gorann

Sounds like a great PS plug-in, but as often I see that it will not work on a Mac🥴

Cool! I wonder if six starspikes will now be the new fashion among those that like starspikes😁

Hi Olly is there a specific reason for whyy you chosed this model? I see that Epson has much cheaper A3 printers for Photos, like this one: Epson Expression Photo XP-970

Looks great Steve! I see no reason not to put all one got into an image, if it imporves it. I notice you downsampled the posted image a lot, probably to annoy pixel-peepers like me😁

The nice round stars In you last post of NGC5466 suggest that you fixed the sagging👍

When I look at your calibrated images I see no walking noise. I expect that dithering would have no noticible effect and I would not worry about it. I have the same camera as you (although the ASI variant) and since I have a quite dark site (Borte 2-3) I have very low noise and never saw anything like walking noise (which was a constant problem during my earlier DSLR era). So I expect that your noise is, as you say, due to light pollution (and dithering would have no effect on that). A drawback with dithering is that you loose imaging time as the mount have to be given time to settle between each frame. Another drawback is of course that it adds one more layer of complexity and one more thing that can go wrong. So, if I was you, I would not worry about dithering. If you do it, make a careful comparison with how it looks with and without dithering, to see if it has any effect at all.

Nice Wim! I like these two and you are brave to take them on during a full moon. Nice details in the fly and more data will reveal the spiders legs. You have some coma issues on the right side - collimation or sagging focuser perhaps? CS, Göran

Here is a rather dusty view of The Cave Nebula (Sh2-155) and its slightly less spectacular neighbour in the Sharpess catalogue - Sh2-154. Clearly the whole area is full of Ha emitting dust as well as dark nebulosity (so several of the entres in Lynds' dark nebula catalogue) and then that nice blue reflection nebula VdB155. Imaged during quite a bit of moonlight on 12 March 2022 with the dual-RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ dual-band filter (Ha+Oiii). 76 x 5 min = 6 h 20 min (gain 100, offset 30, -15°C). Processed in PI and PS. I also attach an annotated version. Cheers, Göran

Since I posted my two-frame image of the SNR next to the Heart Nebula, HB3 (SNR G132.7+1.3), I collected data for a third frame, making a panorama of it with more of the Heart Nebula and now totally 33 hours of data from 3-12 March caught with my dual-RASA8 rig and ASI2600MC on a Mesu 200 mount. Cheers, Göran

Yes I had an 071 and I had frost issues. No such with the 2600 though, and except for the oil that can be fixed it is a fantastic camera.

TS also have a good selection of focusers, including their own brand. May be worth looking into if you want something less expensive than FT. https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/index.php/cat/c92_Focusers-and-Micro-Transmission.html

This is unfortuantely a well known problem and there have been threads about it on CN for quite a while, so ZWO has been a bit slow to react it in a proper way. It may be that if only affects some batches. I have three ASI2600MC and two of them have been hit by the problem. Luckily, these two were bought from TS and they have been extremely helpful. They fixed the first one in their clean room and I had it back within a week (that was in September last year), and last week it happened to a second one which is now in the hands of TS and I expect it back within a few days. Other smaller companies that lack a work shop with a clean room may have to send the camera back to ZWO in China and that could take a long time. TS also removed the source of the oil, which is between the sensor and cooling plate, so they remove the sensor and clean everything out as I understand it. If this is done at home and not in a clean room you are bound to get dust on the sensor. I suspect that the official maintanance centre in Germany mentioned on the ZWO site could be TS. Here are images of my leaks: easy to spot when you look at the sensor. CS, Göran

Thanks a lot Shibby! The region I think you talk about is relatively bright and was noticed by by Lynds in his catalogue, numbered as LBN641. Good luck!

Thanks a lot for the kind and encouraging words!

The Cave Nbula (Sh2-155) is well known but its slightly less spectacular neighbour in the Sharpess catalogue - Sh2-154 is not that often imaged. Clearly the whole area is full of Ha emitting dust as well as dark nebulosity (so several of the entres in Lynds' dark nebula catalogue) and then that nice blue reflection nebula VdB155. Imaged during quite a bit of moonlight so the IDAS NBZ filter did a good job again. So, caught 12 March 2022 with the dual-RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ dual-band filter (Ha+Oiii). 76 x 5 min = 6 h 20 min (gain 100, offset 30, -15°C). Processed in PI and PS. Comments most welcome Cheers, Göran

Thanks a lot! I guess it is rarely imaged becase it is quite faint and most of us, including me, did not know of its existence. It was only becasue I have a light bucket like the RASA8 and a dark site that I noticed it. There are surely more of them out there.

