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Catanonia

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Posts posted by Catanonia

  1. Looks really nice and a great reference for me, as I am doing the exact same region FOV on my Rasa8

    Great nebulosity there, but I am feeling like the star colours (which are awesome in this region) are lacking. Especially the area between Cone and Dreyers where there is a massive yellow star cluster.

    But I am nit picking as usual :)

  2. 4 minutes ago, 900SL said:

    I've quite fancied a RASA as clear nights here are few and far between, but shied off given some of the horror stories I've read about Celestron QC. How have you RASA 8 owners found them (apologies for the slight side track.. I have ADD :) 

    RASA 8  = On trick pony

    Cons

    • Can't easily use filters without removing the camera and messing up your rotation / framing
    • Can only use certain size cameras
    • Cables can give bad stars unless you use something like the cable cradle I post above
    • Can't add on reducers etc
    • Can't visual
    • PITA to colimate and very sensitive to collimation / tilt
    • Personally I would not mono shoot due to the filter issue

     

    Pros

    • F2 = FAST = Perfect for crappy UK weather with a OSC = nice images quickly
    • Wide FOV 400mm = great for nebulas
    • Relatively cheap (loads on 2nd hand)

     

    I have owned many scopes, but the RASA8 is the one I have liked and used the most. The RC10 comes out for galaxy season in the summer.

     

    • Like 1
  3. 21 minutes ago, Elp said:

    Likely though it might be more to do with how the light is spread out over a larger pixel area, some of my 294 images are 60s exposures and that has a similar FWD.

    For giggles, last year I took a single 2x bin single10min sub on the RASA8 (with a lEnhance filter in place) and then processed it as best as I could in PI.

    10min FIT sub attached if you want to look and play (this did not have the cable router in place and hence the stars have no spikes, rather cable loops. Also the collimation was off along with 10mins 😃 bad star shapes)

    IC434 Single 10m Sub.jpg

    Light_IC434_600.0s_Bin2_0002.fit

  4. 4 minutes ago, Elp said:

    That is very odd indeed. My HS usually saturates completely to white in 30 seconds. Only pointing north or west I can get away with around 60s but the centre of the image is usually close to white but not clipped. This is from a bortle 7 zone.

    I have attached a 1xbin 3minute FIT sub of  the cone nebula I took last night. The full moon was still low down and got away with it for about 40 mins

    Light_Debeyers_180.0s_Bin1_20230307-191801_0001.fit

  5. 1 minute ago, Elp said:

    That is very odd indeed. My HS usually saturates completely to white in 30 seconds. Only pointing north or west I can get away with around 60s but the centre of the image is usually close to white but not clipped. This is from a bortle 7 zone.

    I am using a ZWO 2600 MC Pro OSC which has a deep well depth. Wonder if that helps

  6. Just now, 900SL said:

    I suppose the biggest issues are focus and tilt, given the wafer thin depth of field.

    Correct, these 2 are the biggest problems.   The guiding has nothing to do with it, this was just be advising the previous member who posted his picture, not to bother with F2 and concentrate on the basics, ie get some guiding.

    The amount of tweaking I had to do to my RASA was ripping my hair out until I was forced to strip it to clean out water increase.  This forced me to learn how to collimate the RASA 8 and the OCAL collimator is extremely useful for this.

    • Like 2
  7. 1 minute ago, 900SL said:

    That's really quite something. How do you manage 3 minute subs at f2 in bortle 6 without overexposing everything?

    Not sure, I know that 4 mins is too much and I don't like doing 30s subs, so long time ago plumped for 1xbin 3min subs as a default and then 2x bin in software.

    To be honest, I not looked too deeply at the sub saturation, just played it by eye.

    If I am doing something bright, like M42, I will reduce it down to 1 min 1xbin subs and then combine with some 3m 1xbin subs for the outer regions.

    Not using any filters either

    • Like 1
  8. 3 hours ago, MKHACHFE said:

    Yeah. The stars are very bloated. The canon 70-300mm f5.6 i used can be quite tricky to focus. So much so that i sometimes choose less than perfect focus over fiddling with it for another 30 mins. The difference between sharp and bokeh with this lens is such a slight turn of the ring that i can barely feel the motion of my hand 😶

    No guiding there either. That was not something in my repertoire yet. 

    Cheers 

    Then stay clear of F2, this will make this more difficult as F2 is very unforgiving.

    If I were you, I would look at getting some guiding sorted and move from there

  9. On 04/03/2023 at 01:56, MKHACHFE said:

    I just wanted to say that I came here to read the reply to what I posted the other day and was just blown away yet again by the image you posted. I'm almost inclined to not believe you about it only being 90 mins of subs! 😄

    I'm totally joking of course. You clearly set up the camera, polar aligning, focus etc absolutely perfectly... and it shows. Amazing, seriously.

    Not to hijack your post, but this is my first and only attempt at this target. It was, to be fair, only about 40 mins of lights, and done with a 300mm f/5.6 and unmodded cam and a Star Adventurer Mini,  and it was taken when i just started out in AP a few years ago. It WAS however from a Bortle 2 site near Glencoe ( i just took some at the end of my session to see if I could get anything). 

