Yawning Angel

3 hours ago, vineyard said:

Was it tricky aligning the mono channel images for the combination

imPPG does the heavy lifting once you have the RG&B. Assuming the focus is about the same on each, the fringing should be minimal

Very nice Vin!

31 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

Very nice, one of the best full moon images I have seen.

Alan

Thank you!

A very cold and clear evening for the Wolf moon

asi178mm / RGB filters / APM 107

2000 frames 50% stacked, processed in AS!3, Registax, imPPG and PixInsight

This was compiled from 27 stacks (2000 each) with an APM 107/700 x2.5 barlow and asi178mm (green filter). 161 gb of SER files too my olde i7 some time to chew through!

Click for full size (around 9000 x 9000)

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

any other tips ?

Choose your path first, and stick to it. A 'Z' path has less slewing, and is faster but I find I can forget which panel is next if I'm distracted for a moment. An 'E' path mean the next from is always to the right 🙂

Allow plenty of overlap, it's easy to forget the vertical and get fixated on the horizontal when doing it manually.

Make sure your exposure take in account the awfully bright areas, which can sneak up on you, 8 panels in 🙂 

Try your green filter, you might find it sharper if the seeing is favourable

Never try and do this with a full RGB pass - your sanity won't survive!

"I'll be back in a minute, I'm just going to open up the observatory for later"

Bwahaha, 3 x 1000 frames shouldn't take a moment, then back inside before I'm missed 🙂

asi1600mm ROI / RGB filters. 50% stacks. Processed in AS!3, imPPG and Pi

Of course I paid for it later, when my guiding wasn't so good, and I realised I'd forgotten to reset the tracking rate. Karma bites!

On 07/01/2022 at 10:30, Shibby said:

pretty short integration time 👍

Under Lancashire skies, 4 hours is unprecedented, in a single session 😁

Hello and happy new year!

Jan 4th gave my the first proper astro night in what feels like months, even with the clouds rolling in around midnight! This is 4hr 40mins of 240 second exposures 30 x Ha, 20 x Oiii and 20 x Sii.

APM 107/700, asi1600mm, CEM60

Moon from the evening of the 15th.

APM 107/700mm and an asi178mm, 2 panel mosaic. 500 frames each for RG and B, stacked 50%. The mono is 50% of 1000 with a green filter

Imaged as a session ender last night - The Horsehead Nebula along with the annoyingly bright Orion's belt star, Alnitak. Also featuring the flame nebula

1 hour of 2 min subs, asi1600 / apm 107/700, Baader 7nm Ha

Had the usual massive halo around our friend Alnitak, but a bit of Photoshop seems to have rendered it presentable - microlensing artefacts I can live with 

A quick outing in the frosty northern air, this morning

50% of 2000 frames in RG and B. Wrangled in Pix and PS, tying to preserve and balance the blue

Quick and dirty M42 from last night, captured while processing some lunar data. I wasn't expecting much, and was really just a trail of the FOV.

5 min each channel of 30 second exposures, live stacked in Sharpcap. Salvaged from noise hell by Topaz DeNoise (yes, cheating!)

APM 107/700 + asi1600mm / LRGB

It finally cleared up last night, just before midnight. Couldn’t resist a quick moon!

APM 107/700 + / asi1600mm / LRGB 1000 each. 50% stacked

Inverted to show the ray structures more clearly

On 16/11/2021 at 19:42, Skipper Billy said:

Crikey - that is sharp!! Well done

Thank you!

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Especially when they are this good. Excellent work

Thank you! It's showing a little microlensing from the 1600, but it doesn't seem strong as it was with my previous 80ED

I've had a few cracks at this object in the past, but never been happy with the result. This is the closest so far:

APM 107/700 + asi1600mm
29 x 120sec Lum
60 x 30sec RGB

Processed in PixInsight

Last night’s moon, with @Uplooker's loaned APM 107/700. A test after transplanting my Sesto Senso 2

Of course, once I slewed to an actual target, clouds appeared out of nowhere 🤪
ZWO asi1600mm / RGB filters. 50% of 500 each

A real unlooked for joy was combining the RG and B and finding no appreciable colour fringing! Lovely optics!

4 hours ago, Stickey said:

Beautiful image,  well done

4 hours ago, mikemabel said:

Beautiful image

2 hours ago, Enigma_RL said:

This is beautiful 😮

1 hour ago, newbie alert said:

Really nice

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments!

7 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

do you think uplooker will be getting the scope back

Now there's a tricky question...

I've been very kindly loaned an APM 107 / 700mm (thank you @Uplooker), so after transplanting the imaging train from my Skywatcher 80ED I was desperately on the lookout for a clear evening!

30/10 wasn't awful although the relative humidity was showing 95% and stars a bit 'twinkly', it was better than solid cloud! 

Setting the rig up in NINA was trouble free, once I got my head around the already installed Lakeside focuser (I've a Sesto Senso on the 80ED). Weirdly the heavier tube seemed much easier to balance on the CEM60 (guiding was a little better too)

M33 seemed a nice fit for the FOV (the scope has a x1 flattener). To have a usable dataset in the time I went for 15 x 120sec each LRG&B with asi1600mm @ -15degrees. 2hrs total, plus darks, flats & dark flats. Would have loved a run at the Ha regions, but perhaps another night. Processed in PixInsight an resampled 50%

The California Nebula: My first foray into creating a deep sky mosaic, to see how the process works. This is 2 panels each of 6 x 300sec with an Evostar 80Ed / asi1600mm  x.85. 

N.I.N.A. handled the framing and sequencing perfectly - the manual rotator prompts where especially helpful! The usual raft of darks, flats and flatdarks (library files, not fresh)

My first try getting PixInsight to mosaic it didn't looks so good, but good old MS Ice happily obliged to give something useable. As a practice, I think the acquisition was successful at least

A wobbly orb, capture through rather moist air last night. 25% each channel of 1000 frames RGB.

After stacking and aligning, this was combined in PixInsight and the colours balanced and gently saturated with successive curves. Slight colour fringing removed with SCNR Green / Invert / SCNR Green / Invert back

Click for the full image

17 hours ago, Stargazer33 said:

I don't think it looks drab at all.

Thank you! It's growing on on me 😆

I had intended to get some DSO work done tonight...but, yeah, weather. However, I did manage to grab a quick 1000 frames each RGB as the moon played hide and seek

I then slewed to my intended target, got clouded out, parked the scope to wait it out then had to slam the obs roof due to a sudden downpour! Wiped everything down, dehumidifier on -  so got on with processing this instead

Hunter’s Moon: asi1600mm / 80ED @510mm (not ideal, but it was mounted)

Inverted shows it off nicely:

A little drab, even with the saturation pushed