MarsG76

I installed version 4.00 and used it as a test session tonight during the full moon and I'm happy to say, no weird adverse bugs showed up in about 5 hours of use... thank you for your hard work.

5 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

What does star image look like without bahtinov mask?

Looks round and completely normal.

3 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Looks like a low budget sci-fi alien invader's ship descending from the sky. 😜

Magnified, they appear to be overlapping semicircular arcs.  Perhaps there's a dominant reflection from one side only going on somewhere?

Theres nothing visibly obvious... 

Hi All,

Has anyone seen this phenomenon while using a Bahtinov mask for focusing... for some reason my diffraction spikes are curly!

There was no scope/mount vibration that I could detect, no other obstruction in the optical path such as dew, dirt or anything other than a UV/IR filter. No trees or other obstruction in the line of sight.
There was a little bit of haze in the sky and the 88% full moon was about 25 degrees toward the east from the star I was focusing on at the time.

Also these curls rotate with the rotation of the Bahtinov mask...

So unless the curls are some kind of a negative moon phase reflection, I'm out of ideas at this time.

The diffraction spikes on my SCT are straight, so this seems to be happening on my BOSMA Beta-RE 80mm refractor, but I haven't seen this happen before tonight.
Camera is a QHY268M.

This has not stopped me from focusing on the star, and doesn't look like this effect is present in my test subs exposures, but I'm very curious to what could be causing these curls.

Clear Skies,

Mariusz

A UV/IR Cut filter will definitely improve guiding... but heres an idea I've had and tested with consistently improved guiding results... I'm now using my IRPass685 filter on my ZWO120MM mini guide cam instead of the IR cut filter and my guiding seems to have consistently improved by around 0.2" RMS.  

12 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Re star formation, do you plan to add Ha atg some point? This will very likely add another dimension to this fine image.

Hi Wim... I'd love to add Ha if weather would permit... 

Hello All,

Sharing with you the last of my 6 pictures that I imaged across the 8 clear nights that I had between 21 April and 7 May.
This is NGC 3521 is a flocculent intermediate spiral galaxy located around 26 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Leo.

I think that this is a nice looking galaxy but unfortunately the end resulting image turned out quite soft, a lot softer than I was hoping for after seeing my initial subs.
The stars are looking a little bit bloated and fuzzy, but I know that I didn’t have condensation problem on the corrector plate or the camera sensor, so I’m suspecting that either (and most likely) the focus was slight off or the bubble of dust that is surrounding this galaxy is obscuring the hard details… I’m leaning toward focus (or seeing) being the biggest problem because the stars are fuzzy and I had tighter stars in the past at this focal length.
I’m going to have to re-image this galaxy in the future, perhaps revisit it next year.

Imaged using a 8" SCT (at the native 2032mm focal length), with a QHY268M camera on a HyperTuned CGEM mount.

The total exposure time of this image for all of the LRGB filters  was 12 hours and 1 minutes.
Exposures: L:14x600s @ FW:31 & L:6x600s, L:8x900s, R:12x120s & 7x180s, G:12x180s & 6x300s, B:12x300s & 7x600s, Hα:16x600s @ HCG:62/OFS:25

Clear Skies,

Mariusz

I think that it's a good quality image, although it does need more subs... more data (and dithering subs) will remove the noise and color mottle.

That said, I love imaging with my C8, (same specs as the 8SE) and the 8SE, or any 8" SCT will have it's challenges and limitations. One is the coma at the edges which needs to be cropped off.

The other problem is the fact that with 2032mm (or 1280mm with a 0.63 reducer) needs very clear skies for it to perform at it's capable resolution, otherwise the images will be oversampled and soft with bloated stars.
Personally I always BIN 2x2, and if my seeing is worse than 2" I just don't bother, or image with my refractor at 500mm.

But when the seeing is good, 1" or better, the details that the 8SE is capable of capturing is fantastic.

So to answer your question... NO the 8SE is capable of considerable better quality images.

Beautiful M51 with which to end the galaxy season.

Yup, I think you got it.... that is so awesome.

Hello again from down under...

This is the second last object image that I have imaged during my clear and moon less nights I was lucky to have been graced with... 

When I was exposing The Eagle Nebula, I imaged it through all of my narrowband filters, S2, Ha, O3 and HBeta... The first image I processed was predominantly using the standard Hubble palette SHO method (with HBeta only used for star color), but a while ago I found that using a color configuration of Ha, O3 and Hb as RGB, actually delivers colors which are very close to natural looking... with the added benefit of cutting through light pollution, allowing much longer sub exposures than with broadband RGB and potentially capturing fainter matter with more contrast.

This image was taken with a 8" SCT (at the native 2032mm focal length), with a QHY268M camera and tracked using a "hypertuned" CGEM mount.

The total exposure time of this image was 12 hours and 45 minutes.
Exposures: Hα:17x600s, OIII:17x900s, Hβ:17x1200s @ HCG:62/OFS:25

Clear Skies,
Mariusz
 

Hello Fellow lovers of Astronomy,

As clouds have returned, I'm continuing in processing my captured data of the 6 DSO objects I imaged across the 8 clear and moonless nights I was lucky to have recently.

