MarsG76

Hello and welcome from another Aussie...

That looks awesome, well done....

What an awesome image and object... well done.

Greetings Astronomers,

Sharing with you my image of The "Southern Triangulum" Galaxy - NGC300 is located in the constellation "Sculptor". Known as the "Southern Triangulum" because it resembles your northern galaxy M33 within the constellation "Triangulum" which is not visible from the far southern hemisphere latitudes.

Imaged across multiple nights (fighting many cloudy nights) between 29 October and 2 November 2021 for the Luminance and Hydrogen Alpha data for a total exposure time of 12 hours and 50 minutes, than added the color data I captured between 28 September and 24 October back in 2019 with my full spectrum modded and cooled DSLR.

I captured a night worth of R, G & B data through filters with my QHY268M, but I think my RGB filters are of either very poor quality and/or leak too much NIR resulting in a flattening/canceling of the color signal where the combined data turned out looking sepia-mono with very little color vibrance... This I will need to investigate further.

It's forecast to rain and cloud for the next week, so I had the option of either wait until (possibly) after the full moon to capture new color data, process as a monochromatic image or add my old DSLR OSC stack captured in the past as color data to color the QHY268M UV/IR Cut Luma stack.

Image taken through a 8" SCT using a QHY268M astronomy camera at f6.3 and a full spectrum modded and cooled Canon 40D DSLR.

Clear Skies,

MG

Hi All,

Sharing my result of the (UV/IR Cut) Luminance, H-alpha and OSC data of NGC1300 imaged between 2nd and the morning of 28th October 2021.

NGC 1300 is a barred spiral galaxy located about 61 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. The galaxy is about 110,000 light-years across being about the half size of the Milky Way galaxy.

This image consists of a total of 53 x 600 second luminance subs, totalling 8 hours and 50 minutes of exposure time, 21 x 900 second H-alpha subs, 5 hours and 15 minutes of exposure time and the color data stack imaged with my astro modded and cooled Canon 40D consisting of 36x300s unfiltered exposures @ ISO1600, exposure time of 3 hours.
Total exposure time for this galaxy image was 17 hours and 5 minutes.

Equipment used was a C8 SCT at F10, QHY268M and a full spectrum modded and cooled Canon 40D DSLR cameras on a CGEM mount.

Clear Skies,

MG

Massive improvement.... I remember how my modded, and later cooled, DSLR opened up the universe to me too...

Great report of a excellent night of observing.... I miss it....

Hi All...

Sharing with you my latest image of a Barred Spiral Galaxy located 37.5 million LY away in the constellation ”Grus” - NGC7424 imaged on multiple nights between 4th and 11th September 2021 in LRGB natural color.

Not my best work as it was imaged during hazy & light polluted skies due to back burning procedures in the area and so I had to stretch the data quite aggressively. This is an object I will need to return to image in the future.

Imaged through a 8" SCT at f6.3 and exposed for a total time of 13 hours, 27 minutes and 30 seconds, consisting of 41x300s & 18x600s of UV/IR Cut "Luma" subs @ gain 31 (6h25m)... Color data aquisition was 5x150s & 25x300s of Red, 28x300s of Green and 29x300s Blue color subs @ HCG:62 gain... all subs at Offset 25 (7h02m30s).

Clear Skies,

MG 

Thank you for all of the great feed back.... @Rodd I experimented with various levels on a few screens and on my devices this seemed to give me the best balance between too little contrast and image brightness... different monitors will show different levels.. I wish I could calibrate my monitors & devices....

1 hour ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Even down here in Oz with Saturn almost overhead it takes really good seeing to be able to see the C Ring,  which I have managed a few times with my 12 Inch Dobsonian.

I am sure I have seen glimpses of the Encke Division at very high power, like 375x with a 4mm eyepiece, but as can be seen from @John image above it is like the very finest of gossamer threads and takes the very best of seeing that only occur maybe once a year, and even then it is fleeting and not possible most of the time. 

I am lucky that the Cassini Division is not even a challenge here even with poor seeing. 

Saturn will be rising above the tree tops in the evenings in the next month here and I can't wait, Jupiter too which is my favourite.  😀

I second that... all but the Encke divisiion, I easily saw heaps of fine details.... and this is in a 8" SCT... Seeing stability and beind almost overhead definitely make the difference in seeing the finer features.

1 minute ago, orion25 said:

Thanks, my friend. It was a good combination of transparency and seeing that night. I almost resigned myself to solely observing the opposition but the sky was so clear and steady I couldn't resist a bit of imaging  

I know that feeling... and than clouds come during the time you're getting the imaging kit together.

You captured those details nicely... must have been great seeing. 

On 20/08/2021 at 09:20, Sunshine said:

A wonderful image with boat loads of detail! is this also known as the Iris nebula? 

As stated above... the Iris nebula is a different object...

Hi All,

I'm sharing my latest image taken with the new camera... The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), also known as the "Eye of God" is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius. One of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth being 655 light years distant.

This image was exposed through a 8" SCT at 1280mm focal length (f6.3) using a QHY268M astro camera, tracked and autoguided on a Hypertuned CGEM mount.

The total exposure time spent on this image was 19 hours and 5 minutes worth of H-Alpha, OIII, SII and H-Beta subs.

