tomato

Back in the pre-digital era I found every aspect of DSO astro photography hard, taking the picture was just one piece in an infernal jigsaw. If I ever get round to it I might try replicating the old days but with a twist, using my 1980s 8” OO F4 Schmidt Newtonian and Ricoh SLR but with a modern goto mount and guiding. It’s a big project though, after 20 years of being stored vertically in a damp loft, the araldite holding the secondary gave out and it crashed down onto the primary mirror and took a chunk out of that also.

You are starting out the right way with wide field subjects, I jumped straight into DSO film photography back in the late 1980’s and it was hard. So much easier to get pleasing results in the digital era.

Yes, the background is more even but I think the image is a bit 'harder' and the faintest nebulosity has suffered as a consequence. There might be a 3rd iteration...

Thanks for the feedback, and true to form my 'Final Rendition' has now undergone two iterations...

Yes, I see what you mean. I might also try not minimising the stars so much, they are there, after all.

Well, thanks to @windjammer's encouragement, I have had a go with masked layers in AP, so now less of an overblown core.

Thanks, I’m afraid this is currently my best endeavours on processing the PN. First, significant LP was first removed with APP’s tool then BXT and SXT applied in PI followed by a masked stretch. More processing in AP on both the stars only and starless images, then recombined with PixelMath and a mild application of NXT.

Imaging a planetary nebula with an F2 RASA, perhaps not a good idea but this is the scope I have set up currently and I wanted to go deep to see if I could capture the 'Butterfly Effect' outer nebulosity. This is 115 x 3 mins with the RASA8/QHY268c/NBZ combination, all captured in Nautical darkness. For sure, the object is a bit lost in the full FOV but imaging at 1.947 arcsec per pixel enables a substantial crop to be made. It has been discussed elsewhere on SGL that an 11" RASA might be a candidate for the elusive imaging scope all rounder, but I think there would still be some trade off on detail compared with the traditional longer FL refractor or reflector. However, an IMX 571 camera coupled with a 14" RASA would be imaging at just under 1 arcsec per pixel, the trouble is I would need to liquidate my Esprit 150, RASA8 and a camera or two to afford one, but it is an interesting concept. I understand this size aperture was specifically manufactured by Celestron for use by the amateur community to identify and track small items of orbiting debris (~1 metre in size). Does that mean every sub would be festooned with dozens of satellite trails? Crop

Great processing result. Are there still any X suite naysayers out there? For me the earlier version looks like the detail has been pushed harder and hence potentially more contrived, your X suite version is much more subtle. 👍

Another phenomenal result from your location.👍

My point was it looked like folks were using the sign to try to identify the location, if it is in somebody’s back garden it won’t be much help.😊

And why is there a Council Highways sign apparently erected in his back garden?

I run my RC and QHY cameras at -10 deg C. Given the low noise characteristics of these sensors and exposure times of 180s or less I don’t see the point of running them lower.

I have 150 mm F7 refractor and have to refocus roughly every 45 minutes during a summer night, less frequently in the Winter. The scope is inside a dome and gets very warm after a sunny day. I tried temperature compensation but never got satisfactory results and as a refocus takes about 2 minutes in NINA and is 100% automated, I just stay with that.

I could be wrong but I assume the AA camera is essentially the Touptek item, as is the Risingcam version. I have the RC and QHY versions and you can’t put a cigarette paper between the quality of the images captured even though there was close on £800 difference in the asking price when I purchased them. Just my 6 penny worth.

Yes, but where do the nice pictures in the magazines and on the inter web these days come from? Professional scopes take fewer pretty pictures these days, and as amazing as the HST and JWST images are, they aren’t exactly wide FOV instruments. Look how many APODs come from amateurs, albeit usually those with access to high end kit in great locations, but we all have to start somewhere.

Top notch, the only thing I can see changing between the frames is the SN.

Just based on personal experience I’m afraid dark sites safety levels have declined over the last 30 years. Back in the late 1980s I used to visit a remote dark site quite regularly and only had hill sheep for company. A recent visit to the same location had loud modified cars on the road throughout the session and at 1 am a van pulled up next to us and a bloke got out for a chat. He was friendly enough but then declared he was going to stay the night in his van, something he did there on a regular basis. My son in law is a truck driver who has nights out every week, he frequently sees cars, some with families in them that park up for the night in road side laybys. A sign of the times I suppose.

Thanks Olly, as I think you know, rolling clouds of Hydrogen are not really my thing, but I continue to be impressed by what this equipment combination can deliver, even under less than ideal conditions.

This is 78 x 3 mins centred on NGC 6914 a pair of reflection nebulae in Cygnus. About half of the data was seriously affected by a bright diagonal gradient (caused I think, by a neighbour's intrusive backyard floodlight), which I have found hard to eradicate. The best results were obtained by omitting the calibration frames(!) so this image is presented without flats, darkflats or darks applied. Stacked and LPC applied in APP, processed in PI with the XT tools predominately. Thanks for looking.

I have put the RASA8 and SY135 on the mount for the hazy, crazy summer imaging season, and pointed them at NGC 6914 last night. The RASA data had a huge diagonal light gradient, caused I think, by a neighbour's directly opposite outside floodlight coming on and off a few times while their dog did it's business in the garden, at least he didn't start barking at the dome as it rotated... The SY135 was a bit of an afterthought, so I spent no time eliminating tilt, and I ran it at F2.8 with the lens diaphragm, hence the elaborate diffraction pattern around Deneb. I thought BXT would deal with the rough star shapes but it left black rings around the brighter stars and in my usual casual manner I didn't save the interim frames that I used to create the false colour image so I can't go back and run BXT on different settings, oh well. I think some of the floodlight contribution still remains in the bottom third of the image but I was happy with the result from 90 minutes of data.

Same here. Stellarium had a bolt on for telescope control when I first came across it but it wasn’t as straightforward to use as CDC so I use the latter for telescope control with NINA.

I’m not a professional user of photo editing or graphic design software but as already stated aren’t there viable alternatives to the Adobe software already out there?

Those are great shots! @Cosmic Geoff, I would hang on to the book as a souvenir of just how tough AP was in the pre digital era.

In my book anyone who points a camera at the night sky and captures something is a real imager, after that we are all on a journey. The folks whom we all look up to in this pastime, I’m sure they will tell you that they are still learning. I have Dave’s book on processing with Affinity Photo, I have found it really useful.