The images attached are of the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) and the Antennae Galaxies (NGC4038 & 4039) through LRGB filters... The Antenna galaxies were a last minute choice when I got ready to image the Sombrero and realised that my observatory hut still obscured it, so I though that I'll spend a couple of hours on the Antennae through the same filters before moving onto the Sombrero a bit later on in the night, and perhaps score a bonus image to add to my collection.

The Antennae Galaxies ( NGC 4038/NGC 4039) are a pair of interacting galaxies in the constellation Corvus. They are currently going through a starburst phase, in which the collision of clouds of gas and dust, with entangled magnetic fields, causes rapid star formation.

The total exposure time of the Antennae Galaxies through all of the LRGB filters was 5 hours and 9 minutes.
Exposures: L:15x600s @ FW:31, R:17x120s G:15x180s B:16x300s @ HCG:62/OFS:25

And the total exposure time the Sombrero image for all of the LRGB filters was 6 hours and 14 minutes.
Exposures: L:17x600s & 15x300s @ FW:31, R:14x120s, G:12x180s, B:13x300s @ HCG:62/OFS:25

Both pictures were imaged using a 8" SCT (at the native 2032mm focal length), with a QHY268M camera.

Clear Skies,
Mariusz

Hello Astronomers,

Sharing an image of my favourite globular for observation, NGC 6752, also known as the Great Peacock Globular or the Pavo Cluster, is a globular cluster in the constellation Pavo. It is the fourth-brightest globular cluster in the sky, after Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae and Messier 22, respectively. It is best seen from June to October in the Southern Hemisphere.

I remember seeing this object in the eyepiece and the view was fantastic, and I was thinking that I have to image that globular cluster.
This cluster, even though smaller, is a more interesting eyepiece sight than even the huge Omega Centauri Globular which is impressive in itself... but the Pavo Cluster has the edge due to it's mix of very bright and very dim strs, where as Omega Centauri stars are generally all of a similar brightness.

This image was exposed using a 8" SCT (at the native 2032mm focal length), with a QHY268M camera.

The total exposure time of this image for all of the LRGB filters  was 6 hours and 2 minutes.
Exposures: L:34x300s @ FW:31, R:20x120s G:19x180s B:19x300s @ HCG:62/OFS:25 

Clear Skies,

Mariusz

HI All,

Sharing with you my latest image that I processed so far. This is the Eagle nebula (M16/NGC6611) in the constellation Serpens imaged through narrowband filters using an 8" SCT (at the native 2032mm focal length), with a QHY268M camera o a hypertuned CGEM mount.

The total exposure time of this image was 18 hours and 25 minutes.
Exposures: SII:17x1200s, Hα:17x600s, OIII:17x900s, Hβ:17x1200s @ BIN2x2/HCG:62/Offset:25

The color channel assignments are SII, HAlpha and OIII as RGB, and the HAlpha, OIII and HBeta (as RGB) used for the star colors.

Clear Skies,
Mariusz
 

On 21/04/2022 at 17:55, Yoddha said:

Hi Mariusz,

Many thanks! PAPS should work fine in the southern hemisphere with the  3.99.1 update

Hi Ivo,

I had about 90 minutes of semi clear sky to try PAPS in the southern hemisphere and it worked... The routine was automated until I had to tweak the Alt/Az knobs.

I measured my tracking before (as I had it set for imaging) and after PAPS using PHD2 and I can happily report that PAPS has improved my PA by a factor of 4 (according to PHD2 "Guide Assistant").... My A was close as it was but any improvement is a bonus.

Thanks APT team.
 

Hi Astronomers,

This post is mostly for owners for the QHY268M coldmos astro camera, possibly other QHY cameras, particularly the newer models, BUT might help other if it has a similar protection measure.

I noticed that my QHY268M camera had a big problem in cooling the sensor than keeping the temperature at the set point.
I set the camera to cool to -10C (from an ambient of 17C) and it took a very long time, about 15 minutes, to reach -10C, cooling power was sitting solid at 100%. BUT as soon as I started exposing (Dark frames during this night), the temperature started to rise... cooling still at 100%
I stopped the exposures, but the temperature did not resume to cool... I stopped and restarted software controlled cooling and still the temperature did not drop... it didn't drop until I did a power cycle of the camera, but the behaviour of the camera was the same.

I use APT 3.99.1 for my imaging control, BUT I want to say at this point that APT was NOT the problem. 

I tried the same procedure in QHY's EZCam with exactly the same results, except when I connected the camera I got a dialogue message ”Camera may not be able to reach the maximum cooling power”... I did suspect the PSU, the QHY supplied 12V 6A unit, and it might contribute to the problem but this PSU delivers enough power to run the QHY268M cooling at 30C below ambience.

