over 70 subs) but alas, no such luck. Despite the skies overhead being totally clear, the clouds to the North never cleared, and every single sub was affected by thick cloud 🙁 Rather than just bin them all, i decided to try and at least process one of them. I was able to find 3 potential candidates where at least a fair bit of the comet was visible (i might still try the other 2) and this was the best i could manage. Happy enough that i at least came out with some sort of image, but boy was it frustrating not to have even a 5 min window of clear sky! The forecast here is pretty terrible now for the next 6 days, so fingers crossed this isn't the only opportunity i get at this. Nikon D5300; HEQ5-Pro 1 x 30s, ISO 200 Calibrated in APP, processed in PS. Thanks for looking and CS!