SiriusDoggy

Captured from my Bortle 7 backyard. Explore Scientific ED127mm & ZWO1600mm Baader LRGB filters 30x 30seconds each filter Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop CC

Thanks Mark

I agree. I ran out of time before it got too close to the horizon and city light pollution.

Explore Scientific ED127mm APO refractor ZWO ASI1600mm cooled monochrome camera Baader LRGB Filters 60 minutes of Luminance Data 30 minutes each - RGB 30x Darks, Flats, Bias Celestron CPWI and SharpCap Pro running the show. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and PhotoShopCC

Explore Scientific ED127mm APO and ZWO ASI1600mm-cooled cmos camera. 60-second exposures x 60 = 60 minutes of Luminance data (no color...yet) Celestron CGX mount, SharpCap Pro and CPWI controlling everything, mount, camera, filter wheel, focuser... Inverted

Maybe the internet will make YOUR image the reference for color! Nice image.

Yeah, he's a great guy. I think a lot of his gear is "loaned" to him in exchange for reviews. I'm currently using SharpCap Pro to control pretty much everything. I have the CGX mount so I use Celestron's CPWI for basic planetarium control and PHD2 for guiding but SharpCap Pro runs everything else. I do own PRISM astro software but talk about overwhelmed! It's an amazing one-stop shop that will do everything (including image processing) but getting it setup and tweaked with your gear is technically challenging for someone like me that's not too computer techie. I'm thinking about the new Pegasus UltimateV2 and a small NUC with PRISM on it to tidy the gear up even more. But of course, I've got to get back to work before I can spend that kind of money.

Ahhh yes, Trevor. I've followed AstroBackyard for a long time. I think when I started following him he had less than 200 followers. Great Guy. He's Canadian though, so you threw me even further off course saying he was a fellow countryman. 🤣

I searched YouTube for Steve Jones and couldn't find anything. Is his YT channel under a different name?

Yeah, SharpCap Pro has a few nice features that I've just started using. FWHM focus assist works great but I generally just throw on the Bahtinov mask as I'm sitting right next to the rig most of the time anyway and it's a bit quicker. Except when you start those 2 minute subs and then realize you forgot to remove it! 😀 The Edge Detect focus assist works great on planets and the moon. Haven't tried it on solar yet. I just connected SharpCap to the mount for the first time last night and used the plate-solve feature, worked like a charm. Harp on a bit. I'm unemployed now going on 6 weeks due to the virus and my wife is still working so it's nice to chat with another human. The conversations with the dogs always seem a bit one-way. 🦴

But I'm shooting with a monochrome camera... Through RGB filters.

This was my first attempt at shooting the moon in RGB. I had to deal with a horrible green cast when I first boosted the saturation. I'm curious if that is normal or did I do something wrong?

Hello and thanks Ron for you kind words. Yes, I too wish it was permanently mounted in an observatory. Our backyard only had room for an observatory or a swimming pool. My wife wanted the pool.... So you can guess who lost. Oh well, "Happy wife, Happy life!". As for Polar alignment, I use SharpCap Pro's P.A. feature and it usually only takes me about 10 minutes to get it close enough that PhD2 can easily guide off of. Remember, I'm only shooting at 666mm FL so it's pretty forgiving. The biggest hassle is just the setup. As you can imagine, with everything packed in its individual cases it usually takes me about 7 or 8 trips in and out of the house just to get the components out to the yard and 20-30 minutes to get it all hooked up and balanced.

I went with a RigRunner 4005 for my setup. You can see it at about the 2 minute mark in this video I made for another forum showing my entire rig. I'd love general feedback on my whole setup.

900 seconds worth of 30 second Lum. subs captured using the LiveStack feature of SharpCap Pro. Darks and Flats applied using A.P.P. Not bad considering the gibbous moon and Bortle 7-8 skies from my backyard.

Explore Scientific ED127mm APO and ZWO 1600mm camera 1000 frames captured in .ser format, processed in AutoStakkert 3!

That is a spectacular first attempt on mono LRGB imaging. Congratulations. I would recommend giving AstroPixelProcessor a try. It's a level up from DSS and Photoshop and not quite as good as PixInsight. Download the 30day free trial and then watch this video.

THAT is a spectacular image. I like both versions. The lighter version seems to show a bit of gradient or amp glow around the edges so I prefer the darker one. FYI, I'm not even sure if it's possible to image this, but on 16 May comet Shoemaker 155P will transit across M65. It will only be approx. mag. 16.7 so I do not know if it will show up in images or not.

Wow, I reprocessed these today with Astro Pixel Processor. I just downloaded the trial version of the program and I'm sold.

We drove south of Las Vegas last night to the Mojave National Preserve to attempt these captures. Vegas is at 36° North latitude so this is NEVER an easy target from around here. Omega was, at its peak, only 7° above the horizon and Centaurus A a mere 11° above the horizon. Add on top of that a slight breeze and high cirrus clouds didn't exactly make for a great evening but I'm still pretty happy with these results. I'm not an LRGB DSO processor so all I did was stack the individual channels with darks and flats in DeepSkyStacker and then combined the layers in PhotoshopCC. Alignment is not great... Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) consists of 10x 15second exposures from each channel - LRGB. Centaurus A (NGC 5128) consists of 10x 30second exposures from each channel - LRGB.

Here's a crop of the upper left region of M88. It shows a bit more of the spiral structure. I must say my guiding was pretty good that night. I'm not a DSO guy so this is one of my longest and deepest images I've done. Not to mention this being the upper corner, that .8x reducer/flattener really does the trick.

Yes it does. Up until the recent virus I was considering making it my dedicated solar camera, permanently attached to the Lunt. But now it's serving well as my DSO camera until things get back to normal.

Here's another go on this subject. I was able to get to a "slightly" darker site than my backyard in the last version with 24 minutes of data. This version is 160 minutes of data. ZWO 1600mm cooled camera 160 x 60 seconds, 16bit FITS, sensor cooled to -20° F below ambient. Processed with Astro Pixel Processor. I'm happy to say the black bar issue I had in the previous version was not visible in the 16bit FITS.

I'll give that a try. Thanks guys for all the help and suggestions. I only get out about once or twice a year for DSO's so this stuff is not second nature for me.

Ah ha! I must have accidental selected one of the good frames the first time around. Thanks for checking that for me Dave.