    Im still proud of what i got that night, but your image has inspired me to try again the next chance I get.  I'll have to borrow my brother's F2 lens. 

    👍👍

     

    I too was amazed that I got this in 90 mins. 

    What you have to remember is the RASA8 is a "proper" astrograph with a cooled dedicated astro camera ZWO 2600 MC Pro. Along with its F2, the image was then resampled in software to effectively give it a 4x on F2 which is amazingly fast.

    In your image, stars are bloated and I suspect poor guiding and focus, but as you said, you were testing kit out., but either way, it is how it make you feel which is all that counts.

    I recon you could do MUCH better now you have experience under your belt.

    Don't bother on borrowing lenses, concentrate on the basics :), F2 is much less forgiving and unless you have the basics of guiding and focus, it will be frustrating to say the least.

  10. Really nice and you got a good amount of the IFN there is a large FOV. It really shows the extend of the IFN in this region :)  

    Love the colours too, not over done which is nice.

    Did you image the galaxies separately or were they in the same subs ?

    Very nice. 

    • Thanks 1
  11. There is much talk about BlurXTerminator and even the Gaia Spectral Colour Correction in PixInsight and I have been trailing these on some images.

    Sometimes it is hard to tell if it really works, so here is a comparison of one of my older images taken on my RC10 and 2600 MC Pro last year that I think shows the difference.

    The original was with my normal workflow and the right image was with these 2 new techniques / tools added to the pre-stretching processes.

    Hopefully this will help others contemplating using these tools as with these tools I was able to push the processing more and be confident that I had the colours as the science community expects them to be :)

     

    Note - There are a little differences in saturation (that I could push more in the new version), but look at the detail and star sizes that I could never manually achieve without MANY hours of hair pulling

    image.thumb.jpeg.08237eefad3fc37717d08f38ebb66259.jpeg

    • Like 3
  12. 21 hours ago, gorann said:

    Aladin Sky Atlas is an excellent free source. Google and you find it. There is a web version and one you can install on your computer.

    Had a mess around with the options in Stellarium and increased the catalogues and hints shown. Then mix this with a google search of what I can see in Stellarium to see some examples of images and I get what I need.

    Also worked out what LBN and LDN actually means (bright and dark nebula's) and that helped massively :)

    I downloaded Aladin and it seemed way to complicated for me, I could not even find how to put in your location and time (if that is at all possible)

    Thanks for your help @gorann, it kicked me into actually doing some research :)

  13. On 25/02/2023 at 22:44, gorann said:

    Great image, especially for 90 min, and you really reinforced the original selling argument from Celestron when they introduced the RASA line. And then, when you finally get a long clear night - aim it for something faint and it will blow you away (with or without star spikes)!

    lol, is only Celestron would pay me :) Thank you and would love to take the scope to a proper dark sky.

    On 26/02/2023 at 07:00, MKHACHFE said:

    Holy moly. That is absolutely stunning work mate. Kudos to you.

    Cheers 

    thank you, was surprised  how well it came out for 90 mins

    On 25/02/2023 at 13:47, Paul M said:

    Talk about taking it to the next level!

    That's astounding. Not that it's any of my business but I'm pleased to see Alnitak in all its glory 😍 

    Thank you, appreciated

    On 25/02/2023 at 15:52, callisto said:

    Excellent image 👌

    Thank you :)

    • Like 1
  14. @gorann Hope you don't mind me asking this.

    Where are you finding these targets to image ?

    I am using Stellarium and I know this is not going to contain the information I need.

    What I am looking for is something like Stellarium that has a scannable view on screen (with images if possible) , but has these more "seldom visited" regions

    Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

     

    BTW : Cracking image as always, something to aspire to for me. Just wish I had the skies :)

  15. Hi all,

    For years I have imaged from home in my Bortle 6 skies with constant AC power from the mains.

    But, about 1 hour drive I can get to some Bortle 3 and 4 sites, but will of course need some power for my kit.

    Can you recommend one of the Jackery's or EcoPower units that would work ?

    Basically I need to guess the watt / hours I would need for a good 12 hour session.

     

    My kit is

    • EQ8R Pro mount
    • ZWO ASI Air Pro
    • 2x dew heaters
    • ZWO 2600 MC Pro cooled to -10
    • ZWO 120 guide
    • EAF (will take zero power once imaging)

     

    Thank you

  16. 35 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

    This is a serious M51. I think the last one is the best but over-saturated in colour, for my taste. A dead easy fix if you agree. What's really nice to see is that you have the blue extension of the extended arm after it has passed the companion galaxy. I always see that as a good test.

    Isn't the image flipped horizontal?  (I'm terrible at this!)

    :Dlly

    Thanks Olly, this BXT function is very good on certain types of images at bringing out structure.

    But it's greatest benefit for me is simplifying deconvolution that I have never done due to the varied and long / messy methods of doing it.

    I have no science data on BXT, but I recon it effect takes me from a Bortle 6 average seeing site to perhaps a Bortle 4 good seeing sight. Who knows.

    I dropped the saturation a little and flipped it to look like the standard orientation for M51 - So used to horizontal flipping, I forgot this was taken on the RC 10 and not the Rasa :)

     

    M51 2x Integer Sample.jpg

    • Like 4
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