bdlbug

Widefield of the Virgo Cluster featuring Markarians Chain  and lots of faint Fuzzies ...

Data aquired on night of 9th April 2024 which was moonless

 Equipment

Imaging Telescopes     William Optics Redcat 61
Imaging Cameras        ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Mount                         ZWO AM5
Filter                           Optolong L-Quad Enhance 2"
Software
    Adobe Photoshop · Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP) · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · Russell Croman Astrophotography BlurXTerminator · Russell Croman Astrophotography NoiseXTerminator · Russell Croman Astrophotography StarXTerminator · ZWO ASIAIR

Acquisition details

Dates:                 9 Apr 2024
Frames:               115×120″(3h 50′)
Integration:         3h 50′
Avg. Moon age:     0.85 days
Avg. Moon phase:    0.81%
Pixel scale: 2.585 arcsec/pixel

Second entry from me :

IC443 Jellyfish Nebula in Gemini - A 2 panel mosaic : this is a merge/mix of two processed colour palettes , a dynamic SHO mix (Foraxx) and a classic SHO modified using Narrowband normalisation in PI, plus slective colour tweaks in Photoshop.

Aquisition:

Dates:
    18 / 19 / 30 Jan 2024
    22 / 24 / 26 Feb 2024
    3 Mar 2024
Frames:
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2": 73×300″(6h 5′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 2": 47×300″(3h 55′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 2": 41×300″(3h 25′)
Integration:     13h 25′

Resolution:      7966x5991

Equipment

Imaging Telescopes    Astro-Tech AT106EDT
Imaging Cameras    ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Mounts     Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT
Accessories     APM-Riccardi Apo Reducer 0.75x M63 (APM-RIRED-M63-small)
Software     Adobe Photoshop · Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP) · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · Russell Croman Astrophotography BlurXTerminator /  NoiseXTerminator / StarXTerminator · Stefan Berg Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A. / NINA)

This image is using new data aquired this year 2024 from my back garden in central England, mainly  in January and then a couple of rare opportunities in February when rain clouds dispersed.

The colour mix is an SHO baseline and inspired by a SHO image posted up several years ago by Sara Wagner, that image is still on her website to see.
The stars are a HOO pixelmath combination with some curves that results in a close approximation to RGB stars

Bryan

Image details :

Dates:
    17 / 18 / 24 / 26 / 30 Jan 2024
    22 / 24 Feb 2024
    Frames:
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2": 154×300″  (12h 50′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 2": 19×300″  (1h 35′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 2": 55×300″      (4h 35′)

Integration:     19h

Equipment

Imaging Telescope :     Astro-Tech AT106EDT
Imaging Cameras :       ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Mounts :                       Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT
Accessories :               APM-Riccardi Apo Reducer 0.75x M63 (APM-RIRED-M63-small)
Software :
Stefan Berg Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A. / NINA)                
Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP)
Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight
Adobe Photoshop CC
BlurXTerminator / NoiseXTerminator / StarXTerminator

Sh2-224 is a very faint supernova remnant located approximately 14,700 light years distant in the constellation Auriga.

I planned this image this with great intentions back in October 2023 to go long and deep , original plan was 20hrs+ for each channel of Ha and Oiii, then the reality of UK winter weather set in and there was no imaging from around mid-November until mid-January 2024, nothing for 6-8weeks. I've decided to process what I have aquired as the moon is now becoming too bright for Oiii on this target - I've got close to my original plan and not convinced a few more hours would make a huge improvement - it needs 30-40hrs on Oiii and thats a big comitment here in UK to get quality Oiii data from our high humidity skies.... and watching subs roll in with no hint of any structure for hours and hours is not a huge amount of fun 🙄

I processed the Ha channel in December and the Oiii this evening and for nearly 16hrs of Oiii subs there was very little signal to work with, however perseverance and GHS has resulted in this image below, using foraxx HOO pallette,

There is an issue with rotation between Ha integration and Oiii integration as I had to dismantle my rig and dehumidify the lens cell and the reducer after all the rain in December -I had marked the orientation when I took everything to pieces, but clearly not quite accurately enough..... I could crop it out, top left, - but its a quirk of the aquisition process over 4 months and countless rain storms and cloud cover...

Integrated using AstroPixel Processor

Processed with Pixinsight and Russ Croman XT_Suite and stretched with GHS

Brilliant - next step(s) - a mosaic to NGC1333

2 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

how you returned to generalised hyperbolic  stretch again at steps 18/19. I don’t expect you to recall why you did that here but is that something you do regularly?

