gorann

Great, deep and dusty image Olly! The 25+ hours show. Did the equalize treatment make a big difference?

Thanks Erling, much appreciated!

Thanks but actually there is no problem - It is just Olly that loves Registar. PI did it for me in 5 minutes😉

I have seen you talk warmly about Registar and would have it if it was not that I do all my processing on a Mac and I think Registar is just Windows. I do use some Windows machines for controlling the Mesu and some cameras but that is a constant fight for me and my wife (a Windows person) is getting tired of having to regularly rescue me.

Thanks Olly, much appreciated!

Thanks Paul! That may be a slight exaggeration 😋 but one or maybe two more RASA pics are coming before clouds move in again on Monday night. I am surfing with Aladin Sky Atlas and I found that there is a lot of very cool stuff in Taurus if I manage to go deep enough.

There you go Olly @ollypenrice, it is the 16 bits of the camera - but then also CCDs are 16 bit, but they may be old and noisy😉 and not so stretchable.

Thanks Paul! You are much to kind😊

I first resized (reduced) the high resolution image in PS (I usually do it by measuring the distance (in pixels) between the same two stars in the images to calculate a reduction factor). I then just did a star alignment in PI using the RASA image as template. Then I added it as a layer to the RASA image and used the dreaded brush too to let about 50% through on the nebula. I am also amazed how bright the images turn out initially and I think it is not only the RASA but also have to do with the camera, the ASI2600 is just a fantastic camera with virtually no noise, thus allowing a lot of stretching. I also often increase the brightness and dustiness using a trick you taught us here on SGL: I add an Equalize layer selectively, usually just a few %. Did you see the quite dusty M45 that I posted yesterday? Your "Equalize method" helped a bit on the dust there.

Thanks a lot again Ian! Good to know I am on the right track😁

So here it is Olly @ollypenricewith blended in high resolution data on the Iris (952mm FL refractor) I had from 2016. I like the result.

Thanks a lot, much appreciated!

Yes, but with cars the manufacturer calls them back for free service if they have made a detail that could malfunction (has happened to me twice the last years).

Scary how simple and sloppy it is manufatured. Amazing that it works at all. I wonder if I would like to know what my SW mounts look like inside, but I porbably have to one day.....

Thanks Gerry! You are too kind, and Wow, I doubt my old eyes would see that in a 6" reflector, maybe that is why I stick to imaging and cameras that are more sensitive than my eyes.

Hi Olly! Yes, I made no reference to pixel size since I kept that constant in my comparison. In my mind I was thinking that nothing else was changed but aperture, so comparing two scopes with the same FL but different aperture, and with the same camera. Of course few would probably buy 400mm FL f/7 telescopes so it may be a bad comparison, but compared to an Esprit 80 with 400 mm FL (and I love Esprits), the RASA collects 6.25 times more photons per unit of time, so 7.8 hours with the RASA 8 corresponds to 49 hours with an Esprit 80.

Oh wow, how could he see that visually? Must have had a lot of aperture!

Yes it is, and I would not know how it would work in a light polluted sky. I whent into astrophotography when I bought this old farm house on the country side 10 years ago and looked up on the sky with amazement. Before that I had never even thought about doing astrophotography.

Well. it is cloudy here too right now Wim but in my part of Sweden it is supposed to clear up in an hour or so

Thanks a lot! When I now look at it I realize it may need a bit more processing. Such as the red star colours that are a bit pale..... EDIT: Edited the posted image and put a bit more punch into the yellow stars

Thanks Wim! Have you opened the roof tonight?

Thanks! I have to read up on Bartels unless someone enlightens me🤔

Thanks Steve!

This is 3.5 hours of data with the RASA 8 and ASI2600MC (105 x 2 min at gain 100, -10°C) on a NEQ6. There is apparently quite a bit of dust around M45 that I have not noticed before. I am pleased to see how deep this telescope/camera combination can go in a few hours. A dark site (Bortle 2-3) helps of course. Stacked in PI and mainly processed in PS, as usual. EDIT: I now added a second version of the image, inspired by Olly's reprocessing of his data, where I have sharpened the image more (mainly HiPass filtering and LCE in PS), getting closer to the limit of what the data can support.

Seems like every time I leave the obsies unattended for an hour or two something happens, often a computer that decides to stop downloading. Tonight I am going to try AstroImager to control the cameras. Hopefully more stable than ASICAP but I am sure there will be some hours of complete confusion🥴