gorann

I had a quick look there but did not see any threads but I look again, Thanks!

Friends, I am thinking about getting a sturdy mount (ca 50 kg payload) so I can put double rigs or larger SCTs on it and with a bit more precision than my EQ8, and I have been impressed by the combination of price (relatively "low") and specifications of the iOptron CEM120, particularly the version with encoders (4600 GBP). It is stated to have periodic tracking error of <0.15 arcsec RMS, which I think puts it up there among the very best mounts (all of which are more expensive). You can read about it here: https://www.altairastro.com/iOptron-CEM120-EC-Advanced-GOTO-Equatorial-Mount.html Does anyone have any thoughts, or even better, any experience with this mount? Cheers Göran

Great, very nice images on their own. Is that Ha, OIII and SII from top to bottom?

PS. Could you post the three mono images? Would be interesting to see where the Ha, OIII and SII regions are.

Woow! You produced something very unusual and pleasing to the eye there Fernando! The colours are just perfect. Would look really nice as a poster on a wall. What equipment did you use?

Could not stop myself from fiddling a bit more with the image, running a High Pass filter in PS, which had a nice effect on the brightness and contrast of the outer shells without increasing noise, but maybe it is a bit over the top? Interesting that my HaRGB image is strikingly similar to a Ha-SII-OIII image taken by Daniel López using the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope situated at the same site as the Liverpool Telescope: http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/press/m57.html

Thanks Wim & Steve, much appreciated!

Thanks Stephen! The Ring Nebula was an interesting and challenging object to process due to the extreme dynamic range. The signal from central ring of the nebula was there even in the initial raw subs and had to be suppressed while it took about 10 rounds of stretching (using Curves in PS) to start to bring out the outer shells. This also means that at the end of processing, I could bring out much more detail from the light centre than the faint surroundings, and I had to find a compromise that I hope does not reveal too much of this difference in signal to noise ratio between the the centre and the shells

Thanks Matt, Phil & Rob Much appreciated!

Thanks Simmo, much appreciated!

More Liverpool Telescope data I am afraid, but what should a Swede do when the sun has decided to make the nights into twilight this time of the year? For those that may have missed it the Liverpool Telescope is a remotely controlled 2 m RC scope on a mountain top on La Palma, Canary Islands. This image contains more Ha data than most of the others I have processed, which helped a lot to reveal the outer shells of this famous planetary nebula. This is a HaRGB image while most of the other high resolution images of the Ring that I have seen are narrow band images, which may make this one a bit special. The big galaxy is IC1296 and there are a lot of faint fuzzies in there for which I have no names or numbers. Filters and exposures used: sdss-r 17 x 90 s Ha 15 x 120 s (mixed 50:50 with sdss-r for red channel) Bessell B 21 x 90 s (blue channel) Bessell V 16 x 90 s (green channel) So totally 1.85 hours of data stacked in Nebulosity 4 and processed in PS CS5

So everyone, then the question is are the spikes distracting and should I (and others) fiddle with the screw and risk messing things up? I have not thought much about them and this particular image was taken in December at -7°C. Maybe cold makes it worse.

The spikes that I get with my ES 127ED may not fit the theories presented here. There are 5 major dark ones unequally spaced and numerous light ones. When I look into the front I do not see any spacers at all, and there are only three (pairs) equally spaced adjustment screws. Actually, I have not been bothered by these spikes since they are not protruding long into the images like reflectors spikes. I kind of like them. But what is causing them?

1.5 years into AP now. For 2016 I ended up with 8 nebulas that I am rather pleased with and since I found it too difficult to select the best five, I take the liberty of posting all of them (hoping that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission). Basically they are all RGB data from my Canon 60Da put on a ES 5" Apo on a EQ8 mount. Five are with additional NB data (primarily Ha) kindly provided by friends on SGL and Astrobin: Ole Alexander Ødegård, Francois Theriault and Jim Matzger (as indicated in the signatures).

Jonas, fantastisk Andromeda! Din kamp mot vädrets makter i höst har satt svenska amatörastronomer på kartan! Bästa hälsningar Göran (English version: Jonas, Fantastic Andromeda, your fight against the fury of nature this fall has put Swedish amateur astronomers om the map)

Friends, I just passed my first 9 months as an astrophotography pretender, and checking my log book I had only 15 nights under the sky so far (due to clouds, moon, other commitments and 4-5 summer months of light nights up here). No wonder I almost panic when the sky is clear and I can open the roof of my obsy. Here are my contributions, all taken with a Canon 60Da and either a 127mm or 80 mm Explore Scientific budget triplet apo. I have to say that I am quite pleased with the scopes and camera and the weaknesses are mainly due to too few subs as I am still too excited about moving onto the next target. I have bought a mono CCD camera and filters and aim to start on this new steep learning curve as soon as it looks like I will get a few nights in a row... They are all well known targets that need no presentation.

Neil, clearly you are improving on both resolution and colours! Maybe you could reduce the colours a bit on your second slightly psychedelic Orion Nebula. Was it processed in Photoshop? I agree that expensive equipment can wait as long as what you have works. Trying, reading up, discussing, and trying again is the way to start. My best investment that gave me immediate feed back and inspiration to continue down this line was my ES 80ED refractor, a budget apo for 700 Euros where the short focal length made it work fine without guiding and allowed me to capture DSOs that I could never see visually. After I got guiding working I have moved to slightly longer focal lengths and I am now about to go mono with filters which is a bit scary...

Hi Rodd & Tanks! No quick answers and I am still learning, To me, looking at you list of scopes, I suggest you avoid trying AP with the 11 and 14" ones, as those are extremely demanding with regard to seeing and guiding. Your TV 101 should be a good start. I suggest you post some subs on the Image Processing, Help and Techniques forum here and get some feedback from the more experienced people.

Some suggested we should show our first and last pics for the first year. 2015 is my first year of AP. I started by building an obsy in 2014 before I made a serious attempt in March this year. Here is the first and last attempts at the Andromeda galaxy and Orion Nebula. Partly, the improvement is moving from an Explore Scientific ED80 to an ED127 (both are budget apo refractors) but mostly it is from taking more sub frames (I still take too few but I am too excited about moving on to the next object) and from learning more about processing (Photoshop CS5 in my case). For the Andromeda I first made the mistake to use a cheap UHC filter from Orion that took away all colours but blue. I now use an IDAS filter. The Andromeda does not really fit into the ED127 field of view so I will have another attempt with the ED80 one day. For the Orion Nebula, a lot of improvement is due to multiple subs with 10 s to 4 min exposure times and blending these not to blew out the core. All are taken with a Canon EOS60Da. First and last attempt at Andromeda: First and last attempt at Orion Nebula and Running Man