gorann

Thanks a lot yourself!

Thanks!. No I find that survey a bit useless for finding targets and there are no stars so difficult to orient. Then Aladin Sky Atlas DSS2red is better but still not great. Here are what this area looks like in the two surveys (The Fish Hook nebula is up to the left and my image is in the center or to the right of these images). For the Aladin image I have done a frame grab and stretched it hard PS - otherwise it just shows dark sky.

Thanks Steve! I may save on a "Hole Observatory Deep Field" as I expect that pointing the scope at random or on empty sky will come naturally one day as an effect of senility in an aging astrophotographer.

This is a two-panel mosaic of Integrated Flux Nebulosity (IFN) a bit outside the area defined by Mandel-Wilson as MW5 (Fish Hook Nebula). I found it surfing on Aladin Sky Atlas (DSS data) but it is very weak there. To me it looks like a giant lobster claw chasing a very scared creature up to the left (which is northwards). That scared creature also looks a bit like dark nebulosity rather than IFN. The IFN is very faint so one needs a dark site to image it and a light bucket like the RASA8 and a good low noise camera. Then the data still have to be stretched a lot so stars suffer a bit (with fuzzy halos) but I still find them acceptable. I have not found any other images of these structures. May I suggest that it could be called the Gigantic Claw Nebula since it coveres abut 3° of the sky, or The Predator - Pray Nebula? I captured it during one night (10-11 April) with two RASA8, each taking one panel. Cameras: ASI2600MC (gain 100, no filter). Mounts: iOptron CEM70 and Mesu200. Totally 90 x 5 min, so 7.5 hours. Processed in PI and PS.

It could also be just a small cloud that happens to drift across that star.

Beautiful collection Wim! Another success for the Mak-Newt! People should hurry to buy an MN190 before they stop making it - there was some rumor about that about a year ago but it is apparently still for sale.

Here I am back in Ursa Major in my gathering of faint Integrated Flux Nebulae (IFN). This is first light for my second RASA 8 after I collimated it. Unlike its older brother it was not perfectly collimated out of the box and stars suffered a lot especially in the periphery. Now it is probably as good as it can be. I have not found any published images of the Animal Track Nebula at this image scale and it can just about be seen in the Aladin Sky Atlas (DSS2-IR). If anyone have seen any images of it please let me know. As before the RASA 8 - ASI2600MC combo is quite good at finding colours even in the faintest nebulosity, and it is not clear to me if the red nebulosity here is IFN or Ha emitting nebulosity. It does seem to lay behind the greyish IFN so it should all be in the outskits of our galaxy if I got it right and therefore not lit up by single stars but by the collective radiation of the galaxy (according to Mandel and Wilson). Could the curved line of grey nebulosity to the right suggest that some shock wave is affecting this area? Collected during two nights 6-7 April with a RASA 8 and ASI2600MC on a Mesu200 mount. 62 x 5 min (gain 100), so 5.2 hours. Processed in PI and PS. Annotated in PI.

As I said you need the filters to be close and with my ASI6200MM on the Esptit 150 I use the dedicated ZWO filter wheel for 2" filters and there is no vignetting from the fiters. Works great.

Yes you are but you need them to be very close to the sensor, so both QHY and ASI sell dedicated electronic filter wheels that are attached close to the camera. I assume ATIK has to come up with a similar solution.

CMOS is not that young and I have still not heard of any ASI1600 chip falling apart, and it has been with us for quite a while. I think we worry too much, or in the worst case it is the CCD owners here that do not like the new generation taking over🤪

Thanks Grant & FLO, a very nice surprise indeed!

Thanks a lot Mark, glad you like it!