Ah, yes GHS is an incredibly powerful tool, it does a lot, at this stage of processing you highlight I use GHS to adjust colour saturation and also some localised contrast adjustments and final black point adjustments.

Adam Block did a great free video on his YouTube channel about using GHS , : Pixinsight : GHS Explained.

Adam also provided another free video called Pixinsight in Focus : Stretch Academy 

I would recommend both as they give a lot of in depth teaching as to what stretching does to an  image and the tools used and when they can be applied.

Bryan

55 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

The haloes could be caused by faint mist I suppose. Perhaps I should reblink the original subs, weed out if necessary and reprocess.  

 I would recommend that you review other images of this region as I would not really describe the areas around the bright stars as Halos. https://astrob.in/1yj0zd/B/

I think there are two things here, first, the diffuse areas around the bright stars are real as this is an area of space with large amounts of gasses and dust, which the stars irradiate , the very definition of an emission nebula and therefore result in this diffuse effect over the stars that are obscured by gasses and dust in space and or the stars are behind , as in light years behind, but their light is diffused/scattered as it passes through this region of space as viewed from earth.
Second , yes you may also have some effect due to atmospheric seeing, high humidity, as you mentioned that mist rolled in and you had to delete 6hrs of images subs due to mist, so that could also be something that has contributed to this - but looking at other broadband images, these stars do have nebulosity around them.

To your point on StarXT - it is 'trained' to remove bright point objects, stars, and leave behind nebulosity, which it has done in this image and it is not able to tell if the diffuse areas around bright objects are space based nebulosity or earth based atmospheric seeing issue due to high cloud /high humidity.  In my view StarXT is performing its job 100% on this image.

On 29/10/2023 at 09:01, Ouroboros said:

Any suggestions of possible solutions? 

So I have enjoyed working with your data, yes its 3hrs and yes its got noise, but in UK getting 3 hrs broadband is a result....

I initially used GradXpert in its new AI mode to remove gradients from the original linear image you posted , then brought that file into PI and then used Pixinsight with the Rus Croman XTsuite and GHS for all the processing and list the History explorer beside the images.

As per above suggestions  I used Rangemask operation to generate a mask that I used to apply NoiseXT and LHE operations, the final mask is a colour mask fof blue as there was a blue cast accross the bottom of the image, however I did apply NoiseXT to the linear image after StarXT as it was clear that the image does have a lot of noise and seems that for this particular image applying NoiseXT before a stretch helps , I applied at 0.4 strength

The final image is a pixelmath  op_screen() of starless and stars

Thisis by no means definitive as above, there are many different ways to process the same data, thsi is my contribution on a wet and windy afternoon

Bryan

The wide field is simply stunning, the dark nebula against the rich Ha is absolutely captivating 

The PHD logs can be downloaded from ASIair and analysed with PHD2 log file viewer as well - so you can do some comparisons with raw guide data from an ASIair controller and PHD2 running on windows or Linux 

4 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

Do you use your AM5 with an ASIAir or through EQMod and PHD2? My AM5 guides around 0.4/0.5" RMS according to the ASIAir mini I have but I suspect the Air gives optimistic graphs and figures. I have wondered what the AM5 would by like if I swapped it onto my pier and ran through EQMod. Since taking my OAG off and going back to a guide scope my AZEQ6 guiding has suffered a little and I was wondering if I should have the more expensive AM5 on the pier. Does it punch above its weight and guide like a mount more than twice its price?

 I drive the AM5 from an ASIair Plus.

All my recent images with my Stellamira 90EDT plus FF/FR  with resolution of 1.7"/pix were on AM5 guided via ASiair and it didnt drop a sub due to erratic guiding - so for me its a soild performer

Not entirely sure why you suspect that the ASIair reports better guiding figures  as it is  PHD2 that ZWO have included in the software platform to perform the guiding on the ASIair (albeit a version that  does not give you the same level of configuration as the stand alone version) 
The ZWO forum thread that I got all my information from is still live,  Its a long read , but there is a lot of really solid information from Chen, @w7ay - https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/d/15989-getting-the-best-performance-from-my-am5

Regards the OAG aspect of guiding an AM5 - Chen indicates that a large (ish) objective guidescope that gives good stars to enable multi star guiding is preferable for guding AM5 due to the requirement to refresh the guide commands to AM5 0.5s - 1.5s

You also need to limit the max move pulses - this thread explains it all in quite a lot of detail.

