SiriusDoggy

It's been a while since I've posted anything around here so I thought I'd share my current project in progress. This will eventually be a full color image but for now I've only managed the last few nights to capture 22hrs and 10mins of Ha data on it.
I'm shooting 10min subs from my Bortle 8-9 backyard and as we all know, the last few days we've also had a very bright moon as well.

Explore Scientific ED152CF APO, 3" 0.7x reducer/flattener, ZWO2600mmPro, Chroma 3nm Ha filter, iOptron CEM70EC mount. 
Data captured with NINA 3.0 and processed with PixInsight. (Stacked in WBPP, BlurX, NoiseX, Histogram Transformation, StarX, Bill Blanshan's Star Reduction1, Dark Structure Enhance, Export as JPG.)

My plan is to capture at least 20 hours of OIII & SII data each and maybe 60-90minutes of RGB data for accurate star colors. This will be my longest data acquisition project when finished. 

And here's a few close-ups of the Sun.

Lunt 80mm Double Stacked Ha telescope
ZWO1600mm mono camera, 2.5x PowerMate, 1920x1080 ROI.
Captured with SharpCapPro using the Seeing monitor and Focus Assistant
1000 frames captured, best 250 frames stacked using AutoStakkert 3!, Processed in AstraImage, colorized in Photoshop.

Captured 04/20/2023
Lunt 80mm Double Stacked Ha telescope
ZWO1600mm mono camera
Captured with SharpCapPro using the Seeing monitor and Focus Assistant
1000 frames captured, best 250 frames stacked using AutoStakkert 3!, Processed in AstraImage, colorized in Photoshop.

At -41° declination, this target never gets more than about 10.5° above the horizon so it is a real challenge to capture. I have a location with a clear, flat view of the southern horizon that is about one hour south of my home, Las Vegas, NV. I managed to image it a few years back but didn't have the gear that I now possess and I feel my processing skills have greatly improved in the past three years so I thought I would give it a go again. My plan was to image it for 1 hour and 15 minutes on either side of the meridian so it would never dip below 9°. I estimated that would give me about 50x 3min subs to work with. Plans don't always work out. The first half up to the meridian flip went as planned but shortly after the flip I didn't expect it to be so low that it would be obstructed by a nearby Joshua tree. Because of that, I only ended up with 37x 3min subs to work with. I plan to capture more data in the future and add to this data.
Thanks to Russell Crowman's Blur Xterminator I was able to sharpen the core of the galaxy and tighten up the atmospherically bloated stars to make a decent go at it.

Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO
Explore Scientific 3" 0.7x Reducer/Flattener
ZWO OAG w/ASI290mm Guide Camera
ZWO ASI 2600mc Pro (0°, Gain 100, Offset 50)
iOptron CEM70EC mount

37x180sec subs = 1 Hour 51 Min
Captured with NINA 2.1 HF1 RC009
Processed with PixInsight

Congratulations Martin, that is indeed a huge honor. And well deserved too!

I went out for my annual attempt to shoot Centaurus A as it skirts my southern horizon but I had a few hours to kill while I waited for it to rise. Here is what I shot to pass the time. In numerical order, not the order I shot them.

03/16/2023

M3 is a Globular Cluster in Canes Venatici.
Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO
Explore Scientific 3" 0.7x Reducer/Flattener
ZWO OAG w/ASI290mm Guide Camera
ZWO ASI 2600mc Pro (0°, Gain 100, Offset 50)
iOptron CEM70EC mount

Captured with NINA 2.1 HF1 RC009
Processed with PixInsight

30x 60 seconds = 30 minutes total integration time.

M46
30x120seconds = 1 hour total integration time.

 

M47
30x120seconds = 1 hour total integration time.

M48
30x120seconds = 1 hour total integration time.

01/24/2023
StellarVue SV70T w/SV 0.8x Reducer/Flattener
Astromania 70mm Guide Scope w/ASI290mm
Optolong L-eXtreme 2" Filter
ZWO ASI 2600mc Pro (0°, Gain 100, Offset 50)
iOptron CEM70EC mount

37x600sec subs = 6hrs10mins
Captured with NINA 2.1 HF1 RC005
Processed with PixInsight

Beautiful!

Really amazing close-up details. Congrats.

Sorry to hear about your camera problems though.

