stevewanstall

I have collected LRGB subs for M57 and was able to produce a reasonable image. Having read out the outer layers, I decided to collect a lot more red subs in order to see this faint detail. I have collected around 5 hours worth and when the data is (over) stretched, I can see the outer layer. My problem is, is there any way to combine this with the original image without it looking like a car crash? I have attempted to use a select tool and eraser but it looked horrendous. Should I just : 1. Get a lot more red data 2. Match this with B and G so that the image is colour balanced (ish) from the start? Thanking you in advance for any suggestions.

Which telescope were you using? What was the view of the galaxy like?

I was thinking of trying this the other night, then got distracted. Really nice images, BTW . For a further target, Cor Caroli would be good ? I MUST have a go, maybe tonight.

This is the result of 12 x 60s subs in each of luminance, red, green and blue light. There was a 10 sec pause between each image to give more time for the comet to move (requirement for the processing technique). According to the method I was following, the total data time should be under an hour because comets are such dynamic objects. I wanted to have the stars and comet both in as sharp a view as possible (the comet moves between subs, so with normal processing you end up with a 'streaked' comet) I was trying to follow Bernard Hubl's method but in the end had to use Deep Sky Stacker and its 'comets and stars' function. For Luminance I produced an image of the comet only. For R, G and B I produced an image of the comet plus stars. The channels were combined in PS I stretched both the L and the RGB images in PS and then combined them. The trouble I found with this is that stretching to show the faint tail with the limited data meant I also developed the streaks left by the stars. My knowledge of PS is not up to removing broad faint streaks (see the star on the lower right !!) but leaving the tail. Anyway, for better or worse: Comet C/2017 T2 Panstarrs Magnitude: 8.6 Phase: 36 ° Distance: 1.6765au Solar distance: 1.6185au Velocity: 33.1km/s Estimated tail length: 0.04au Equipment: Celestron 9.25 XLT at F10, Skywatcher EQ6 Pro GEM, ZWO 1600MM Pro, ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGB filters, QHY5IIC guide camera on Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope, Celestron Focus Motor Software: Ascom 6, Eqmod, Cartes du Ciel, AstroPhotography Tool, PHD2

I came across this website which is collating observations, so you might want to submit yours: http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/sn2020/sn2020jfo.html

Messier 57 is is just coming into a position for a decent look around 11 30 pm. IT is a colourful object and I thought it would give me a good target with which to practice my colour developing in PS/Lightroom. I have read so much about how to produce a LRGB image from the four stacked/calibrated luminance, red, blue and green images, a lot seems contradicatory and some, when followed, gave me colour yes, but not as we know it. I am sure a fair chunk must be put down to me. Anyway, I now have a work flow which gives me colour, sometimes resembling what other people have obtained. Progess of sorts. This images is based on 114s subs at gain 139, offset 21. L 39, R 20, G 20, B 19 Calibrated and stacked in DSS (flats, dark flats and darks) Messier 57 Ring Nebula in Lyra NASA: M57, or the Ring Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a sun-like star. The tiny white dot in the centre of the nebula is the star’s hot core, called a white dwarf. M57 is about 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, and is best observed during August. Discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779, the Ring Nebula has an apparent magnitude of 8.8 and can be spotted with moderately sized telescopes. Equipment: Celestron 9.25 XLT at F10, Skywatcher EQ6 Pro GEM, ZWO 1600MM Pro, ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGB filters, QHY5IIC guide camera on Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope, Celestron Focus Motor Software: Ascom 6, Eqmod, Cartes du Ciel, AstroPhotography Tool, PHD2

Clouds rolled in , so only 45 mins worth of luminance (15 x 180s, gain 139, offset 21). 9th May 2020 22:25 UT Equipment: Celestron 9.25 XLT at F10, Skywatcher EQ6 Pro GEM, ZWO 1600MM Pro, ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGB filters, QHY5IIC guide camera on Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope, Celestron Focus Motor Software: Ascom 6, Eqmod, Cartes du Ciel, AstroPhotography Tool, PHD2, Processing: DSS to align and stack the subs, PS CS5 to combine and stretch RGB and stretch Luminance and then to create LRGB. Lightroom 6 to develop image further.

