gorann

Thanks a lot - you are too kind!

Thanks Steve! It was no doubt a very good investment. Good luck with the skies - we all need it, and one night we get it!

Thanks ! That is a really great camera, best I ever had! But yes, it brings in the clouds😉

Thanks a lot to both of you! The RASA 8 is amazing in the way it can go deep and catch more colour than my other scopes. The main drawback is the extreme sensitivity of an f/2 system for distance to the chip and any tilt. I just have to try the best as I can but often I have to spend quite a bit of processing time fixing star shapes in the corners. But then I am also pressing the RASA 8 beyond its limits by using an APS-C sized chip.

Thanks a lot Ian! Maybe I forgot to post it here. Here is a better resolution version.

I have to admit that I knew little about Astronomy Now until @ollypenrice asked me if he could use my Squid image to illustrate the possibilities of the new generation OSC CMOS cameras (ASI2600MC in my case) in the January issue. One bonus for me was that the magazine sent me a free issue and I liked it a lot. I also noticed that they had a gallery section, so I though why not give it a try. Apparently they liked my image so it is now in the March issue and they gave me a 15 pound voucher. I have now spent that and a bit more on a yearly subscription (after Swedish customs have ensured me that there are no fees or VAT on UK magazines). Maybe this is how they attact new subscribers😉 Among other SGLers that I have got to know here and on Astrobin I see that Peter Goodhew also was lucky this time, so congratulations Peter @Petergoodhew. There may be more active SGLers in the issue that I do not know or have odd user names here. PS. I hope I am not breaking any major copyright rule when I post this page here🤔, but after all I took the picture. Cheers, Göran

Sorry, I don't know how I missed it🥴. 80 hours, that is impressive!

Thanks a lot for this Grant! Could you provide info on number of subs, sub-length, and imaging date(s)

Sorry to be a bit slow in attending. 2020 has been interesting to me as I started with a new rig with a RASA 8 and ASI2600MC. I even built a separate obsy for them. Although I have done a bit of imaging with my Esprits and Meade 14" in the other obsies, I dedicate this entry to my RASA images, so wide field things. All from my backyard of my small farm in a rather dark place in Sweden (Bortle 2-3).

Here is my contribution. Only found the data and the competition this afternoon, so a bit rushed. Great data by the way! I aimed for an RGB like image. I put Oiii in blue, Ha in red, and made a sythetic green out of 50% Oiii, 25% Ha and 25% Sii. Processing is a mix of PS and PI. Thanks a lot FLO and IKO, great initiative for us that are clouded in, like me right now! Cheers, Göran

When surfing around on DSS2 (with Telescopius/Aladin) ten days ago to find something unusual to image with the RASA 8 and ASI2600MC, I stumbled accross this one. Unfortunately it was quite near the celetial pole which caused some trouble with guiding. I even had trouble calibrating PHD2, which stated that the star was not moving enough. I managed to partly solve it by changing laptop (not sure why that worked) and I suspect that the iOptrom CEM70 mount struggled with the low temperature (-20°C). At the end I had to throw away most subs due to guiding errors and ended up 10 x 4 min half-good subs, so 40 min of data. Now when clounds have since long settled here and I am running out of data to process, I gave it a try. And there, among the noise, was something that reminded me of a furry lemur. As far as I can tell this patch of nebulosity has no name or other designation. Plate-solving it in PI only finds some tiny PGC galaxies. Below is my image, the same area in DSS2 (after brightening it in PS), and an image of a furry lemur🐵 Maybe someone has a better suggestion for what this patch of nebulosity should be called? I should give it another try when it eventually clears.

He he. I also just posted something and got one reply, hopefully it is just that the SGLers are slow tonight🥱

I love them both Steve and they both fuel my enthusiasm: good seeing in the late winter/spring = long FL galaxy imaging. Bad seeing in the autumn/early winter = short FL nebulae imaging. One problem is a night with bad seeing in the spring🥴

You clearly beat the APOD Rodd! Would be interesting to know what year it was. Digital photography has come a long way. That second image you post that you call "Made some improvements" looks totally posterized on my screen. The third one is nice but could need some NR.

Thanks a lot Richard, you are too kind!

Here is a bunch of Barnard and VdB nebulae in Auriga taken under rather poor seeing conditions, making the processing challenging. I throw out half of the subs and let the image rest for a while, but fighting an uncomfortable -16°C during the data acquisition while watching a miserable guide curve convinced me that I should try to do my best to get a presentable image out of the data. Data collected the night 12-13 Feb with the RASA8 and ASI2600MC without filter. 41 x 4 min subs were usable so only 2.7 hours. Stacked in PI and processed in PS and PI. I include a screen-grab from Astrobin showing the designation of the objects.

I fully agree with Peter, lovely shot Wim!

Thanks! Sounds thrilling since it is so near by😎 I read somewhere that if the Tarantula Nebula in the LMC where as close to us as the Orion nebula we would be in constant light.

Thanks a lot Peter! Yes, apparently I prefer it dark and dirty😆

Beautiful image Peter! The scope is obviously in great shape.

This is a two panel mosaic of dark nebulae in the Taurus Molecular Cloud. The relatively long total integration time at f/2 brought out quite a lot of colour and dust. The nebula to the left is Barnard 14 (containing the bright IC2087) and the one to the right is Barnard 10. The long stretch of dark nebulosity at the bottom right is NGC1539. From Wikipedia: The Taurus Molecular Cloud is a molecular cloud in the constellations Taurus and Auriga. This cloud hosts a stellar nursery containing hundreds of newly formed stars. The Taurus Molecular Cloud is only 140 pc (430 ly) away from earth, making it the nearest large star formation region. It also reveals characteristics that make it ideal for detailed physical studies. It has been important in star formation studies at all wavelengths. Data collected 10 and 11 Feb with the RASA 8 and ASI2600MC without filter. 108 x 4 min, so 10.1 hours. Stacked in PI and processed in PS and PI.

Thanks Michael! I have an Esprit 100 with the same focal length and yes it is a quite different scope than the RASA light bucket. But it does a great job in my dual Esprit rig to collect RGB with an Esprit 150 for the luminance.

Thanks Spongey for providing this! Amazing amount of PGCs! I do know how to do it in PI but got lazy🥴

After I was done with some dark nebulosity around midnight on Saturday I let the RASA do some galaxy hunting while I went to sleep. This is what it found. Apart from the Messier galaxies I count seven NGC galaxies in the image. Then there is a myriad of smaller ones that I assume may have PGC or UGC numbers. I post the plate solve from Astrobin so you can see the M and NGC designations. In contrast to the IFN infested area around M81 and M82 that I recently imaged, this area seems virtually free from such intragalactic stuff. Collected 14 Feb with the RASA 8 and ASI2600MC without filters. 56 x 4 min at gain 100, so 3.7 hours.

Here is a third version where I have added about 40% Esprit 150 refractor data from October to M81 and M82. It sharpened them up a bit but a surprisingly little difference even if you are a pixel peeper like me😁