DaveS

Sunsets lately have been downright filthy orange, you can see the horrid clag in the air.

This is the result of "polishing a turd" Over the "nights" of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th June I captured 18 subs each of RGB with the reconstituted ODK 12 / G3 16200 rig, After fighting the rubbish data for a couple of days I decided to forget about colour and just stack all 54 subs with a Master Dark. After cropping and gradient removal BlurX and NoiseX were applied in PI, then two rounds of Histogram Stretch with a DDP in between in AstroArt 8. Saved as a PNG. I had to hammer the background down much further than I would like, and it's still horrible. Moral of the story: don't try to image a low surface brightness galaxy under rubbish conditions. the combination of nautical dark, near full moon, and clag raised my normal mid Bortel 3 sky to more like 8-9.

The longer we go without rain the worse the sky becomes with haze and fine dust. Where I am the sky during the day is a milky blue and at night the combination of nautical dark, full moon and clag raises my normal mid Bortle 3 to more like 8-9.The next rain will leave my car looking like a barn find unless we have a torrential downpour.

I just saw this from Ed Ting. I'm putting this here, hoping the Mods will move it to somewhere they consider more appropriate.

Yep, easy naked eye.

He's not happy.

I have actually seen M33, one early winter night when I had got up to shut down the imaging. A faint but definite fuzzy blob. I wondered what it was, only realised that it was M33 after looking on Stellarium. It was quite a spectacular night with Auriga glittering with clusters. LP map says 21.7

Globs are hard work, but at least cut through twilight skies (all we have at the moment).

I captured 3 hours of Luminance on the 27th, so after working it up in PI I made an LRGB image in AstroArt 8 Not sure if it's added much, but heigh ho!

The "other" GC in Hercules. This wasn't really intended as an image, I just wanted to check that having put my location into Maxim, PixInsight would be able to use it in the post processing. This is just an hour each RGB in 5 min subs with the ODK 12 / Trius setup. PI did deal with the data, MPCC, then RGB combination, PCC (SPCC gave a very blue result, due to not having a QE curve for the 694 sensor) then BlurX, NoiseX and Masked Stretch. Saturation boost in AstroArt 8 and saved as a PNG

Oh yes, I like that. Unfortunately, Galaxy Season is well and truly over for this year here, we lose all Astro Dark until the 16th July, and I'm on the south west coast. I posted my last very poor galaxy image yesterday.

As posted in the competition thread, this is just barely enough data to make an image, 3 hours RGB in Bin 2 and 3 hours Luminance in Bin 1, all in 600 sec subs. Captured on the 21st (RGB) and 24th (Lum), mostly in Nautical Dark. Stacked and RGB combination in AstroArt 8 (MPCC didn't like my data), cropped and gradient removal. Then into PI for SPCC, BlurX, NoiseX and Masked Stretch (Which did a better job than ArcSinH Stretch), then back to AstroArt for LRGB synthesis and a light Unsharp Mask. I need new Flats, as I had to push the background down further than I would like, plus there's a swarm of brightly coloured noise just below the floor. ODK12, SX694, Baader LRGB filters. DDM 85, Maxim DL6, ASA software package. And that's it for Galaxy Season, no more Astro DArk until the 16th July so will have to look at NB targets, Boo.

HCG 61, the "Box" This is just 6 hours of data, barely enough to make an image. 1 hour each RGB, and 3 hours Luminance, all in 600 sec subs collected on the 21st (RGB), and 24th (L) Stacked in AstroArt 8, then BlurX, NoiseX SPCC (On the RGB) and MaskedStretch. Final LRGB combination and Unsharp Mask in AstroArt. I desperately need new Flat frames as I had to push the background down further than I would like. Captured with the ODK 12 and SX Trius 694 with Baader LRGB filters on the DDM 85

Check that the Focuser Manager software and Sesto Senso firmware are the same version. I was having all kinds of issues with my installation until I realised what was happening. But I don't use NINA so can't help you there.

Hi Ron, likewise can't help with the IT but very happy to see you back

He's not the only angry bloke.

Yep, I saw that too on the beeb. Edit: I expect our favourite Angry Astronaut will have something excoriating to say.

Well, I'll watch but TBH I haven't watched the "One Show" for years beyond count, I find (Found) it trite and superficial.

I only saw one object, but I wasn't looking for two. The video is timed at 22.58 pm.

VID_20230521_225823.mp4 Visible from here, quite bright, but the video doesn't do it justice.

I set up to image HCG 68 last night but when I came to look at my stack it didn't look anything like HCG 68. A little investigation revealed that I had actually imaged HCG 58 which I had in my target list but had discounted as it was too far west to be viable. According to Stellarium the last sub was captured with it at an altitude of only 11 degrees, and partially hidden by the obsy wall. * Gives self a smack round the head * If anyone wants to know what HCG 58 looks like, here it is, just an hour each RGB It's probably too late now to get anything on HCG 68. Does "jinxed" come to mind ?

I think I was expecting more definition in the spiral arms. This was with the ODK 12 and the Trius 694 which I had put on the 'scope for Galaxy Season

OK, one more. I put a soft mask over the core to isolate it from the surrounding galaxy and the field stars then applied quite a strong Unsharp Mask to bring up the detail. I did try the Multiscale High Pass filter in AstroArt 8 but it produced some "worm like" artifacts .

The "Black Eye" galaxy This is 4 hours Bin2 RGB in 10 min subs, and 4 hours Bin 1 Luminance, also in 10 min subs, on the 13th and 15 May, starting and ending in nautical dark. Very thin and low contrast data, but it is what it is. Stacked in AstroArt 8, initial Post in PI, then back to AA for LRGB combination and slight colour adjustment. Somewhat disappointing, but not unexpected given the suboptimal conditions. This is it for this Galaxy Season, just two images captured over three nights between 25th Feb and 15th May.

M64, the "Blackeye" galaxy This is 4 hours RGB (8 x 10 mins each) bin 2 and 4 hours Luminance in bin 1 This is very thin data, but with astro dark rapidly vanishing was all I could get. Captured on the 13th and 15th May with the ODK 12 / SX694 Stacking in AstroArt 8, initial post in PixInsight Blur X for the Lum, Noise X Masked Stretch and SPCC on the RGB, final LRGB combination and colour refining in AA8 again The conditions were far from ideal, hence the lack of detail in the spiral arms, but it is what it is.