tomato

It’s odd that used CCDs can’t hold their price, it has been said many times that the advent of CMOS has not suddenly made CCDs incapable of producing a first class image.

Yes, it could be they are not being actively marketed, and I dare say sales of new CCD cameras must have gone through the floor. It was nice to have all the camera specs in one place but I guess that’s progress.☺️

Sorry if I have missed this somehow or it might be a routine update thing that I have not come across before but I was just trying to look up the pixel size of the Atik 383 camera on FLO and noticed all but one of the Atik cameras have disappeared and all of the QSI cameras have gone also. They are still there on their respective websites. On a similar theme, Starlight Express only has their guide and ASC cameras displayed, all the ZWO stuff is still there.

Nice to see M82 as the sole subject of the image, but surrounded by a decent amount of space. M81 must be just out of shot… Cloud cover here has been extremely frustrating, my imaging plan for galaxy season is in tatters, I’m hoping for better in April.👍

I have a high regard for the Astro Essentials brand, every item I have purchased has been great value for money. I’m not surprised that FLO is behind it.

I can’t help directly I’m afraid, but if you do not get any joy on SGL do try the NINA Discord forum, in my experience queries of this nature usually get a quick response.

Nice one, since seeing your Markarian’s Chain have been planning a 4 panel RASA8 mosaic of this same region but so far all my sacrifices to the Shropshire Cloud gods have been in vain…😏

Thanks for the comments. So on type 2 pixels the rub is how well the AI can differentiate true signal from the noise, I guess the BlurXterminator and NoiseXterminator how a similar problem but they seem to make a reasonable job of it. Ah well, back to waiting for the clouds to clear…

The idea is that if you could identify the signal element of the image, which is not random, from the random noise element, you could then make (in theory) an infinite number of artificial subs to stack, although in reality only a finite number would be needed. I’m pretty sure there is a flaw in this argument, but I’d like to know what it is.

Great result, how does it compare with your earlier Orion mosaic? I would hazard a guess it was done in a much shorter time.

I’m still clouded out here so had some thoughts on how the recent AI based advances in processing could be applied to the problem of insufficient data: I know you can’t simply copy a single sub 100 times and stack them because the noise element of the pixels would not be random, but what if we had say 100 real subs then analysed them with some form of AI based algorithm to identify those pixels which had a signal element from those which were background. The signal pixels would be copied to a new image and crucially the background pixels would be filled in with randomly generated pixels, with the baseline value being determined by analysis of the background pixels in the original subs. More subs could then be generated on this basis, but each one having a randomly generated noise element so they could be added to real subs in a larger integration. Leaving aside the ethics of this exercise for the moment my questions are: 1. Is the principle sound? 2. Is it technically possible, i.e. could the software be trained to distinguish the signal element of the pixels from the background?

Here is my effort, using the Xterminator tools in Pixinsight and creating a new blue channel from the red and green to make a pseudo HST palette.

+1 for increasing your integration times. When I started out I raced around the sky getting 45 mins to an hour on six different targets in one night but they were nothing special after processing. Unless you have a RASA or something similar you need to collect the hours to have enough signal to process the channels and get a decent result.

Great image, really sharp.

If SPM had been given unbroken access to clear skies we wouldn’t have got this TV gold moment back in 1961: https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/cloud_disrupts_sky_at_night_50th/zrg8wty When I come in early from a session, my catchphrase to the Mrs. is “totally obscured Patrick” 😉

The huge positive is you are collecting great data, don’t underestimate that achievement. As you can see, there are several ways to skin the image processing cat, fortunately you can try most of them out on free trials. I don’t find processing easy or particularly enjoyable, but the Russell Croman Xterminator suite of tools mentioned several times above, have been a game changer for me.

Apologies, a bit late with my processing effort. I used the LP removal and star colour calibration tools in APP, BlurXtermintor and StarXterminator in PI, then used the clone tool on the starless image in AP to remove the ampglow artefact from the background. More Histogram transformation and curves in PI then recombine with Pixelmath and NoiseXterminator to finish. M81 still looks a bit too green to me, even though I applied SCNR.

Commiserations on your winter tally of clear nights, but you have achieved quality results if not in great quantity.

Pixinsight will do the whole of the processing operation, calibration alignment stacking then every conceivable processing operation thereafter. APP does the same but in my opinion leads you down a somewhat more straightforward path. I use APP for calibration, stacking, LP removal and mosaic construction, PI for everything else. If I could only have one it would be PI, but a couple of years ago my choice would have been APP.

On Thursday night my imaging session was regularly interrupted by passing cloud. After the third lot I gave up and shut everything down. After locking up I looked up and of course it was crystal clear, an inky black sky and a distinct Milky Way visible. I’m ashamed to say I went to bed cursing the UK weather.

Congratulations Martin, I’ve only just found out it is today’s APOD!👏

I’m doing the same as @Lumos, and agree 100% with the conclusions.

To be fair, this issue has been covered quite a lot in the APP forum, but it caught me out recently when I inadvertently used a different profile in NINA with different gain and offset values in the settings. My lights, flats and darkflats were all the same but I had a different offset setting for the darks (essential on a ASI178 camera). APP happily stacked all of the calibration frames and seemingly applied the calibration masters to the lights, except the integrated frame clearly had no flat correction applied. After some head scratching I reran the process omitting the darks and flats were now successfully applied, leaving just the ampglow.

Top notch Martin, the MN190 doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

Just checked my logs, I'm in for 21 sessions YTD vs 23 last year, but this year seems much worse than that. I have had more aborted runs due to glitches this year, which might explain my gloomy take on things. April last year was great so here's hoping.