MarsG76

welcome to SGL and the best hobby in the world.

1 minute ago, Swoop1 said:

Both very nice images Mariusz.

I prefer to no teleconverter image as the larger field gives a more pleasing view and context.

I agree with you on the wider being more aesthetic... There are a few nebulae within that I'd like to target at 1280 and 2032mm focal length in the future...

Hi All,

I completed a little experiment on the Small Magellanic Cloud, NGC292. I chose this object because it's not a popular object among astrophotographers and it's also large enough for this experiment using my Sigma EX 150mm prime lens with and without the Sigma 2X Teleconverter.
I used 3 hours and 33 minutes worth of subs for luminance at 150mm and 4 hours and 30 minutes of subs at 300mm, with the teleconverter.
RGB color data was exposed at 150mm, aligned and used to colorise both luminance channels.

The glass in both the lens and the teleconverter is Japanese made, and they're both "EX" graded, meaning its their highest quality... my guiding was at around 1"/px.. well below the pixel resolution of the setup on the QHY268M at BIN1x1... being 2.5" & 5"/pixel.

Unfortunately the 2X teleconverter has distorted the stars into a "epsilon" or "E" shape, even in the middle of the frame...

...where as the stars are round in all subs without the converter... so I don't think that using a teleconverter is a good idea to use for astrophotography... at least not this teleconverter.

Thanks for looking... now I'll target Saturn at earliest possibility.

Clear Skies,

MG

For anyone still trying to decide between these two beasts, here's my experience....

After changing my order from the ZWO2600MM to the QHY268M back in April 2021 (due to the ZWO not being available until after July and QHY being available now)... I'm glad that the unavailability happened and I did opt for the QHY.

After over a year of use and about 35 images each being between 10 & 20 hours of exposure time per image... the QHY performed flawlessly, no driver issues, dew heater works very well as long as the QHY is allowed to heat the from glass (I give it about 15 minutes before cooling, more details below) and definitely no heat transfer grease (oil) leak issues... so far I'm loving the QHY268M.

Cooling the camera to -10C immediately after powering up during 80%+ humidity did fog the front glass, but letting the glass warm never gave me any dewing issues.
When it did dew over, all I did was warm the camera, waited 15 minutes than cooled it again and it was good all night.

Great work... have you every attempted a time lapse animation?

38 minutes ago, Franklin said:

I am intrigued. Does this stacked combo perform any different than just the Contrast Booster alone? The reason I ask is that the Contrast Booster is already a Neodymium but with added violet cut.

To me stacking both together did give me a better and more detailed/easier to see details view compared to using them separately,

On 11/07/2022 at 06:06, Giles_B said:

Thanks for all this information - I'm glad to hear that Mars might give up some secrets to me yet.  Looks like I can add some coloured filters to the list too, and I'll try the neodymium.

@markse68 Yep - I was quite disappointed not to see Cassini, and I'm envious. I really wanted to see Cassini and almost kidded myself for a moment or two I could see Cassini... but really, had to own up that I couldn't. Maybe next time. I get a good view South from my garden, so as summer goes on and the nights start to get longer I'll get more opportunities to planet watch...

November and December is the time to observe... The baader neodymium and contrast booster filters stacked has given me amazing views with plenty of fine detail on Mars, and also on Jupiter and Saturn through my 8" SCT.... of course I'm talking about the stillest and clearest seeing, but at 400X magnification the views were awesome... Mars showed dark easily identifiable shaped patches and clear and sharp as a tack polar cap on a pinky globe....

You made that dumbel exercise look like a barbell on an olympic bar.

Hi All,

Sharing with you my latest wide field imaging project... This time an image of a part of the Milky Way/Sagittarius region was imaged with a QHY268M and a Sigma 80-400mm EX zoom telephoto lens at 80mm focal length on the nights between 25th June and the morning of 9th July 2022.

