Notty

I wish my best years of imaging yielded just one result as good as those two

On 19/10/2022 at 21:44, Clarkey said:

I recently purchased one from @Notty but am yet to use it in anger due to cloud (and worse, it is a tiny bit too bit for my observatory). So there might be a second hand one for sale in the coming weeks☹️

I'm not convinced about 'portable', it is heavy and bulky. Maybe I am getting old.....

Sorry to hear about the size issues that’s a real shame. I would 100% concur though it should not be thought of as portable!!

I know I already posted one of these from RGB data the other week but this is a merge of February's full moon shot in mono as Lum with RGB from March's but at different resolutions. Stuck home with the dreaded virus so I thought I'd give it a shot and it took me most of the day. RGB manually aligned and scaled in Gimp, colour processed in Star Tools and light wavelets in Registax. I prefer this look to the bi-colour.

On 23/03/2022 at 22:15, Nick Smith said:

Great job,  well done!

Thank you! Wish I knew why I can do the same processing on different RGB sets on different nights and get seemingly different colours.

Stunning. One of the best I've seen, the blue (OIII) is deep bountiful & beautiful (unless I'm trying to capture it!)

After my first got a couple of weeks ago thought I'd try again on the full disk last week. Processing separate RGB channels in such a way to pull the subtle colours out was time intensive manual, non-repeatable and I think I may use a OSC next time! Far too red/brown. Poor masking has nibbled away at the left edge please excuse. AS! then Gimp for RGB channel alignment then Star Tools for their colourisation matrices then back into Registax for Wavelets. TS130, ASI1600 EFW

Please be gentle! I normally do deep sky and thus have despised this object for many years... but decided since it was ruining my first clear night for months I would attempt to image it. I've always loved those images with exaggerated colours so I had a go myself though I know i have overdone it and they are not to all tastes. 2 pane mosaic with combined RGB. Processing was a bodge across different platforms, AS!, MS ICE, Gimp (for aligning the RGB channels - trial & error), Startools then back to gimp for more colour manipulation. I couldn't control the edge colours I know they look bad, but I am happy now because I now like the Moon and thus can play when it's out as this was fun. Thanks for looking.

Scope was TS Optics 130 F/7 0.8X FF/Red ASI1600MM & EFW

What did you use to get the mount polar aligned? If that's off then it won't track, also very important to make sure it's all in balance. Sorry if I'm telling you to suck eggs but I went through all this pain  too!

I've always wondered about this and come to the conclusion, given the stacking artefacts from long sessions over multiple nights often involve me having to crop the fringes off anyway which is where any errant elongated stars would show, that I'm not going to lose any sleep over the exact spacing. 

That is an amazing image. That you can get that from a DSLR compared to my pathetic efforts at the same target with £2500 of kit in light polluted suburbia makes me feel both good and bad at the same time!

really nice images, especially given the bortle & moon phases. Dual harvesting is definitely the way to go and I'm investigating the same myself.

Really nice image(s) I'd take either or both of them & mount them on my wall with pride. TBH I seem to hit diminishing returns after 4-5 hrs anyway as the spread of quality of subs (according to DSS anyway) just widen downwards the more I take so I end up stacking the same old 60% from that flukey clear night anyway!  I'd love to get those red coals I've seen in others as well as your excellet image - I assume they're from the Ha input? I use Star Tools and if I use Ha as a Lum layer it just borks all my colours up!

Wow that is a striking image, really nicely processed too. I love the resolution you've captured on it all from the big 250, I can only dream of such aperture!

When weighing up the various compromises needed to choose my forever scope (TS Optics Photoline 130) I'm sure I remember all the FOV calculators showing M31 much much closer in than this, so I was very pleasantly surprised by the amount I got in the frame. Managed 4 nights on this over last 10 days, but I've also learned a lesson. Nights 1&2, I took the orientation as it came, which was about 30degs more vertical thus losing me more of both ends of the galaxy. From night 3 I rotated the FOV to get the framing seen here (which still could do with another 10-15deg), but when I stacked the two rotations the artefacts and difference in background was uncalibratable(?) so I ended up with only 2 nights data, last night and night before. The difference in the seeing was so huge between the two nights that most of night 3's subs scored so low I ignored them. So this image is mostly from last night. Compared to previous attempts at this from years ago I'm really pleased with what it's captured near the core as per the closeup.  

TS Optics 130 f/7 ASI1600+EFW EQ6R pro ASIair Pro 90x1m L, 60x1m RGB, flats & darks. Processed in Startools

Wow. That is beautiful. Was my first NB attempt and I was very disappointed. What ratio/how much SHO data went into it please? I struggled to harvest much S&O when I tried.

Just now, Adreneline said:

Nice one! I'm pleased I could help - it's a great image. All that with 90 minutes - just think what another 90 might give!

Good luck.

Adrian

To be fair it was 90 mins of both channels, but yes I'm going to add to it as & when definitely. There are a couple of recent examples on here which have really set the bar!

Reprocessed thanks to some kind suggestions from @Adreneline who showed me I had some outer shell that I'd wasted in my first go. A quick replay in StarTools later and yes, it is there as you proved - thanks again!

Wow ok I think I’ve been making life a bit harder than necessary then. My setup is semi-permanent so perhaps I’ll try reusing my flats per channel and see if I notice. Thanks all.

My most productive week of AP ever, really enjoying the combo of the TS Optics 130 with the ASI1600mm. This was 90 mins each of Ha & OIII, and despite drowning in moon juice & my town's LP really enjoyed myself 🙂

Hello. This has had me curious for a while. My workflow has me normally automating my light captures then going to bed, then doing flats next day using focus position written to the log. The ASIAir performs a refocus if the temp changes by more than 2degs by default. Do most people take as many different sets of flats for each batch for a given focus position? Or take the average focus and do it that way. I've been doing the former (pain)...but wondered what was best practice. I've no idea if a focus change from one arbitrary number eg 13120 to 13099 represents a big change or not.

Thanks

On 20/07/2021 at 19:26, Roy Foreman said:

Yes you are exactly right - I was using DSS but found that it was generating too many processing artefacts.  Short red, blue and green streaks,  web like structures connection stars in objects like globular clusters, and high levels of noise.  Affinity does a much better job with none of these artefacts appearing so far, and gives better density, colour correction, background, and less noise. This is only my experience, but I hope it is useful to you.

Fascinating, thanks. I use Affinity for terrestrial but never occurred to me it could stack. I’ve got some strangeness happening with DSS so if I do t get to the bottom I may investigate.

That is - blowmeaway - amazing!

My first look through the TS Optics 130mm at this classic, about 4hrs worth of which half was binned - dew I think, which was a surprise when I came down this morning!

Great image, thanks for sharing. Didn’t know affinity pro did stacking either- just curious, did you use DSS previously and moved to it?

Still experimenting with new scope (TS Optics 130mm F7) and wasn't expecting to be doing NB this time of year but it just sort of happened. About 8h total SHO. ASI1600MM with ZWO EFW/filters & ASIair Pro which continues to blow me away by how easy it's made everything.