C&C always welcome!
Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO
Explore Scientific 3" 0.7x Reducer/Flattener
ZWO OAG w/ASI290mm Guide Camera
ZWO EFW 7x36mm
Chroma 3nm Ha, SII, OIII Filters
ZWO ASI 2600mm Pro (0°, Gain 100, Offset 50)
iOptron CEM70EC mount

37x600sec Ha
21x600sec SII
22x600sec OIII
Captured with NINA 2.1 HF1 RC005 from my Bortle 9 backyard.
Processed with PixInsight
The higher res image can be viewed on Astrobin - Monkey Head NGC2174

Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO
Explore Scientific 3" 0.7x Reducer/Flattener
ZWO OAG w/ASI290mm Guider
Chroma 3nm Ha Filter
ZWO ASI 2600mmPro (0°, Gain 100, Offset 50)
iOptron CEM70EC mount
37x600sec subs
Captured from my Bortle 8-9 backyard.
Captured with NINA 2.1 HF1 RC004
Processed with PixInsight

Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO
Explore Scientific 3" 0.7x Reducer/Flattener
ZWO OAG w/ASI290mm Guider
Chroma 3nm Ha Filter
ZWO ASI 2600mmPro (0°, Gain 100, Offset 50)
iOptron CEM70EC mount
Captured from my Bortle 8-9 backyard.
Captured with NINA 2.1 HF1 RC004
Processed with PixInsight

57x10min 3nm Ha subs
Jan. 2023

Very, very nice. It's hard to bring out that faint IFN without completely blowing out the stars in M45. Congrats on the capture and fine processing.

I'm curious if you dithered while capturing your data? I'm seeing some consistent vertical pattern noise when viewing the image at full size. Not sure if it's walking noise or something else.

Otherwise, very nice. I like the colors.

Great image Stuart. I've been looking around for images taken with the new Askar SII/OIII dual band filter.

My final image for 2022.

IC417 & NGC1931
The Spider & Fly Nebulae
50x600sec = 8hrs20mins
Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO
ZWO2600MCPro
Optolong L-eXtreme Filter
iOptron CEM70EC mount

Captured with NINA in my Bortle 8-9 backyard.
Processed with PixInsight.

Most of the time we see a slightly wider version of this object, but I had the big guy on the mount last night and this was just a test while I waited for my main target, the Spider & Fly to rise above my roofline. This is only 12x 600sec subs or 2 hours on the center of the Soul.
Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO, ZWO2600MCPro, Optolong L-eXtreme Filter, iOptron CEM70 mount.
Captured using NINA from my Bortle 8-9 backyard. Processed with PixInsight.
C&C Welcome!

Wow! 100hrs. That's dedication.

We had rather horrible weather this summer and fall here in Las Vegas, NV but the winter seems to be making up for it. In the last 10 days I've managed to capture a few images worth sharing. Rather than spam the site with a bunch of posts, I figured I would put them all together here for you. The gear specs are the same for all of the images with only the amount of exposure time differing. Captured between Dec. 13th and Dec 20th.

StellarVue SV70T, ZWO2600MCPro (temp 0°, gain 100, offset 50), Optolong L-eXtreme Filter, iOptron CEM70EC mount.
Captured from my Bortle 8-9 home using NINA and processed with PixInsight.

Do you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments. C&C always welcome!

Up first, The Soul Nebula - 77x600sec.

 

NGC1499 The California Nebula - 62x600sec.


The Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49) - 42x600sec.


The Flaming Star & Tadpoles Nebulae IC405 & IC410 - 40x600sec.

And finally, the only image taken from my Bortle 3-4 site without the L-eXtreme filter - 50x180sec.
M45 - The Pleiades

I barely managed to get everything working last night for the event. It was the first time I've attempted to LiveStream in quite a while and I had lots of technical issues, first getting the gear to work right and then getting the stream online.
Here's a link to the entire 90-minute broadcast. I highly suggest you look at the table of contents in the description and jump to the good parts.
https://youtu.be/34uXefHkdyk

And if you do not have time for that, I've edited a quick video of the start and finish of the occultation set to a bit of music.
https://youtu.be/MkYcajRZCgQ

Enjoy!

IC1805 The Heart Nebula

StellarVue SV70T, ASI2600mmPro, L-eXtreme Filter, iOptron CEM70EC mount, Captured with NINA from my Bortle 8-9 backyard over 2 nights this week.