This is a pair of galaxies from Arp's catalogue. My intention is for this to be the start of a lot of data collection; the object is well placed and is always above the horizon from Locking. However, gibbous moon, clouds, ...sigh. Hence a lot of noise, light gradients and nowhere near enough subs. Wikipedia: Halton Christian "Chip" Arp (March 21, 1927 – December 28, 2013) was an American astronomer. He was known for his 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which (it was later theorized) catalogues many examples of interacting and merging galaxies, though Arp disputed the idea, claiming apparent associations were prime examples of ejections. Arp was also known as a critic of the Big Bang theory and for advocating a non-standard cosmology incorporating intrinsic redshift. This image is based on 30 x 114s luminance filter, gain 139 , offset 21, -15 degrees C (darks, flats and dark flats). Arp 114 in Cepheus Astronomers don't think the two galaxies are interacting; "An odd couple lives some 100 million light years away. Here we find a spiral galaxy, NGC 2276 on the left, and its neighbor NGC 2300 on the right. There are quite a few intriguing questions concerning this pair. First of all NGC 2276 displays a perturbed spiral structure yet astronomers seem to agree that NGC 2300 is not the source of the angst. Instead, astronomers have learned that there is an abundance of gas (not shown in this picture) surrounding these galaxies. It could be that NGC 2276's motion through the gas affects its morphology." http://www.jwinman.com/starcharts/NGC 2300 chart.htm There are other galaxies visible, including IC 455 Astrometry plate resolve

I aim the telescope at a piece of white card about about half a metre from the front of the telescope. I have also used an app on a tablet to give a white screen , reduced the brightness as much as possible and put that right against the telescope (so there were no reflections)

Here is a photo showing the setup.

I have a Celestron 9.25 XLT. I use it for imaging. The finderscope is a red dot finderscope, which I use a lot, is simple and reliable, easy to set up. For guiding, there is a Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope which has had the eyepiece removed and replaced by a QHY5IIC camera. Again, nice and simple and 100% reliable.

I didn't have long tonight so I decided a globular cluster would be a good target. In the end I ended up imaging seven. The only one with enough data to do anything with was M3. I also made use of the tutorial on here to continue to learn how to process LRGB images. The image was taken at: Gain 139 Offset 21 Exposures: Luminance 114s x 65 binned 1 x1 Red 114s x 10 binned 2x2, Green 114s x 7 binned 2x2 and Blue 114s x 5 binned 2x2 Calibration frames: Darks, Flats and Dark Flats. PHD2 Dithering Equipment: Celestron 9.25 XLT at F10, Skywatcher EQ6 Pro GEM, ZWO 1600MM Pro, ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGB filters, QHY5IIC guide camera on Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope, Celestron Focus Motor Software: Ascom 6, Eqmod, Cartes du Ciel, AstroPhotography Tool, PHD2, Processing: DSS to align and stack the subs, PS CS5 to combine and stretch RGB and stretch Luminance and then to create LRGB. Lightroom 6 to develop image further.

Thanks for the nice commnet, but like all my images, my impatience at wanting to image more objects means it lacks data , hence noise

A bit noisy, as ever needing more data. Some 'odd' red, blue and green dots (but I used darks, flats and dark flats, at -15C). This was based on 118s subs (L75, R35, G35, B31). Celestron XLT 9.25 at F10., ZWO ASI 1600MM

I was in a similar position to you and ended up buying a Celestron XLT 9.25 F10 (yes, I appreciate its a reflector but its a BIT smaller than a 200mm newtonian!). I also bought the focal reducer but with 'galaxy season' in full play, haven't used it much. I have been very pleased with the images taken (Canon 500D and recently a ZWO ASI1600 MM. The images I have published on here havent been cropped much , usually just on the edges to remove overlaps, so they will give you an idea of the FOV. There is a lot more info on my equipment and set up on my (b)log page.

This is another galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. The image is based on 180s exposures: L 46 binned 1x1, R 25, G 20, B 24, all binned 2x2 The galaxy is fairly dim (10.6). There is a lot of noise, I have stretched it a lot and clearly the SNR is pretty low. The trouble is, its April and the Astronomical Night is now getting pretty short. I can image between round 10 pm and 4 am. Wikipedia: NGC 4395 is a low surface brightness spiral galaxy with a halo that is about 8′ in diameter. It has several wide areas of greater brightness running northwest to southeast. The one furthest southeast is the brightest. Three of the patches have their own NGC numbers: 4401, 4400, and 4399 running east to west. The nucleus of NGC 4395 is active and the galaxy is classified as a Seyfert. It is notable for containing one of the smallest supermassive black hole with an accurately-determined mass. The central black hole has a mass of "only" 300,000 Sun masses, which would make it a so-called "intermediate-mass black hole". Equipment: Celestron 9.25 XLT at F10, Skywatcher EQ6 Pro GEM, ZWO 1600MM Pro, ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGB filters, QHY5IIC guide camera on Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope Software: Ascom 6, Eqmod, Cartes du Ciel, AstroPhotography Tool, PHD2, Sharpcap Processing: DSS to align and stack the subs, PS CS5 to combine and stretch RGB and stretch Luminance and then to create LRGB. Lightroom 6 to develop image further.