Sagittarius is a large constellation located south of the ecliptic, a constellation which needs no introduction. This constellation is in a region of the Milky Way which is rich in gas and dust as well as various nebulae and objects through out. Objects such as the Omega, Trifid and Lagoon nebulae... full list of objects detected in Astrometry.net listed below.

The total integration time for this image was 14 hours and 52 minutes of subs, 54 subs each of 90 and 180 second for Luminance, and 100 x 60 second subs for the red channel, 71 x 120 second subs for the green channel and 64 x 180 second subs for the blue channel for the broadband data and 43 x 300 second H-Alpha subs to emphasize the Hydrogen Alpha signal in the frame.

Clear Skies,

Mariusz

List of Objects within the frame as detected in Astrometry.net:

Part of the constellation Sagittarius (Sgr)
The star Kaus Media
Kaus Meridionalis
Media (δ Sgr
19 Sgr)
The star Kaus Borealis
Al Thalimain (λ Sgr
22 Sgr)
The star Alnasl
Nushaba
Al Nasl
Nash
El Nasl (γ Sgr
γ2 Sgr
10 Sgr)
The star Polis
Al Thalimain
Alnam (μ Sgr
13 Sgr)
The star γ1 Sgr
The star 4 Sgr
The star 21 Sgr
The star 1 Sgr
11 Sgr
The star 15 Sgr
The star 7 Sgr
IC 1274
IC 1283
IC 1284
IC 4685
IC 4701
IC 4715
Small Sgr Star Cloud
M 24
IC 4725
M 25
NGC 6494
M 23
NGC 6514
Trifid Nebula
M 20
NGC 6523
Lagoon Nebula
M 8
NGC 6526
NGC 6559
NGC 6618
Checkmark Nebula
Lobster Nebula
Swan Nebula
omega Nebula
M 17

21 hours ago, Ags said:

Your argument is based on Euclidean geometry which Flat Earthers have long since disproved.

Careful.. anything "disproved" by flat earthers might actually be real...

23 hours ago, Ags said:

It is riduculous to think the Flat Earth rotates. It's the sky that rotates around the flat Earth.

Ah yeah.. of course

On 11/07/2022 at 02:22, newbie alert said:

It is, don't let those globe freaks fool you🤪

We live on a flat earth, within a container...the edge is guarded by NASA, you can't cross it to go on the flip side...  Who would think we live on a spherical globe.. the water would fall off... Obviously...🙄🤪😱🤔

Shhh dont tell anyone... don't mention that I'm on NASA's payroll too... apparently.

10 hours ago, Xilman said:

So, I have M31 and M33, where I image globular clusters and measure variable stars like AE And and AF And. You guys have the LMC and SMC which are much easier to study.

Being so substantially closer would make it easier... you know I haven't imaged the SMC yet...

10 hours ago, Xilman said:

Nope, quite the reverse.

HAHA. depends on which theory you're quoting... there are many and those theories are all aligned to depending on which delusion is claimed by the girl that the poor lonely confused FE fella is trying to "befriend"... like Mark Sargent obviously simping on that red head in his documentary... quite entertainingly pathetic really, but I don't think she wanted to move into his mum's basement... it's all bogus...

Apparently flat earthers have members all AROUND THE GLOBE... anyway back to spherical reality.

2 hours ago, Xilman said:

I'm jealous.

NGC 6752 technically rises from Tacande observatory because anything with a declination north of 62° S is theoretically visible and NGC 6752 is at 60° S.

However, the ridge to the south (and now the new volcano cones) blocks the bottom 10 degrees or so and the telescope mounting sets a limit of 47.5° S.

Perhaps a trip up to El Roque with a pair of binoculars is called for. Pretty sure I can't do imaging from up there and an object which culminates at 2° is not going to be very impressive.

Unfortunately we can't have it all... there are so many northern objects I'd love to see and image... if only the earth was really flat, we'd have the best of both skies...

13 hours ago, Paul M said:

And very deserving it is too! I think Globs are, overall, my favorite DSO's. Mesmerising to look at, and mind boggling to think about.