21x10min subs.

1 hour ago, imakebeer said:

Regarding a remote shutter release - is your point that I don't want to be physically touching the camera myself as this will make it wobble? I'm using the built in timer so I can set it up to do 100s of frames with whatever delay between them I set (also useful for doing startrails as I've discovered).

 

Yes. But since you are using the timer to take multiple images, touching the camera to strt it will mean just throwing away the first image that will surely have some camera shake in it.

I'm not sure if the timer feature will work while using the mirror lockup feature. I know from my old Canon days, it didn't. But newer models might. Ideally you want the mirror to lock up, then delay for at least 2 seconds before opening the shutter.

Here's a few thoughts I have. 

1. It doesn't matter what lens you have, no manufacture can remove all CA from a wide zoom like an 18-300.  I'm guessing your lens has a variable wide aperture like f4 at 18mm and f6.3 at 300mm?  So I would suggest increasing your ISO to 1600 and stopping down to f8.  Exposure wise it will be about the same as what you are getting now.

2. Increase the total # of exposures.  40 might sound like alot but not really. Try to shoot 100 exposures. Then, shoot at least 20-25 darks with the cap on at the same settings. Bias frames are like dark frames except at the fastest shutter speed your camera is capable of, say 1/4000 or 1/8000 sec. Shoot the same number as you do for darks.  Flats can be done with the t-Shirt and dim light. You want the histogram to be in the middle of just slightly to the left of center.

3. This might be the best bit of advice I can give you. Much of your blur may be coming from mirror slap. If your camera has a mirror-lockup feature, use it.  Also, hopefully you are using a wired or wireless cable release to trigger the shutter. This will greatly assist in eliminating blur and shake.  Mirror lockup is key though.

I've decided to start my first 40-hour project. Previously, I think my longest project was around 18 hours total. The plan is to capture 12 hours each of Ha, OIII, & SII and then 4 hours of RGB with my 2600MC for the star colors. I'm not sure how long this project will take to complete but hopefully, I can finish it this season. Last night I managed to capture 7hrs and 20mins of Ha data from my backyard via 44x10min (600sec) subs.

Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO telescope, TS/Optics 1.0x Flattener, ZWO ASI2600MM camera, Chroma 3nm Ha filter, iOptron CEM70EC mount, ZWO ASI290mm/OAG guide camera.
Captured with NINA V2 HF2, Processed with PixInsight 1.8.9-1

WBPP - Integrated the 44 subs with 25 Flats and a 600sec Master Dark and 3sec Master Dark to match the Flats.
Dynamic Crop - Histogram Stretch - Dark Structure Enhance - Noise XTerminator - export as JPG 100%

On 09/06/2022 at 20:48, Tslattery83 said:

This is going to be my first telescope I've looked through maybe 3 scopes in my lifetime at a stargazing party while in boy scouts around 1996, I'm really excited to look through this bad boy. My goal is to upgrade the hell outta' this thing, would that be considered sacrilege since it's in such pristine vintage condition?  If not, could I get some direction as to what I should buy for upgrades. I want to do astrophotography with it, and I plan to spend about $2500 on a mount so I guess I would have to de-fork it, I found this on ebay would this be compatible with my scope? Thanks in advance for any advice I'll post more pics of the C8 and the documentation that comes with it in the next few days.

Congrats on a beautiful purchase. I have one very similar. Personally, I'd keep it as is original if everything is in working order. Back when Celestron was making these beauties, they weren't really thinking about astrophotographers so much. Not that you can't make awesome images with them, it's just a bit more difficult to coax out the quality you could get from a newer EdgeHD fastar type rig. You can probably get a focal reducer that will work but nothing like the fastar system.

I just think the money invested in de-forking and buying a mount and all the necessary accessories might be better spent on a seperate rig. You mention that this will be your first telescope so you have never dove into astrophotography either? Imaging with a long focal length rig like this is like having never jumped into a swimming pool before and deciding to start by jumping off the 10 meter platform.  Probably best to start with an easy and more forgiving wide-field rig like an 80mm refractor or something like the RedCat on a small EQ mount like an AVX.  We are coming up on the perfect season for wide-field imaging anyway. Spend a summer doing that before attempting to image at 2000mm fl.