Skipper Billy

I installed NINA when SGP changed its subscription model with the intention of running them side by side as an experiment.

I had no intention whatsoever of jumping ship full time to NINA.

Within a month I had deleted SGP.

NINA really is that good. 

If you want to have a peep just use the ASTAP routine for plate solving and I think you will see what is possible.

https://nighttime-imaging.eu/

My humble effort!! 95% in Pixinsight - 5% in Photoshop

Processed the Ha and Lum data to completion individually

Blended the Ha and Lum images in Pixelmath - several different % blends until I was happy.

DBE

From this point on treated the Ha/Lum as the Lum layer

RGB had DBE on each

Channel Combination

DBE

Background Neutralisation

Histogram Transformation

Curves to create punchy colours

Very gentle Convolution to smooth what little noise there was

Star Alignment

LRGB Combination

Dynamic Crop

DBE

TGV Denoise

Very gentle Morphological Transformation

Unsharp Mask

SCNR

Curves

Fixed minor blotches of colour noise.

Slightly reduced largest stars in Photoshop using layers and eraser

High Pass filter in Photoshop

Minor tweaking in Photoshop using Camera Raw Filter

Back to Pixinsight - blended 5% Ha with 95% of above image in Pixelmath to add definition.

Final tweaks in Curves and Colour saturation

Saved as TIFF and JPEG

Enjoyed a wee dram  

M33 finished.tif

Posted in wrong thread sorry - please delete this message.

I use an Intel NUC velcroed to a mounting plate fastened to the top dovetail.

Its an i5 with 16gb Ram - SSD - windows 10 - fanless and extra USB ports added by changing the lid. Works superbly and is more than powerful enough to run everything as well as run Pixinsight concurrently so I can download a stacked image etc

Very light and runs happily on 12v.

It is linked to the indoor PC via Windows RDP - again flawless. I have also used it via wifi (not so flawless!)

On 19/11/2020 at 11:29, Mattscar said:

While on my honeymoon in Scotland a couple of months back

I'm not sure of the wisdom of posting this on a public forum???

14 hours ago, Lee_P said:

using Skipper Billy's old Orion Sirius EQ-G mount 😁 

Shows how well rebuilt it was!!  😉 

Both are lovely images and elegantly processed. Bortle 8 ! Wow - daylight struggles to get to Bortle 8 up here in the winter!!! 😉 

You are welcome to download any of my images and use them freely without crediting.

Click on any image and it will take you to the full res version on Flickr which you can download.

https://www.davidbanksastro.com/widefield-imaging

https://www.davidbanksastro.com/deep-space-objects

https://www.davidbanksastro.com/home

36 minutes ago, jock1958 said:

Trouble is once you go down the Tak route it’s very difficult to get it out of your system and can be very expensive...but hey ho you only live once 😬

There are nae pockets in a shroud 😉 

Some are just jumping on the bandwagon too !! I was all set to buy a set of Astrodon narrowband filters until they went up about 30% for no apparent reason!

As a retailer (nothing to do with astro) we are facing two issues - UK (non) supply chain - take International Paints for example - spring time - people ready to get their boats sorted out for the season - International have virtually nothing on their shelves - many of the workforce were furloughed and therefore not making paints - how can they or we trade our way out of this mess if nobody has any stock of anything??? Secondly - stuff that comes from outside the UK - aside from China a lot of boaty stuff comes from Sweden, Germany, Italy and Greece - the few that will still ship to the UK have pit their prices up through the roof - a windlass that used to be about £700 at cost is now over £1000.

I feel for anyone in retail just now unless they are selling masks, sanitizer or work from home gear. I fear we will all have to get used to earning less due to tax increases and paying more for almost everything.

The Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula (Barnard 33 and NGC2024) - 7 hours of Ha data gathered on 12th Feb. and 40 mins each of RGB binned 2x2 under terrible conditions - (full moon and wispy high cloud) on 1st March. Nearly didn't bother processing it but the quality of the HA data hides the poor quality of the RGB.

@Xiga Thank you so much for that detailed and easy to follow explanation. Very kind of you to share your method. Every day is a school day!!!!

Thanks again and congratulations on your win!

Well done @Spongey and @Xiga  A worthy winning image Xiga. I would be very interested in how you tamed that screaming star - its something I always struggle with.

It would be a good idea to put a piece of heat shrink over the connection between your lead and the extension - helps keep moisture out and helps prevent it from accidentally being pulled apart.

If you want it extending (and you cant do it yourself) I would be happy to do it for you. Just the postage to pay. Soldered connections and waterproof etc. PM me if you want it doing.

You dont say whether the USB hub is powered or not - if its not powered its almost certain to give problems. The best one I ever found for reliability was the Startech one - https://www.ebuyer.com/196841-startech-com-mountable-rugged-industrial-7-port-usb-hub-st7200usbm

Welcome !!  I am just down the road from you just across the border between Lochaber and Argyll.

43 minutes ago, symmetal said:

Im walsall in the west midlands Coventry is about an hour away from me. I've just used the ones given from my phones location which I guess would be correct? If not how would I check these accurately thanks 👍

This might be the cause of the problem then - the Lat and Long you are using is pretty much Kenilworth Castle. 

Your signature doesn't give your location but your lat and long gives somewhere near University of Warwick / South West Coventry.

Does that sound about right ??? Incorrect Lat and Long can give spurious errors like the ones you describe.

8 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Arrrrr, me laddy ....

M'Aidez - we have gone off topic !!!!!!! 😉 

4 hours ago, Carbon Brush said:

Over and out..   

Point of order - its either 'over' OR 'out' it cannot ever be both. 😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃🙃

'Over' means over to you.

'Out' means conversation end.

As a mariner it annoys me to hear that phrase in films etc

Processed almost entirely in Pixinsight.

Stretched individual channels to non-linear

Linear fit Ha and OIII to SII channel

Chanel combination using SHO (Hubble pallet)

Dynamic Background extraction

Starnet++ to remove stars - from here on the processes are mostly to the nebula sans stars

Boosted Reds and Yellows in Curves transformation

Hit it hard with SCNR

Inverted the image and hit it with SCNR to remove Magenta

TGV Denoise very gently - there wasn't much noise.

Adjusted curves to correct colours

Processed stars with Multiscale median transform to reduce the size slightly

Adjusted star colour in Curves transformation

Adjusted star brightness in Histogram transformation.

In Photoshop pasted the star layer onto the nebula layer at 95% 'lightness' then back to Pixinsight

Masked the big bright star and reduced it as far as possible whilst still leaving it big and bright - which it is!

Final tweaks in curves and Histogram Transformation

Saved as TIFF and Jpeg.

Full res TIFF below.

SHO PROCESSED.tif

Bloated stars fixed 

M42 and NGC1977 - The Orion Nebula and the Running Man Nebula. Imaged 10th Feb 2021. 3 hours Luminance in 600 second subs binned 1x1. 45 mins each of RGB in 120 second subs binned 2x2. 4" frac and Atik mono camera. Processed in Pixinsight with a full set of flats, darks and bias.