It's not a Glob I've really come across before, -24 deg is as high as it gets for me! I must have seen it in books and magazines over the years. It's a beauty.

I take it that you used the C8 in your sig?

This globular is a equally beautiful sight in the eye piece as it is photographically... the reason why I targeted this glob in the first place was after my accidental finding it while scanning the sky with my Dob during one of my observation session.

This was imaged with my C8 at native focal length, with the QHY268M in LRGB color. 

On 05/07/2022 at 06:17, happy-kat said:

Looks like a comet with the green. Nice globular

On 05/07/2022 at 06:30, Ags said:

I'm not seeing green??

There's definitely no green there...

Hello Astronomers,

This sort of thing doesn't happen to me often, so I have to show off a little bit.
My image of the Pavo Star Cluster was selected as the July 2022 picture of the month, at https://www.webbdeepsky.com/picture-of-the-month/archive/2022/7 a little bit of a reward for spending the long nights collecting the cosmic photons...

Clear Skies...
Mariusz

9 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Lovely image. I too have this lens (Nikon fit) but use it for insects rather than astro.

It's a great lens... love the fact that it works as a conventional semi-telephoto and a 150mm macro lens... awesome quality Japanese made glass.

1 minute ago, Elp said:

Did you stop the lens aperture down?

No, using a EOS mount adapter I had no control over the iris and the lens remained fully open... f2.8.

26 minutes ago, Roy Foreman said:

Very nice image. I have long wanted to image this region but sadly from my location it is just too low down, so I'll just have to be content with admiring images like yours. Well done !

Thanks for the comment... if Antares is low down from your location, you just might need to spend more time on the area and perhaps use a Neodymium filter for the luminance subs to counter any skyglow.

14 minutes ago, Elp said:

Awesome image, guiding with a DSLR is good to the point of whether it's even needed, even wind or vibration due to walking around the tripod has no effect on the subs.

I used a DSLR lens but imaged with a QHY268M at -10C and LRGB filters... Imaging at these focal lengths guiding might not be that critical, but I still prefer to guide simply because I know that with guiding there will be no drift possible at all during the night... and I'm able to dither between subs to improve the SNR.

Hi Astrolovers,

Sharing with you my latest image, this time of the Rho Ophiuchi (& Antares) Cloud Complex. The difference with this image compared to my other astro images is that I wanted to image some wide field objects, but use some of my EOS lenses.
I have a collection of lenses for my DSLR kit which are not getting enough use, all L series Canon or EX series Sigma and a lot of Prime lenses which should be great for astro imaging with my QHY268M.
Of course the dilemma was to get the perfect back focus spacing... and I did have a situation where I thought that I nailed it, but as it turned out later on my second image, it was close but not perfect.... Long story short is that I did eventually nail it and now have expanded my imaging FOV/focal length options. The filters are held in place with a modded filter holder which adds absolutely no length to the BFL imaging train and is very easy to change filters.

Any way, if anyone is interested, I'll write up a post in "equipment" to what I did to nail 44mm BFL.

This is image has been imaged with a Sigma EX 150mm f2.8 prime lens, with my QHY268M in LRGB. Guiding was carried out by my 80mm refractor as a guide scope at 500mm, so guiding was much more accurate than the image needed.

The total integration time for this image was 8 hours and 42 minutes for all of the LRGB filters... Exposures: L:31x60s, 31x120s & 31x180s @ Gain:31 & R:60x60s, G:60x120s, B:52x180s @ Gain:62/OFS:25.

One thing to mention is that guiding at this focal length was a joy... no matter what happened, the worst RMS guiding accuracy was about 1/5th of the pixel resolution that was imaged by the Lens... so absolutely no motion blur was registered, the only limitation which was possible was seeing and transparency.

Clear Skies,
Mariusz

Awesome smoke ring...

I find most astro gear out of stock and (in stock or not) prices are increased by 25-50%!!! ... I could literally sell a lot of my current used gear for more than what I paid for it in the last few years... of course, than I'd be without gear or have to pay a premium to replace it... prices have gone nuts.