Knight of Clear Skies

Bit tricky I'm afraid. If you're going down the dedicated astrocam route it's not ideal to put an Ha filter in front of a bayer matrix and lose 3/4 of your signal. That said, an Ha filter does still work well with colour cameras as it isolates the Ha from the background. Think I'd advise either DSLR + clip-in ha filter as a budget option or saving saving your money until a full mono setup is an option.

Thought I'd share some data from a recent image on Dropbox in case anyone wants a play with it. There are two files, LRGB and Ha, which should be linear and align with each other. Image details and my attempts at processing it here. The key to processing it was combining the Ha layer with the red channel using 'lighten' mode in Photoshop. Here's a good tutorial on how to achieve this, it's quite easy to do. I'm finding combining Ha data absolutely key for improving images of nebulae. Even imaging from a very dark site the Ha filter does a far better job of separating the nebulosity from the skyglow and background stars. The above data was taken with the 1600MM cool mono cam but I find my 12nm clip-in filter for my DSLR also works very well. I also find Ha much easier to process than colour images.

Some data from back in January, here's IC1396 and surrounding dark nebulae in Ha. This is about 50 minutes of data with the Samyang 135mm f2, 1100D and clip-in Ha filter. This link shows labels for some of the dark nebulae around here.

Interesting target, I'm fascinated by these dim dwarf satellite galaxies. But I don't understand why your image is so noisy, have you applied a sharpening filter to it? hope you don't mind, but I had a very quick go at processing your posted image and got this. (Denoise in Canon DPP, GradEx and HLVG in Photoshop.)

Fantastic detail. Looks really amazing when I move just an extra foot back from my monitor.

Another Samyang image, this is with the 1100D and Ha filter. 50 minutes of data in total (2 minute subs), took far more but had to ditch a load due to poor tracking.

Sorry to keep spamming the thread with images but this is the best I've managed for a long time. Think I may have to call this the final version as I have more data to process.

Nothing dumb about asking questions, it's generally the right thing to do. The Horsehead is much brighter in IR than the emission nebula behind it because of the concentration of warm dust.

" Interacting Galaxies Arp 274 Arp 274 is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping. Two of the galaxies are rapidly forming new stars, evident in the bright blue knots strung along the arms of the galaxy on the right and along the small galaxy on the left. "

If you already have lenses for your camera they are well worth a try but most primes will give better results than zoom lenses. A particularly good AP lens is the Samyang 135mm f2, you might not require as much focal length as you expect. To give an example, this is the Rosette and Cone at 135mm.

Stunning effort and from such a modest scope,

Hope you enjoy it, it's a great bit of glass. The stars certainly aren't Tak quality at f2 but really aren't bad at all, and trimming a pixel or two off them in Startools or Noel's actions works well. It's perfect for UK weather as it goes deep so quickly.

It may depend on the screen setup. I've had to increase the brightness on mine as it's quite bight in here.

Thanks, glad you like it. There is tons of background Ha around there as you can see in this image from the MDW sky survey. I toned it down a bit in my image as it looked a bit unnatural.

Think I like the top version best. Yes, arguably a little over-processed but I'd simply label it 'enhanced view'. Nothing wrong with presenting it alongside a more natural version after all.

Much nicer I think, but personally I'd bring down the outer arms just a touch more.

More work on it, this is looking better. But I'm going to see if I can find any hints of oxygen in the blue/green channels and blend that in if possible.

Taken on the 25th March, here's my rendition of Simeis 147 straddling the Auriga/Taurus border. The progenitor exploded about 40,000 years ago, there is a pulsar hiding in there somewhere. The bright star at the bottom with the flare is Elnath. This was taken with the Samyang 135mm at f2 and 1600mm cool at -15C, on a Star Adventurer mount. It's about 8 minutes per channel LRGB (30s subs) and 50 minutes of Ha (2min subs). Hope you like it, spent a couple hours messing around with the processing and need to step away from it for a while.

Superb detail, really does look 3-dimensional which of course it is. One thing I wonder about these late-stage star-forming nebulae, does the oxygen concentrate in the middle because it's more massive than hydrogen and less easily expelled by stellar winds?

A quick LRGBHa image of Simeis 147, with minimal processing. About 8 minutes each LRGB and 50 minutes Ha.

Down in Cornwall, we equalled our best SQM reading of 21.88 the other night, and there have been lots of readings over 21.6.

Bit noisy, but this is just a 2 minute image of IC1396 and SH2-129, taken with the 1100D and Ha filter.

Finally, had a quick go at some star trails. And when I say quick I mean 30 seconds... That's Venus at lower left.

And caught a meteor last night while out imaging.

A couple quick shots from last night, taken while I was shooting towards Auriga. 30 second snaps taken with the Canon 6d and Samyang 14mm. The second image is about 4 frames stitched together in Microsoft ICE, it's free, really quick and easy to use.