This QHY camera has a Under Voltage Lock Out (UVLO) protection which will stop or limit cooling when this condition is set in the camera. This condition is set when the PSU voltage drops below 11V. 

The solution to this is to reset the UVLO condition is in the latest version of the EZCap software, under the "Adventage Menu" (I'm sure that was meant to be "Advanced" but what do I know... there you can check the UVLO status and reset the UVLO status by clicking on the "Reset Flash Code" within the EZcap_QT app shown below:

 When I did it, the "Sensor UVLO Status" still reports the same value of 1, as it did before the reset, but the ”Camera may not be able to reach the maximum cooling power” dialog message did not show up when connecting the camera to EZcap, which was displayed every time I connected the camera to the program before the reset. So something has effectively been reset or changed.

After the reset, the camera cooled to -10C in about 5 minutes, sustained the temperature at -10C during my darks exposures and this was with 63% cooling power, in an ambient environment which was 1.5C warmer than before.

Now for the reason of my camera's UVLO. The action that (I think) triggered my UVLO condition was that I changed the temperature cooling steps to 6C (from the default 3C) in the cooling setting in APT Cooling Aid, hoping to cool the camera faster, but this just made the cooling power go straight to 100%, drawing power from the PSU too fast, causing the voltage to drop below 11V momentarily...
Since I reverted back to 3C steps, the cooling power increases steadily, the temperature is reached in a few minutes and I never had the cooling issue since.

QHY268M Camera UVLO Codes:

The QHY programming documentation defined the following UVLO status codes:

• 0 = init
• 1 = good
• 2 = checkErr
• 3 = monitorErr
• 8 = good
• 9 = powerChipErr

Hopefully this will help someone with this problem and they wont have to waste possible months waiting for  a camera replacement thinking that its faulty when it might not be... I had to write this because I did see someone with this problem on the QHY's own forum and their response was "I can replace it for you..." totally unnecessary....

Clear Skies,

Mariusz

Awesome stuff Ivo... you are very quick at releasing fixes... looking forward to trying it again (once the clouds clear off) and hopefully being in the southern hemisphere will not keep being my handicap 😉 

In your life circumstance that you described, I recommend sticking with a DSLR. A modded DSLR can produce great images. With a DSLR you'd need to spend a bit more time on exposing objects but a DSLR can produce images that might not be as good as a dedicated astro cam, but it's not night and day difference either.

I have been using a very old Canon 40D that was first full spectrum modded then later cooled, before getting my QHY268M currently used for imaging. Have a look at my album, DSO images taken before April last year are all imaged with my old Canon 40D... after April I was using the QHY, and I did image a few of the same objects as I did with the DSLR, so you can get an idea of the difference in quality that I'm getting between the two cameras.

Hello again,

Similarly to my past post, after a long stretch of rain, I had a break with two clear nights., which resulted in two more images to share.

Not wanting to waste this, ever increasingly rare, night sky clarity, I opened the observatory and exposed luma subs during the first night and the second night was spent capturing RGB subs... first half of the night was spent on the Hamburger Galaxy, NGC 3628, and the second half after midnight was spent on M83.

The Hamburger is relatively low in the northern sky from my location, which was possibly effected by thermal currents radiating from the house roofs directly below the galaxy position. Alternately the Southern Pinwheel exposure started when it was directly overhead and was high in the sky for the duration of the exposure.

These images were exposed across two nights, 3-4 & 4-5 April 2022, using a QHY268M through a Celestron C8" SCT at the native 2032mm focal length, tracked on a Hypertuned CGEM mount.

Total exposure time of the Hamburger was 6 hours and 23 minutes, and M83 was 5 hours and 47 minutes through all LRGB filters.
The thing I hate most about this cloud dodging imaging is that it seems rushed, with the uncertainty if there will be enough clear sky to finish images.

CS,

Mariusz
 

"Not 100% happy with it"??? That image is great... nice data and very nicely processed...  

Awesome triplet.

Another awesome Leo triplet image...

Great experiment... although, as said previously, I agree that both images are great.

22 hours ago, Same old newbie alert said:

Hi mars what equipment did you use for capture, the dolphin is bigger than I imagined 

The equipment I used for these images was a QHY268M camera, a 80mm f6.25 BOSMA Beta-RE Achromat refractor on a "Hypertuned" CGEM mount. Filters used were 7.5nm Baader Ha, OIII and Hb narrowband.

The Dolphin is quite large, this is the size at 500mm focal length. At 1280mm (f6.3 on my C8) I suspect that the bubble would be edge to edge.

33 minutes ago, juno16 said:

Absolutely beautiful images Mariusz!

Even with the weather difficulties, your hard work paid off with an excellent result(s).

The Dolphin Head is truly stunning!

 

Jim

In weather situations like we're having for more than the last 4 months a permanent setup is worth it's weight in gold to have the opportunity to take advantage of the moments or clarity... BUT unfortunately now I'm pushing past 2 weeks of permanent cloud and rain!!!! ARRRGHHHH Who keeps buying telescopes in my area???