assouptro

Aurora?

Good grief! That’s ridiculous!! I feel your pain! Take a deep breath, count to 10 and keep as calm as you can This kind of stress can make you ill! at least you haven’t been missing a rare extended clear spell! (Struggling to remember one of those!) Good luck, keep us posted, I hope someone in the delivery chain sees sense and deals with this for you Bryan

Great capture, interesting target! Sorry to hear about your mount issues, I hope it’s resolved soon Thanks for sharing 😊 Bryan

Simply lovely! would sell a relative for 30 hours of clear skies right now! Thank you for sharing Bryan 😊

I hear you! I am glad your ok, your self criticism concerned me I have recently pushed forward with more automation, plate solving, focusing, re - focusing after time, rotating and more importantly filter offsets allowing me to have a full filter data set per rare, clear night it has taken a couple of clear nights to get it working, and there are still things that need a tweak. As It’s still early days it hasn’t really sped anything up yet but it’s cool having all channels taken under the same conditions and allowing me to do an interim stack with what I have so far allowing me to adjust anything for the next run I have enjoyed setting that automation up and I still get a thrill pressing the play button on Nina’s advanced sequencer and watching the scope follow my instructions. For me the hobby has always been about getting the gear to work as I want, overcoming the hurdles and occasionally producing an image that I’m never completely satisfied with but hopefully a bit better than the last?! There are so many variables in this hobby and to add to it the weather has been so bad it’s been almost impossible to get new data recently and I too sometimes wonder how much longer can I torture myself but it has always been a hobby that requires Buddhist like patience! keep smiling 😊 Bryan

Rodd we are our own worst critics Throw your mind back to when you were starting out in this crazy hobby Im sure you would have been over the moon with the first 2! I have to admit, I have only viewed your images on my phone so far due to time constraints but they all look great to me! I hope you are ok Rodd? I enjoy your images as the ones that I’ve noticed are normally taken at longer focal lengths or cropped to achieve the same effect, and I too enjoy imagining “close up and personal” to some of the deep sky objects up there although you have superior optics Take care Bryan

Lovely images Rodd The “hamburger” galaxy is one of my favourite galaxies I’ve never quite managed a decent enough image to share and I wish we had more clear skies to have another pop! Thanks for sharing your results Bryan 😊

It’s a shame you had There is some lovely data in there and loads of distant galaxies! hopefully we’ll get a good spell of weather soon! Please!? 🙏 Thanks for sharing Bryan 😊

Great image Marc! I know what you mean regarding the guide stars at that focal length especially around m51! (I have a 12” Meade which I use at 2084mm with a Starizona reducer/flattener) I was using the Celestron oag until recently, it’s massive prism and ability to rotate was perfect but it eats up loads of back focus and my latest rig hasn’t the space so I’ve resorted to the tsoag9 (my first ever oag purchase around 10 years ago?!) it is really fiddly and doesn’t have the biggest chip but thanks to a rotator I can normally find a guide star Imaging at this focal length is great fun, it’s not without its challenges but I enjoy it! Even on large nebula it can be fun to get up close and personal with just a small interesting area and there are many more guide stars around Cygnus and Cassiopeia! One thing to consider, re- the 0.7 flattener it will speed up your subs, so less waste due to guiding errors, wind, planes etc so it may be worthwhile in the future? Anyway, that’s enough waffle from me, going to go back to your image and enjoy 😊 Thanks for sharing Bryan

Hi Vlaiv I have reviewed the data and binned the stacks I have come to the conclusion that there has to be a point where you just have to admit you haven’t earned the right to display certain details, mainly down to the amount of integration time involved I don’t think I can improve the main subject whilst revealing more of the delicate background working with my current data and skill set I am however encouraged to spend more time capturing photons in this area as I have the start of something! Thanks for the encouragement! 😊 Bryan

Hi Clarkey Thanks for the comment The first one was my favourite when processing but when I started looking at other renditions I saw many with brighter cores and thought maybe I had done the galaxy some injustice by suppressing its visible unfathomable power!? (I over think sometimes?!!) Thanks again for the comment 😊 Bryan

Thanks tomato! I ended up with a lot of ha data! I also spent some time learning how to introduce that ha into the red and lum channels using pixelmath which helped make it stand out really appreciate your input, it makes me smile to know someone else thinks my image is worth a second look 😊 Bryan

Thank you ONIKKINEN I understand your frustration! As a first subject for my new rig it has been difficult Your comment and compliment are greatly appreciated😊 Bryan

Thanks Vlaiv I appreciate the input i was aware there was a lot more in the data, I am just struggling to eek it out with my current skill set I could bin, I often do at this scale, I would normally use image j on the individual channels before registration and stacking, would binning the stacked masters be as effective or do I need to start again at a base level for the best results? Thanks again Bryan 😊

Hi pixel peepers! I’ve spent the last few weeks putting together my “Galaxy Season” rig for some close up work on some familiar targets My rig consists of an old Meade 12” lx200 coupled with a Starizona LF reducer/flattener, giving me a focal length of 2084 and a f ratio of 6.8 A modified Meade zeroshift focuser with the motor replaced by a Pegasus Astro focus cube keeps the focus under control A newly introduced deep sky dad rotator allows consistent framing A tsoag9 with a zwo helical focuser and 220mm mini guiding the rig snug in front of a QHY CFW3 containing 2” Antlia LRGB V Pro broadband and SHO edge4.5nm filters connected to my QHY 268m that I am still getting to know all balanced on a skywatcher eq8 that is behaving really well since I threatened it with replacement by buying a second hand Mesu! Being in a suburban area I generally Image in Narrowband so I’m not skilled when it comes to broadband acquisition and processing I feel like a novice, starting out again! This project has tested me, I’ve had to learn how to get my rotator to not only work with Nina but share it’s position with PhD2 which took some research I have had a weird conflict between my Pegasus Astro UPBv1 and a new (to me) Pegasus Astro focus cube v2, I have to have the focus cube disconnected when connecting my laptop to the UPBv1 or my laptop cannot see it! I have reached out to Pegasus Astro and so far they haven’t been able to help me so I just have to make sure I disconnect the focus cube before connecting to the switch?! I am also now using the advanced sequencer in Nina so I can take advantage of features such as centre after drift which is awesome! Anyway, we had a couple of clear nights during and just after the last full moon and this gave me the time to sort out some issues and start collecting data I experimented with a few sub lengths, gain/mode etc and settled for mode 1 gain 56 offset 26, 60s broadband and 180s ha Processing has been hard… you get into a pattern with processing, using the same tools make them familiar but a galaxy has such a wide range of brightness from the core to the outer edges it’s a tricky balancing act. I have loads of respect for people producing awesome Galaxy shots, it’s not easy! This is my best attempt so far It’s a mix of 2 versions, one stacked in WBPP the other in APP consisting of roughly 2 hours each LRGB and 4 hours ha (I need more LRGB) One with a tamed core one with a brighter core Sorry for the long post Thank you if you read it, it’s a solitary pursuit and there aren’t many people who would understand let alone care about the hurdles involved Thanks for looking and any pointers would be greatly appreciated Bryan 😊