The last nights my hunt for Integrates Flux Nebulosity (IFN) has taken me to Mandel-Wilson 5 in Camelopardalis/Lynx. They named this structure The Fish Hook Nebula and I think I can see why. They classified it as faint but I found a least parts of it to be a bit brighter than most IFN. There is also quite a bit of red nebulosity in the image. Not sure if it is Ha emitting nebulosity of just IFN reflecting red, as some IFN / Galactic cirrus is apparently doing (see http://www.deepskycolors.com/archive/2017/01/01/Clouds-Of-Andromeda.html) The second image shows an annotated image made in PI. Lots of small PGC galaxies but no fancy NGC or IC objects. Captured during two nights 5-7 April using a RASA 8 and ASI2600MC (no filter, gain 100) on an iOptroc CEM70. 88 x 5 min, so 7.3 hours. SQM 21.3 - 21.6. Processed in PI and PS.

It is also odd that I cannot find anything about the use of an industrial grade sensor in the QHY600M on the QHY site (or maybe I missed it). Someone on CN suggested that QHY had now started using consumer sensors as it was not worth the extra 500 USD for an industrial sensor. If QHY are indeed using "better" sensors than their main competitor then I would expect them make a big thing out of it. Does anyone know what grade of sensor ATIK will use?

Maybe this is swearing in the church, but my worry would be that Atik, like other western astro-camera manufacturers, has not really kept updating their camera line for a while and are now 1-2 years behind QHY and ZWO. So will the companly still be alive in a few years when you need them? I guess their sales is just a tiny fraction of what QHY and ZWO are selling in this rather small market.

Thanks Ian! The trick is many small curved stretches of the faint stuff in the data with a careful look at avoiding stretching the bright stars too much.

Hmm, but it seems to be a pure advertisement for QHY over ASI. I wonder ......

I think grades of sensors are a thing from the CCD era when you had grade 1 and 2 sensors. I have not heard of it regarding the new CMOS cameras and I assume that Sony do not send out bad sensors. I have one ASI6200MM, two ASI2600MC and one QHY268M, and there is nothing like bad pixels or columns in these. The darks are just completely dark so I do not even use them.

Since I started AP in 2015 I have filled two 4 Tb hard drives and two back ups, so totally 16 Tb. They are not very expensive, probably around 200 punds each. I store essentially nothing on the tiny solid state drives you get in computers nowadays.

Thanks a lot Peter! PI did the annotations in 1 minute😉

For my two RASAs this is IFN season. IFN (Integrated Flux Nebulosity) is thought to be dust at the outskirts of our galaxy energized by the collective radiation of the galaxy. I do find that there seem to be a variety of IFN when it comes to colour and structure. Here is an image with quite a lot of galaxies behind the IFN and the second image shows an annotation of them. Data collected over two nights 1 - 2 April with a RASA 8 and ASI2600MC (no filter, gain 100) on an iOptron CEM70. 68 x 5 min, so 5.7 hours. Processed in PI and PS. Annotated in PI. I have recently had quite a lot of messages from other RASA users aiming at IFN under more light polluted skies. Hunting IFN is a very rewarding activity under dark skies, and I have a quite dark site. SQM was around 21.6 these nights, so Bortle 2. Sadly, with more light pollution, like at Bortle 4-5, many times longer integration times will be needed get an S/N ratio good enough to get a decent IFN image. @wimvbtells me that for every unit decrease in SQM, 2.5 times more integration time is needed, so at SQM 20.6 (Bortle 4.5), you would need 14 hours and at SQM 19.6 (Bortle 5) your will need 30 hours.

Yes Paul, Bortle 2-3 unless I use the "new" Wikipedia scale, then it is 4.....

Yes Wim, defenitively a great ape! And it is in the right direction in my mind. As David says it is odd that we do not see more making use of the MN190. It is as close as a mortal can get to a 7" apo refractor. Maybe we should now call it an ape reflector?

Jager and Vlaiv, you really should find another thread for your discussion. Johan, who just wanted to know if something was wrong with his camera, could by now have given up on SGL forever!

Interesting replies here. It seems like no one likes the Bortle scale even if so many here on SGL states what Bortle sky they have. For the future I am just going to give my SQM range if anyone asks. By the way I have my two RASAs shooting away at IFN tonight although my SQM reading now was only 21.3. I hope for the best! And @ollypenrice, I just checked, your guest gave you a 129 pound present: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/unihedron-sky-quality-meters/unihedron-sqm-l-sky-quality-meter.html