gorann

Swedish has the same logical system as English, so "twenty-one" is "tjugo-ett". But Norwegian and Dannish, just like German, got it backwards. So "twenty-one" in Norwegian and Dannish is "en og tyve". Obviously writing down phone numbers take longer😆. This has happened even if some linguistic scholars say there is only one Scandinavian language with different dialects. However, in Norwegian it is also correct and encouraged to use the Swedish (i.e. logical) way of doing it, but few people do. Incidentally I have a Dannish wife but she has fortunately rapidly picked up Swedish (the whole language, not only numbers). Göran

Yes Peter, it is. I felt I had to recude saturation a bit since it first just looked too colourful, and maybe it still is. This RASA-ASI2600MC combo just pick up a lot of colour in the dust.

Here is a reprocessed data-set I collected back in February. Yesterday I got inspired by the quite bright image of this area Peter Shah posted on Astrobin. So I made a starless version of my data (Star Xterminator in PS), stretched the nebulosity, and gave it a dose of HiPass filtering in PS. Then I brought the stars back to my liking. The result is a much brighter image with much more visible dust than in my previous attempt to process the data. Processig weak nebulosity on a starless image is so much easier if you aim for the faint stuff. And I am again impressed of how much colour the RASA/ASI2600MC combo sucks out of the dust up there. It is a two panel mosaic of data collected over three nights of these rather iconic nebulae, IC348(VdB19) and NGC1333. Fortunately these two reflection nebulae are separated by an interesting mix of dark nebulosity, containing several from the Barnard catalogue including Barnard 3 associated with a large patch of Ha nebulosity (this camera is rather good at capturing Ha also without a filter). Olly Penrice @ollypenrice has pointed out that red Ha nebulosity in LBN749 around Barnard 3 brings a strawberry into mind, and it is easy to agree. So as it has no name maybe we could call it the Strawberry Nebula? Cheers, Göran Facts: RASA 8 with ASI260MC on iOptron CEM70. 109 x 240 min (gain 100) so just over 7 hours. Stacked and put together in PI but most of the rest in PS CS5. Here is the old dark version Here is the new one stretched and HiPass filtered as starless before the stars were returned.

Not sure why all you are so sarcastic about this company and its name. Their T2 and M48 extender sets are cheap (a fraction of the price from our UK/EU dealers) and works great, and really good to have in excess when you struggle to get the right distances in your rig, but I would probably not try the rest of their offerings.....

Well, the Astrodons just came to me very cheaply recently and I could not resist. Maybe in a few years.......

This reply will be a bit provokative and I know I am in deep water with not much on my shoes, but I have both an ASi 6200MM and an ASI2600MM (athough my specimen is called QHY268M), and three ASI2600MC. Most clear nights the ASI2600MCs are sitting on my scopes. I have not had enough clear nights yet to seriously find out if the mono cameras are doing a better job, but deep inside I doubt it since the ASI2600MC data is just so good and I am now feeling a bit unsure why I bought all those filter wheels and Baader and Astrodon filters.

My feeling looking at the market and selling both a mono CCD (ATIK460) and a mono CMOS (ASI1600) recently was that the interest in the CCD was very low (sold it for much less than half new price) but the CMOS was quickly sold at a much better price. If I would put up one of my ASI2600MC for sale (which I have no intention to do) I expect it to be sold immedeately.

That is really interesting Vlaiv! Shoting Lum with a dual or three band filter is something I would like to test when the moon is gone and skies have cleared, whenever that happens....

Or IDAS NBZ, you cannot go wrong with it.

Just shows that the 60+ like Olly (and me) keep an open mind and are eager to embrace the new generation of fast scopes, OSC and CMOS! Cheers, Göran

Great image Wim! From an aesthetical point of view I think this galaxy is just messed up enough, but not too much, by gravitational forces to make it stand out. CS (whenever that may happen) Göran

That is lovely Richard! The starfield is mesmerizing as often with Epsilon images. As a side note. I just started using the Star Xterminator filter for PS and if I was you I would be tempted try it on that image to see what I could do to enhance the starless nebulosity and then bring back the stars to a likable level, at least as an experiment.