Hope  this useful

I have both mounts that you mention, AZ EQ6 GT and recently bought a AM5. The AM5 is amazing, I also bought the carbon fibre tripod, you can lift mount and tripod with one hand, so will put very little strain on back and knees moving it around.
One point that I found out is that harmonic drives in general require to be driven (pulse guided) a lot more than the traditional GEM mounts, there is a really informative thread on the ZWO forum, the expert is Chen @w7ay that explains the way harmonic mounts need to be driven to get best guiding, but in summary you need to use PHD2 (or equiv) multi star guiding and use 0.5 - 1.5s exposures and use small guide pulses <100ms with very little aggression <40%. I have used this and achieved  <0.5" RMS regularly and sometimes down to 0.3" RMS.  A colleague in our astronomy club put a C11 on his AM5 and got guiding of 0.5"  RMS.

Been thinking about your connectivity - so you will have power at the bottom of your garden, as in mains power ?
If you do the perhaps a Wireless Ethernet bridge system would be very effective that would connect via the ASIair ethernet port and link into your home network so you can connect to the ASIair anywhere in you house where you have your home network..  This is an Amazon link - may give you some ideas as to how this may work.

https://amzn.eu/d/hOsyCdC

Bryan

Sunday 22nd October was forcast clear - and it was... Seen many images of the Wolf Rayet 134 object and also Sh2-101 Tulip nebula, but only recently realised that they could be captured in same FOV. Set the framing up in Telescopius and got the centre RA/DEC which I put into ASIair and set an autorun going for 4 hrs.

I blended in an older image of the Tulip in SHO using PS and modified the colour of the HOO Foraxx L-Extreme image so it all had a balance.

Dates:    22 Oct 2023
Telescope : Stellamira 90EDT with 0.8 FF/FR
Mount: ZWO AM5
Filter:    Optolong L-eXtreme 2"
Camera: ASI2600MC
Frames : 48×300″(4h)
Integration:    4h  (plus  7hrs on Tulip from SHO image)

Such a lot of detail to see in your image - love the colour palette - your young necromancer very much wrapped in Saltire colours

A dark nebula from my back garden - took advantage of no moon, so an OSC/RGB image - no filters, used Stellamira 90mm EDT, AM5 mount and ASI2600MC controlled by ASIair.

120 subs of 120s each - so only 4hrs - was pleasantly surprised
Integrated with APP, I used the new GaXpert AI  release to remove  gradients - one click - then processed in PI

Bryan

17 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

What I am really struggling with is getting anything other than red in the NB images.

You can look at Bill Blanshan's narrowband normalisation to help with the colour pallete - it is now integrated within PI and he has a very good video on youtube explaining how to install the tool and how the tool works..

Another Cygnus image from me, this time a lot more... a two panel mosaic that contains Tulip,Crescent, Butteryfly,Propellor nebulae and quite a few other  interesting objects as well.

Samyang 135mm at f/2,
Optolong L-Extreme
ASI2600MC OSC
Mount : CEM26 in back garden.

Session Dates :  6th, 7th, 20th, 21st, 22nd August 2023

Two panels, 6hrs integration for each panel plus 20mins each for RGB stars : 12hrs of data plus 40 mins of RGB stars
Integrated and Mosaic stitched with APP, processed in PI, extracted the RGB channels and then allocated R=ha and G=Oii,  then processed as a HOO using the Foraxx script in PI based on coldest nights pixelmath.
Stars screened in with pixelmath and used the star De-emphasizer script to bring some reduction into the star field as there are rather a lot of stars in this FOV...

NGC7000 and IC5070;  North American and Pelican Nebula, two panel mosaic.
12hrs per channel : 36 hour integration

Telescope : Stellamira 90mm ED Triplet + 0.8 FF/FR
Camera : ASI2600MM
Mount : AM5
Filters : Antlia 3nm

All subs captured between September 3rd and September 16th 2023

Processed APP, integration and mosaic, PI with XT suite and stretched with GHS, pixelmath combination of SHO and Dynamic colour palettes, stars are HOO.

The Lion Nebula Sh2-132 is a weak emission nebula near the constellations of Cepheus and Lacerta,its located about 10,400 light years from earth and is a huge area of ionised hydrogen and oxygen gas. There are two Wolf-Rayet stars WR 152 and WR 153, WR 152 that deliver the energy to ionise this region.
In the frame is a very faint planetary nebula, PN G101.5-00.6, I originally thought it was a processing artifact, but turns out its a real thing, its slightly up and left from NGC 7226 in this image

Imaging Telescopes :     StellaMira 90mm ED Triplet
Imaging Cameras :     ZWO ASI2600MM Pro ×
Mounts :    Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT
Accessories :     StellaMira 2" 0.8x Reducer / Field Flattener
Software
    Adobe Photoshop · Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP) · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · ZWO ASIAIR

