gorann

A great image to be proud of Wim! I know getting those 20 hours took a lot of determination and stamina!

Actually, I have lately experienced that the cosmetic problem with star shapes in RASAs can in most cases easily be fixed with a dose of BlurXT on the linear unstretched image.

I can agree that star shape is not the strong side of RASAs, but it is their light grasp and what they can achieve, especially if you run them for 10, 20 or 30 hours. Then they will see things that no refractor has ever seen. They just go so much deeper and that is what excites me about them. If you have an OSC or a mono at the end of them does not to seem to make a big difference. Here is an example where I by chance realized that there is a big SNR just next to the Heart Nebula: https://www.astrobin.com/6zp16s/?

I should probably start paying more attention to what he SY135 is aiming at. So far I have mainly looked at it as an extra bonus and only checked out what it captured after I have stacked and processed the RASA data, which got all the planning for the night.

Thanks a lot Steve! It was totally fortuitous. The Samyang is just hanging in there on top of one of the RASAs and gets what it gets, happy that I at least fix its focus and hoping not to fall off🤣

Thanks a lot Michael! Yes, it is a bit like a galaxy chain but with nebulae.

Here is what my Samyang 135 caught the other night while piggybacking on my dual-RASA rig, aiming at the area around Lower's Nebula in Orion. It reveals quite a lot of faint nebulosity even if the moon was out, so the IDS NBZ filter helped a lot. The annotation reveals that the image actually contains 16 nebulae from the Sharpless catalogue (Sh-2). Processed in PI and PS, including StarXT, BlurXT and NoiseXT 65 x 5 min, so 5.4 hours. Omegon veTEC571C with IDAS NBZ dual-band filter (Ha+Oiii).

Yes, I do not think we should underestimate the quality of glass. If within the range of the wallet I think it is a good advice to also aim at a scope that will not soon be a disappointment, but could be a keeper for a long time. My suggestion would be something like an Esprit 80 or similar.

The moon is up so I went for some fairly bright nebula on Monday night. This is the first time I have imaged Lower's Nebula (Sh2-261), which is named after its discoverers: amateur astronomers Harold Lower and his son Charles, who spotted it in 1939. The wide field of view of the RASA allowed me to also include a conglomerate of Sharpless objects (Sh2-154 to 259) in the upper right corner. Materials & Methods: Dual RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ filter. 142 x 5 min = about 12 hours. PI and PS including StarXT, BlurXT and NoiseXT. Cheers, Göran

Thought so and don´t feel bad - we all use it now😄

Yes, a great image Rodd! I assume you gave it a dose of BlurXT and the other recent magical tools.

As said many other things are important, but I had two triplet Explore Scientific refractors (80 and 127 mm) with the cheaper FPL51 glass (or rather equivalent Hoya) and they did produce blue halos around bright stars, which is not a problem with the Esprits (FPL53) I now have. A clear difference but it costs a bit more.

Got the bl-dy moon here too but hopefully may triple rig (2 x RASA8 + Samyang135) on a Mesu200 will not get too much gradient problems with the help of IDAS NBZ filters.

Thanks James, and yes, I thought it looked nice to keep it in there to slightly balance all the red.

Thanks Francis! Yes, this area could easily be overwhelmed by stars.

I captured this young and compact nebula surrounded by some distinct dark nebulosity in the early hours of Friday. It is surprisingly rarely imaged. On purpose I kept the blue shine from Ruchbah (gamma Cas) on the left edge of the image. I kind of like it and it tells where we are in the sky. Dual-RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ dual-band filter (Ha+Oiii). 68 x 5 min. Processed in PI and PS, including starXT and noise XT. Cheers & CS, Göran

Thanks a lot Peter! I brought some light weight equipment (a Canon 300mm and a Star Adventurer) last time (pre-Covid) I went to Queensland, but this time the weather reports and the hassle stopped me.

I am back at my obsy in Sweden after a month in Australia, and this is my first image from 2023. In Australia, Orion was almost straight up and back here Orion is still high enough during the first half of the night for me to give some of the jewels there a go, like Sh2-263. Sh2-263 is a Ha emission nebula and vdB 38 on top and around Sh2-263 is a blue reflection nebula. Fortunately the NBZ filter is quite good at also picking up blue reflection and not only Oiii. While processing the image I noticed what looks like a small blue planetary nebula near the top edge of the image (at 10 o´clock from Sh2-263). Simbad has it registered as a PN candidate called PN Ga1. 65 x 5 min from my dual-RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ (Ha+Oiii) filter, all on a Mesu 200. Processed in PI and PS including StarXT and NoiseXT of course. Cheers, Göran At the bottom is a wide field image taken with the Samyang 135 piggybacking on my dual-RASA rig while aiming at Sh2-263. I have added about 50 % RASA data to the area around Sh2-263. I particularly like the spiral of Ha emission to the right of Sh2-263. It does not appear to have any designation other than LBN857 at the top.

No idea how to do it but with the number of amateur astrophotographers around I am sure someone will catch it by chance, the thing is will he/she realize that it is just not another satellite...

PS. sorry to disclose my ignorance, but Is that pulsating neutron star what exploded and caused the nebula?

Yes, quite a capture indeed! Something good finally came out of COVID!

I just repeat here what I just said about your Astrobin post: That is just outstanding Olly & Paul, I have seen nothing like these 30 panels revealing how dust is connecting it all together! And if you imagine seeing repetitions in neighboring structures, this one is a prime example. Cheers, Göran

Does anyone know if Askar D1&D2 will work at f/2 (so RASA and Samyang 135)? The narrow bandwidth suggest they may not (or very poorly as most of the signal will be blocked). The Antlia dual band filter also comes with narrow bandwidths and it is therefore made in two versions for slow and fast systems. EDIT: I just saw the CN tread @900SL pointed at above. Askar looks more like 10+ nm, so they may work at f/2 but I will not bother when the specs at best are similar to my Japanese NBZ, but probably with less QC. If I would be tempted by something it would be the Antlia fast dual band.

Yes, a great result indeed George! That Antlia ALP-T is very interesting. It comes in both a fast and slow optics version. It is a pity that it is quite expensive but I guess you pay for the narrow bandwidth compared to NBZ and L-Extreme. The NBZ has the small advantage of also picking up some blue reflection nebulosity. I doubt that the ALP-T would pick up anything but Ha and Oiii. I found this review of it: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358830625_Antlia_ALP-T_Filter_Comparison_Test

Aha. Is NGC 206 a star cluster in M31, or something much closer?