Thanks Adam! Yes, I think that is what has kept it a secret for so long - most of it usually being outside the FOV and therefore not recognisible.

Thanks a lot Olly! Good, then it is not only me that is surprised that it has gone unnoticed for so long. One exception is Richard Sweeney that commented on my Astrobin post and draw my attention to a Ha image he had posted in 2018 of the Heart and also showing this SNR. A likely reason why it has been missed is that it has a very bright neighbour and that many widefield images tries to get both the Heart and Soul into the FOV and then this SNR is left out. Of course the RASA8 is also a great machine for finding faint stuff, especially in narrowband.

Thanks a lot, nuch appreciated!

I have now finalized this 3-panel RASA8 mosaic (totalling 33 hours) of this rarely imaged SNR first catalogued by radio astronomer as HB3, but also known as G132.7+1.3. When adding the final left panel I wanted to catch as much as possible of the nebulosity north of the Heart Nebula rather than getting the whole Heart Nebula (sorry for the partial castration😁), as there in no lack of images of that one. The project started when I thought I saw some interesting structures in the area just west (to the right) of the Heart Nebula on Aladin Sky Atlas and decided to give it a try with my dual-RASA8 rig. First night I collected RGB data and it looked a bit tame, so I decided to spend a night collecting Ha and Oiii using the NBZ filter (78x5min). Duing processing I realized there was something there resembling the Spagetti Nebula, so a large Supernova remnant. Searching the net revealed that the first image showing the Oiii structures of HB3 was posted less than a month ago as a preprint on arXiv (https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.07749v1). Thus, mine is possibly the second one ever posted revealing this faint but clear Oiii signal in the shock waves. So, caught 2-13 March 2022 with a dual-RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC on a Mesu 200 mount. This is a mix of RGB (no filter) and HaOiii data (IDAS NBZ filter), totalling about 33 hours. EDIT: I now added a starless version made by Star Xterminator in PS. Comments most welcome! Cheers, Göran Here are my provious post about the first image (central panel):

Yes, there it is Dave! Yes, the images in the scientific paper suggests that Ha and Sii are about equally strong but also accompany each other closely, while the Oiii has its own pattern (and is a bit weaker). I should maybe have another go at it when the moon is gone, using pure Ha, Sii and Oiii filters. Cheers, Göran

Thanks! Interesting, those sharp structures to the left are also quite apparent in the inverted version of my image.

I was a bit unsure if an SNR can be considered dust, so I checked what Wikipedia says, and it states that: "The supernova remnant is bounded by an expanding shock wave, and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion, and the interstellar material it sweeps up and shocks along the way." My conclusion is that "material" can be considered dust. In any case there is a lot of more ordinary Ha emitting dust in the image. So here is my recent (3-6 March 2022) image of the almost never imaged and mostly unheard of very large SNR next to the Heart Nebula: HB3 (SNR G132.7+1.3). I imaged it with my dual-RASA8 rig (ASI2600MC cameras and Mesu200 mount). Totally 20 hours at f/2 of RGB (no filter) and HaOiii (taken with IDAS NBZ filter). Processed in PI and PS (including Star Xterminator to boost the faint stuff). The first image is a two-panel HaOiiiRGB image while the second one is an inverted 1-panel HaOiii image that more clearly shows the SNR. I post them in a single post although that may be bending the rules🥴 Cheers, Göran

Yes, the PNs are big and small and all inbetween, so with the RASAs I need to go for the big ones. The thing is that the bigger they get (= older as they expand) the fainter they get, but that is where the RASAs f/2 comes into play and will outperform f/7 refractors. If everything goes to plan I will have a dual Esprit 150 rig in a second obsy in the autum so then I could also go for smaller and slighty brighter ones. Got the scopes and the mount - just need to spend the summer building that obsy..... Cheers Göran

You keep mixing up us Swedes Olly😁