This image is mostly based on the HOO color palette but as a bit of difference and an experiment, I mixed in SII to the red channel and H-Beta to the blue channel before color balancing the image to the photo shown.

Clear Skies,
MG

This is what I love about this hobby.... there are so many options that we can experiment with... no need to be stuck to only RGB or LRGB, SHO or HOO... it's all fun.

14 hours ago, Adam J said:

Very nice. In terms of the Hb I am left wondering if a fair amount of what you are seeing may be reflection nebula breaking through the Hb band pass as opposed to such a difference in the pure Hb in comparison to Ha. It's the first time I have ever seen a Hb shot produce anything that is more than just a weaker copy of the Ha data. 

I'd think that a 7nm Baader H-beta CCD filter would be quite good at filtering out all but the desired spectra, Baader seems to have a good reputation.. but maybe you're right and that is a case of reflection nebulosity breaking through as a part of it will be at the same frequency... that said... I don't know if it matters  if this leak is the case because the end result is a difference in signal from pure Halpha and the desired effect is reached for the purpose of astro imaging... it would be more critical if this data was to be used for scientific analysis....

I'll image a few more objects using this method in the next few months, object which I imaged in natural color and se what results I get.... I'm confident that this might be a way to go deeper and capture fainter nebulosity from light polluted skies which would otherwise be limited or not possible to capture. 

14 hours ago, Grumpy Martian said:

I've only had it a fortnight. It is collimated. So waiting for a long period of good seeing. I am hopeful though. Thanks.

It still might need a little tweak... I was trying to observe Saturn and Jupiter the other night, it wasn't the best seeing, and I didn't see any details on either planets.. just a soft yellowish fuzzy shape...

I decided to check collimation before giving up due to poor seeing, and collimation was only slightly out.... I centered the concentric circle with only the slightest turns of the bobs knobs and the view was night and day.... suddenly I saw cloud bands on Jupiter, moon shadows on the globe, shadowing on the rings behind Saturn, the shadow of the rings along the equator and the Cassini division on the rings edges.... It still wasn't the sharpest view I ever seen due to seeing conditions but the difference a small secondary mirror adjustment made was amazing... definitely worth a try.

Seeing is a big factor, but did you check collimation of your C6? The C6 should show the CD quite easily.

Love it.. this is something different.... very ghostly.

Hello All,

It's been a while since I posted any images because I was upgrading & replacing faulty cables and cleaning up my observatory as well as Hypertuning my CGEM, doing this between family commitments so it has taken me about 2 months to complete it all.

The first object that I imaged using the Hypertuned mount was the Trifid nebula. Trifid nebula, aka M20 or NGC 6514 is a popular and bright nebula about 4300 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius.

As well as being a test image to determine whether the "Hypertune" has given me any improvement, this image was an experiment I was planning to do for a while, but never got around to doing until now. (I'll write about my adventures and Hypertuning results in another post for anyone interested.)

I always wondered if narrowband filters could be used to create a natural color looking image by using H-alpha as red, OIII as green and Hydrogen Beta as blue... logically these wavelengths would closely correspond to the visible Red, Green and Blue, so it made sense that it would be so.
I looked up this idea on a few forums and, even though it was mentioned, imagers were advising against it claiming that H-beta is the same as H-alpha except at half brightness... and I have not found any images with this kind of color channel combination.
The statement that Ha and Hb are essentially the same data didn't make sense to me simply because the Hb signal is in the blue part of the spectrum as opposed to Ha being in the deep Red, so I thought that surely this will translate to different signal in each of the channels.
I did a test exposure and Hbeta was indeed lower brightness but to me there was substantial amount of difference between the two filters, even when I matched the image brightness levels... enough difference for me to try imaging with both narrowband filters as seperate red and blue channels.

So seeing this difference between channels, I decided to do a full imaging session spending time to image through all 4 filters, SII, Ha, OIII and Hb, and use all but SII for this particular image below with the aim to use 7nm narrowband filters to create a natural color looking image, combining the narrowband channels in the order Ha, OIII & Hb as RGB.

I like the result, as I think that it's convincing of true color and I think that the benefit of using narrowband to create natural/true color images in this way is that light pollution will not limit sub lengths any more and fainter matter can be picked up from more light polluted skies. What do you think?

Imaged through an 8" SCT at f6.3 using a QHY268M camera, for a total exposure time of 9 hours and 5 minutes.

CS,
MG

Looks great.

I say ignore it... the DSLR or your mount is not generating anywhere near the amount of dB that you are allowed to make at night.

If you start to invite obviously problematic neighbours (who scream from a distance) to your yard, and they realise that you're using a high power instrument from you back yard, than it wont be too long before they accuse you of being a peeping tom...

If they confront you, than two things.. "you don't know what they're talking about..." and make them think you're a nut case...  I had a couple of problematic neighbours in the past and them thinking that I'm unstable kept them quiet for years (not telescope related issues).... the crazy mode also works on Jehova's witnesses and mormons... haven't had a knock on the door for over 10 years.

Possibly so.. but I dare say that it's mainly because of a lack of time... if I had more time to observe, I'd be observing much more, possibly every moon and cloud less night.

3 hours ago, Bill Phenix said:

superb, i love them! i did exactly the same as you but i used a 9.7 inch scope. i will post them soon. they are about the same quality as yours!

Looking forward to seeing them.. make sure you tag me so I get notified.