Dates:
    2 Oct 2022 ·  5 Oct 2022 ·  6 Oct 2022
Frames:
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2": 60×300″(5h)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 2": 53×300″(4h 25′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 2": 63×300″(5h 15′)
Integration:
    14h 40′

sh2-155 The Cave Nebula in Cepheus

This image was originally planned to be a long deep integration project, but the weather took a turn to the cloudy rainy side , so I processed the data I aquired through October.
Interesting Wiki fact is that the name "Cave Nebula" was coined for this object by Patrick Moore
The image shows the diffuse Cave nebula in the constellation Cepheus, within a larger nebula complex containing emission, reflection, and dark nebulosity. It is widely known as the Cave Nebula and is located approx 2400 light years from earth.

Imaging Telescopes :     StellaMira 90mm ED Triplet
Imaging Cameras :     ZWO ASI2600MM Pro ×
Mounts :    Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT
Accessories :     StellaMira 2" 0.8x Reducer / Field Flattener
Software
    Adobe Photoshop · Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP) · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · ZWO ASIAIR ×

Dates:
    10 Oct 2022 ·  14 Oct 2022 ·  15 Oct 2022 ·  18 Oct 2022 ·  20 Oct 2022 ·  30 Oct 2022
Frames:
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2": 126×300″(10h 30′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 2": 27×300″(2h 15′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 2": 39×300″(3h 15′)
Integration:
    16h

NGC7822 - Cederblad 214

Imaging Telescopes :     StellaMira 90mm ED Triplet
Imaging Cameras :     ZWO ASI2600MM Pro ×
Mounts :    Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT
Accessories :     StellaMira 2" 0.8x Reducer / Field Flattener
Software
    Adobe Photoshop · Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP) · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · ZWO ASIAIR ×

Acquisition details

Dates:
    1 Sep 2022 ·  16 Sep 2022 ·  17 Sep 2022 ·  20 Sep 2022 ·  23 Sep 2022 ·  27 Sep 2022 ·  28 Sep 2022
Frames:
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2": 127×300″(10h 35′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 2": 130×300″(10h 50′)
    Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 2": 109×300″(9h 5′)
Integration:
    30h 30′

And a bit of astrophysics background from our good friend Wiki

NGC 7822 is a young star forming complex in the constellation of Cepheus The complex encompasses the emission region designated Sharpless 171, and the young cluster of stars named Berkeley 59. The complex is believed to be some 3000 light years distant, with the younger components aged no more than a few million years. The complex also includes one of the hottest stars discovered within 1 kpc of the Sun, namely BD+66 1673, which is an eclipsing binary system consisting of an O5V that exhibits a surface temperature of nearly 45000 K and a luminosity ~100000 times that of the Sun. The star is one of the primary sources illuminating the nebula and shaping the complex's famed pillar of creation -type formations.

All,  I was inspired by Sara Wagner's narrowband Hubble pallete mix of the Horsehead on her website and  began this project back in November 2021.
The original is on astrobin with stars and technical card : https://astrob.in/l7l5dm/0/

This is a further process and I used StarXTerminator in PS to remove stars with very little clone stamping needed to repair star 'holes'.

24hrs of integration with 3nm Antlia filters with ASI1600MM-Pro on a AT106EDT with 0.75x Ricardi FF/FR

Bryan

2 hours ago, George Sinanis said:

the way, the projection was for clear skies between 6pm and 2am.....

Yep, I’m in Northampton area as well and did exactly same thing , got in one sub and then the same clouds put end to my session as well. Tried again about 9’ish and didn’t even get in one sub.

Thank you - I am so pleased to have been selected as the winning entry for this competition.
Big thank you to FLO/IKO and judges for providing such great image data and setting up the releases and managing the competition.

I can see why Grant said it was a close run thing as the runners up are amazing , so congratulations to @Xiga and @matt_baker

I have been imaging for nearly 10 years and much of my learning has come from the SGL forum,  the breadth of expertise that is available here is truely global.

Thanks again

Bryan

Thanks to the team at FLO and IKO for publishing the data - been a long time since I worked with LRGB_Ha data. Was fun going back into the PI and PS techniques, of which there are many.....
Took me quite a while to get the detail right with the Luminance and built it up into the RGB as HDR layers so I didnt over stretch the galaxies but also got the IFN into the mix without either being too much.

I also used a Pixelmath set of equations that are in the mastering Pixinsight publication by Rogelio Bernal Andreo to combine the Ha into LRGB - a first for me.

So here is the resulting image after my processing efforts over the past few evenings