gorann

Here we go: more starfield. And yes I like it better.

Yes Telescopius will give you all the info you ask for.

Yes Peter, goes to show to never give up on data as you cannot know what the future of processing brings😆

Thanks a lot Chris! Yes, I was also contemplating if I should not put in a bit more of the star field. I may try it - easily done in PS.

While waiting for astrodarkness I now dug very deep into my hard drives for data to process. This is data from my first years in astrophotography using an unmodded DSLR (Canon 60D) on a Samyang 135mm @f/2, now reprocessed using the new XTerminator tools from Russ Croman. 169 x 1 min exposures. The objects probably need no presentation. So yet another example of how powerful the new XTerminator tools are, and maybe also my processing skills improved a bit (or maybe you tell me that you like the original processing better🫣). Cheers, Göran 2023 version: 2017 version:

What a superb way to keep up your processing skills while we wait for astrodarkness here in Sweden! Yes, I also go for the ketchup version over the mustard.

Will be interesting to see a review of it. It is half the price of an Esprit 100 so a very tempting price. Presumably this is partly because cheaper ED glass like FCD1 or FPL51 is used. My first refractors were an ES127 and an ES80, both with the cheaper FCD1 (similar to FPL51). They got me addicted to imaging even if they gave blue ringed stars. I assumed that stars looked like that until I got the Esprits I now have.

Amazingly deep for only being 6 hours at f/5, particularly in the Ha. Close to what I would expect from a RASA or Epsilon image.

Amazing what a RASA can do in a relatively short time! When I zoom in I can see that the stars are not perfectly round, but that is only apparent when zoomed in so not a major issue and in my experience with RASAs it is very tricky to get perfect stars. I would expect BlurXTerminator to take care of it. Your colours are virtually identical to the image I caught with a RASA8 and NBZ filter, and details are also similar. I gave it 11.5 hours but then the moon was as full as it can be: https://www.astrobin.com/ja0aqw/C/

Well, in any case you keep on producing excellent images with the kits you have Rodd, and those are certainly not bad kits!

Olly, I would not mind that scope, but then I had a look at the Dreamscope's web pages. Their 16" is the smallest they make, so why stop at that and not go for their 32" f/2.4 Hypergraph? http://www.dreamscopes.com/pages/projects-04/newt-astro-32.htm

Yes, there are scopes like that but they belong to NASA or ESA😆 Of course the main advantage with a RASA is it extraordinary to catch the faint stuff. I am sure it would have done more of that in my Veil image if not the moon had been at 100%. My point, and that of for example @tomato , is that a RASA image can take quite a bit of zooming in and cropping. Wide filed is of course also nice for many objects but that can also be done with a small refractor. When astrodarkness returns here I will start testing Hyperstar-imaging with my EdgeHD11. Maybe something for you to test Rodd?

Thanks a lot Paul! 229 x 3 min subs. More details here: https://www.astrobin.com/ja0aqw/B/

Thanks a lot Kon and Roy, much appreciated!

Inspired by recent posts by @tomato revealing how a RASA8 can be used also to image rather small objects, and also inspired by the recent excellent EdgeHD11 image of Pickering's Triangle by @Rodd, I had a look at my RASA8 image of the Western Veil area and what Pickering's Triangle would look like when zoomed in. Here is the result. Not bad IMHO although not really of the quality delivered by Rood's 11" SCT, especially regarding the stars. But then the RASA also delivered a wide field image as a bonus. Imaged under a full moon and with IDAS NBZ dual-band filter (Ha + Oiii) and ASI2600MC, 11.5 hours. Cheers, Göran

Out of curiosity: what company made the "Andromeda" telescope. It is impossible to google "Andromeda telescope" and getting anything but M31 images.....

A very nice image Steve! Gary Imm just posted this comparison of galaxy shots he has done with his EdgeHD 11 and RASA 11, and arguably (and maybe surprisingly) you could say the RASA may wins! https://www.astrobin.com/i0cygy/ I have been tempted to get a RASA 11 but could not defend the cost, and now I found up a cheap (450 GBP) second hand Hyperstar v.4 that I can attach to an EdgeHD 11 that I have had for a while but rarely used. I will connect it to my IMX571mono (a QHY268M) with a filter slider and if I manage to collimate it (the big IF with Hyperstar) I will compare it with my dual RASA8 rig when astrodarkness comes back late August. Hopefully it can work in concert with my dual RASA8s (but on a separate rig) to collect pure mono NB data.

That explains it!

Great image! I also wondered about that possible PN when I once shot the Pelican. You say it is PN084+01.1 but when I google that I find this image that does not look like it. Maybe they mislabeled their image? How did you find the designation? https://www.pbase.com/jshuder/image/147691353

Very impressed! I have never tried solar imaging. Did you know it was coming or were you just lucky?

Yes, here it is for the record (110 x 2 min with RASA 8 and ASI2600MC). It is the fuzzie top left:

Thanks a lot Alan! Once in a while I submit an image to their gallery (and they have taken it more often than not), so that is what I did also with this one. Somehow they decided in this case to use it in the front section. You find the instructions on how to submit in their gallery (just an email with an attached image).

Croman's talk on TAIC is well worth watching. He explains how deconvolution works and at the end he discloses what the coming version can do:

I heard Russ Croman on TAIC recently telling that a new version of BlurXT is around the corner (AI 3.0) and it is even better at fixing corner stars.

Excellent! The colour and fine detail are just right.