MarsG76

Great report... the onslaught of bad forecasts must be the result of someone thinking about or actually buying a new astronomy gadget.

Wow, how cool.. goes to show that aperture doesn't always need to be massive to get impressive results.

I've have seen a image of the pillars taken by a fellow in Israel using a 16" RC scope during very dry conditions and obviously optimal seeing/atmospheric conditions, and his result was by far the best I have seen taken by a amateur... It was as close as I have ever seen comparing to the original hubble image.. I'll see if I can find it.... That said, Rodd's image is very excellent and this is most likley at the level where the dryness of the atmosphere will play a bigger role than normally expected.

How busy and littered with stars!!! crazy....

Great idea and a work around the seeing, It would give you similar benefits to using a IRPass685 filter.

That belongs on a wall.. very nice photo

I'm the opposite... I found out about Partick Moore when I was already into astronomy... what got me into it is a child's book back when I was about 9.

Nice .... scopes in formation.

Not too shabby at all...

Because when capturing narrowband HII and OIII using a color sensor, there is signal in the blue channel (probably HBeta) as well as red for HII and green for OIII captures... Only using ONLY the red channel from HII as red and ONLY the green channel from OIII subs, than separating the blue channel from both HII and OIII and adding them together creates a third channel with data that is not used in the red (HII) and green (OIII) channels.

Only about 1 hour and 21 minutes of exposure time and all in RGB... 15x15s, 12 each of 30s, 60s, 120s, 180s subs at ISO1600 ... using my modded and cooled Canon 40D.

Slight processing tweak to bring out some of the fainter nebulosity.

Two filters but still three distinct channels of data without having to reuse any data to make a extra channel.

Slight processing tweak...

Fantastic

Since I captured the subs through filters using a OSC or color camera, the hydrogen alpha subs had the strongest signal in the red channel and a different signal in the blue, I'm assuming that it's hbeta... Likewise OIII had the strongest signal in green with a bit of data in the blue channel, so I took the HAlpha stack red channel as RED and OIII green channel as GREEN but added the blue channels in both as BLUE in RGB. The separation of hbeta is a benefit of using a color sensor for narrowband, where as a mono sensor would mix all signal as greyscale.

Hello Astronomers, I'm spending my clear moonless nights capturing narrowband data of M17, at 2032mm focal length through my 8" SCT, using my Cooled and modded 40D. This image consists of HAlpha and OIII signal only, but as it turns out that both the HAlpha and OIII subs have a considerable amount of blue data in them, separated due to the DSLR being a OSC camera, so I used the red out of the HAlpha image, green from OIII green channel and added the blue from HAlpha (the Hbeta data) and blue from the OIII stack and used it as the blue channel, resulting in a almost natural color pseudo RGB image attached. Clear skies, MG

Hello Astronomers, This is a work in progress, I'm spending my clear moonless nights capturing narrowband data of M17, at 2032mm focal length through my 8" SCT, using my Cooled and modded 40D. I still have SII to capture to complete the project but for now I played with the data I already have. As it turns out that both the HAlpha and OIII subs have a considerable amount of blue data in them, separated due to the DSLR being a OSC camera, so I used the red out of the HAlpha image, green from OIII green channel and added the blue from HAlpha (the Hbeta data) and blue from the OIII stack and used it as the blue channel, resulting in a almost natural color pseudo RGB image, attached. Once I have the SII data, I'll assemble the channels into a SHO narrowband image of M17. Clear skies, MG

Excellent result.. I find that the pillars were quite small at 2000mm too.. so I'd estimate that 6000-8000mm focal length would be needed to get good detail and a good size of the pillars....

Sounds like its coming along very nicely.

Great detail.....

FireCapture is good for capturing the ISS transits, and a Fast fps CCD with a fast shutter speed is preferable. You need to capture video to improve your chances, attempting single shots will most likely result in a missed shot.

I'm jealous.. I crave a dark sky like that..... excellent session and a awesome photo.

That looks awesome.. perfect...

Hello Astronomers, As I'm doing more night shifts at work and so I'm getting the opportunity to process some of my back log of data on the laptop... Last night I processed my first framing of Gum53 in the constellation ARA, a total exposure of 1 hour and 48 minutes before I stopped the exposure and reframed to what I posted about a month ago. I wasn't going to spend too much time on this data but I didn't want to just delete it either, so even though its nothing spectacular, I'm still sharing the results of the rejected data. CS, MG