A very likable image Adam with a perfect balance between blue reflection and darker dust.

Thats so much Richard! Yes, twice the data and I can let one cover for the star shapes in a corner if one has a bad night😉, or worse, if its laptop decides to stop aquireing data while I am a sleep.

Thanls a lot, much appreciated!

Moon is out so I have been catching Ha and Oiii with my dual-RASA rig using the very likable IDAS NBZ filters. Highly recommended for an OSC and the results are almost RGB like with a lot of star colour. The Flying Dragon (Sh2-114) is here almost escaping my FOV up to the left (I was a bit lucky there I have to admit). The creture just to the right of it was new to me. Then there is also a massive and relatively bright Ha area dominating the right half of the image, and a big dark void just right of it. Not much Oiii signal to be seen in this image. The Flying Dragon is notoriously difficult to catch, I previously barely caught it with an f/7 refractor and a dark site is needed (mine is Bortle 2-3). In this case the signal was quite strong at f/2 and 14 hours. So, 2 x RASA 8 with ASI2600MC (gain 100, offset 30. -10°C) on Mesu200. 84 x 10 min subs = 14 hours. Processed in PI and PS, with especial help by the Star Xterminator filter in PS that allowed me to put back the stars at a level of my own liking, which helps a lot with faint objects like these. Cheers, Göran

Then I assume you cannot leave the suff and go to bed like I do. I would also get bored looking at a scope for 4 hours 😉

Thanks a lot! I should for the next clear night (when that will happen is currently unclear) put my SY135 as piggyback on the RASAs. I bought an old Canon FD 200mm f/2.8 (from the film-roll-era) on ebay for about 100 GBP this summer and managed to make a T2 adapter for it. I put it on as piggy back with great enthusiasm as I assumed it would make a fantastic wide field addition since it is presumably a professional 70mm apo flat-field lens. But stars looked terrible 😣 and I kind of lost interest in the whole idea. But I do have the SY135 that should do the job, and at least tell me what my RASAs are missing outside their FOV.

Thanks a lot Alan! My previous attempt with 12 hours from my Esprit 150 (f/7) was a rather frustrating exercise in stretching and noise reduction. Never pleased with it but I did get something thanks to my dark sky here. https://www.astrobin.com/fa83rs/E/

Thanks a lot, much appreciated as usual😃

You live and learn! Good that I usually only work with RGB data.

I have been using the full length of the AstroZap on my RASAs. I do not like the thought of cutting such an expesive item in half - but thinking about it maybe I could get two shields from one:-). I cannot imagine that it would create any reduction in light reaching the scope (you still only have a ca 3° FOV so how could that happen?). In any case it would not cause vignetting - that happens close to the camera. However. I had not thought about the camera-cooling issue, maybe becasue virtually all of my imaging is done below 10°C ambient temperature❄️.

Hi Dave, I am qurious about the rationale (I am sure there is one) about this approach. Why not just add Lum as luminance once at 100% (or less if the RGB data is good and contributes to keep noise low)?

Thanks Olly! Star XTerminator came to good use again - great program and very much faster than Starnet++.

The moon is out so time to put the IDAS NBZ filters (dual-band Ha+Oiii) on the dual-RASA rig. Sh2-124 is a rather dim nebula emitting Ha and some Oiii. As Peter Maasewerd (pete_XL) spotted in his version of Sh2-124 on Astrobin there is at one o'clock a very dim (21.36 mag/arcsec2) planetary nebula, LDû 1 (PN G0945+00.8a), which was discovered in 2011 by the French amateur astronomer Pascal Le Dû. So, 2xRASA8 with ASI2600MC (gain 100, offset 30. -10°C) on Mesu 200. 155 x 5 min = 12.9 hours. Cheers, Göran