Thanks Dave. I tried again the next day but the seeing was appalling and I wasn't able to get even a halfway decent image. I have just bought a focus motor so hopefully that might make focusing a bit more accurate on my next attempt!

Equipment: Celestron 9.25 XLT at F10, Skywatcher EQ6 Pro GEM, ZWO 1600MM Pro, ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGB filters, QHY5IIC guide camera on Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope

This image of Messier 63, the Sunflower Galaxy, is based on the following subs, all at 180s: 44 L, 25 R, 20 G ,22 B Darks, Flats and Dark Flats were used for calibration. L and RGB were processed separately in PS. On combining the two, all I did was to use Hasta LA Vista Green filter, which seemed more effective than trying to Colour Balance. This is the first image I have taken when using a focus motor and trying different offsets with the different filters. A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is about 25 million light-years distant in the constellation Canes Venatici. Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic island universe is nearly 100,000 light-years across. That's about the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Known by the popular moniker, The Sunflower Galaxy, M63 sports a bright yellowish core. Its sweeping blue spiral arms are streaked with cosmic dust lanes and dotted with star forming regions. A dominant member of a known galaxy group, M63 has faint, extended features that are likely star streams from tidally disrupted satellite galaxies (just visible in the lower bottom right of the galaxy). M63 shines across the electromagnetic spectrum and is thought to have undergone bursts of intense star formation. (Adapted from APOD). When I can save the pennies, I think a Ha filter should be bought, unless anyone has one that they don't want? 🤩

Currently there are three comets visible in the Northern Hemisphere. One, C/2019 Y4 Atlas, was hoped to become a real stunner but seems to have fragmented in the last week and has dimmed somewhat, currently at magnitude 9.4. The other two, C/2019 Y1 Atlas (9.6)and C/2017 T2 Pannstarrs (8.7) are not expected to become naked eye objects. After previously taking some images of Y4 Atlas and finding out about turning off dither, I decided to have another go. I have taken 240 s exposures, calibrated with flats and dark flats and created gifs from the unstacked stretched frames. (DSS, Lightroom and a gif maker). The 2019 Y1 and 2017 T2 seem much brighter than 2019 Y4; the magnitudes were from the information pane in Cartes du Ciel, after I had updated the comet information last night. I imagine it shows the ongoing fragmentation of Y4. This is C/2017 T2 Panstarrs: This is C/2019 Y1 Atlas (the 'old'Atlas): This is C/2019 Y4 Atlas, the one that is fragmenting and becoming dimmer:

Thank you.

M94 looks a bit different to a lot of spiral galaxies, with a two ring structure. The outer ring is fairly visible, though the image would benefit from a few more hours exposure. I managed to lose a lot of images when the telescope focus shifted on the previous night Wikipedia: Messier 94 (also known as NGC 4736) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781, and catalogued by Charles Messier two days later. Although some references describe M94 as a barred spiral galaxy, the "bar" structure appears to be more oval-shaped. The galaxy has two ring structures. Celestron 9.25 at F10, on SW EQ6 Pro , ZWO ASI1600MM This image is based on: L 56 x 180s R 25 x 180s G 20 x 180s B 23 x 180s Gain 139 and offset 21

Thank you both.

This is my first ever decent image of Venus. I used Celestron 9.25 with ZWO ASI1600MM , 800 x 600 pixel sensor size, binned 1 x 1, at a frame rate of 30 fps, with a red filter. (I also tried a higher pixel size, but the frame rate was low and Registax wouldn't show anything sensible) I took 1000 frames then used Registax to align and process the best 200. I have a barlow but it is a junk one and does more harm than good photographically! Having seen CraigT82's posts, I almost didn't show mine, then decided we all have to start somewhere!

I have discovered that in EQASCOM, when you set the limits, you can also set it so that as the mount reaches a limit, it parks. It can park to a predetermined spot. So, for me, this is a good way of ending a session.