stevewanstall

The 'fireflies' could be UFO's... 😜

2 hours ago, The-MathMog said:

As mentioned, a bit green/yellowish to my eyes too. I don't really see much of the uneven background though. But great data! And I couldn't help myself, having a twiddle with it in photoshop. This is how I personally would color-balance it
Using the color balance tool, until the background is nice and black, giving my eyes "rest" and then looking at it again. A curve, boosting the blue areas of the galaxy, and then a slight saturation boost + some local sharpening on the dusty parts.

Thats a big improvement on what I was able to do> I shall have a play tomorrow and see if I can try and match this. Thanks for the tips.

3 hours ago, MarkAR said:

Looks fine on my laptop straight on, no blue or green cast.

When I tilt the screen there is a definite purpleness overall.

Putting our views together , it's a bit of a rainbow! Just missing the red end now 😂

3 hours ago, geeklee said:

Very nice image Steve. Doesn't look too blue to me, maybe a slight green cast to my eye (being picky)

Great FOV with the 9.25. 

It's a lovely telescope, as nice as everything I have read about it. I would like to get an adaptor for the mount so I can have my SW ED80 for wide field view alongside.

Maybe my monitor isn't helping, re the colour cast. Have to check it for colour trueness maybe.

Even though I have taken flats (for L, R, G and B), darks and dark flats, I still get  an 'uneven' background . Also, now I have posted it on here, it looks VERY blue... Not sure where that comes from or what to do about it. I notice I have different numbers of subs for each colour channel, is that a problem ?

Gain 139
Offset 21
Exposures:
Luminance 114s x 55 binned 1 x1
Red 114s x 32 binned 2x2 , Green  114s x 24 binned 2x2  and   Blue  114s x 28 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
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.

13 hours ago, happy-kat said:

How long overall dose that cover? It's speedy moving there. Love these animations

It covers just under 3 hours in total, but as I said I had to delete quite few  frames because of clouds.

14 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

Very impressive! What sub length were you using? Seems like it is zipping along quite rapidly.

Martin

The camera is a ZWO ASI1600MM  running at gain of 139 and exposures of 114 s. I was amazed how much movement there was between subs; I had to delete a few because of clouds, which is one reasons (besides the lack of alignment) for it being so jumpy.

Trials and tribulations of trying to make a video of a comet. This is the second time I have tried this, the first time with a CMOS camera. Learning points so far:

1. Just stick to luminance.

2. Don't try this on a night with intermittent cloud!

3. Don't dither between  subs.

Anyway, for better or worse, here it is:

Thanks guys. That moon.... I should buy a power mate and make more of it!

Very interesting.  I really enjoyed watching both videos (though  I had to view the second directly on Youtube, it kept feezing my PC via SGL!). Its incredible to hear someone like  W W Morgan describing how he discovered we live in a spiral arm of a spiral galaxy. The leap forward in knowledge in Astronomy over the past few decades is just incredible!

I had a go using Photoshop (with Astronomy Tools actions) and Lightroom. There is definitely colour in there, but as PeterCPC said, there are a couple of horizontal  lines , one of which is green  . Some vignetting too.

This was taken under a 90% full moon , so there was a fairly bright sky. I also lost a lot of subs when the fog developed around 4a.m.
The image was taken at:
Gain 139
Offset 21
Exposures:
Luminance 114s x 65 binned 1 x1
Red, Green and Blue  114s x 24 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

Problems: Moon, not enough subs, overprocessed?

But here it is anyway:

The absence of any replies spurred me on!

For the record, APT does allow this, via scripts, which is the solution I shall use.

Sequence Generator Pro does a similar thing. The main advantage with ST seems to me to be that you can create a session then have it looping and then finish at a specific time.

Well you certainly do a good job, thats for sure. 

What a fantastic set of images. The resolution is wonderful.  A newbie (to lunar imaging ) question , so apologies,  but what procedure do you use to focus?  I use a Bahtinov mask for stellar imaging. I have tried edge detection and fourier detection in Sharpcap but still seem to just 'miss' focus. I don't have a focus motor, so have to touch the focussing control on the scope.

Currently I use Astrophotography Tool to control my telescope, camera, etc. As far as I can see , it doesn't have a facility to 'end a session' at a specific time. For example, what I would like to be able to do would be to set up an imaging session, then have the mount stop tracking at e.g.  5am and to conclude the imaging session, even if there were still exposures to be taken in the session list.  

Does anyone know how to do this or which software will allow this?

That's basically what I have determined I need to do. I don't have PI, but use DSS, PS and Lightroom. I process the luminance and get the best image I can, then combine with an RGB that has been similarly processed. 

25 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

My obsy will get jealous, all it ever gets is a shake to check for spiders. 

 

 

I guess most of the time you keep the cameras, scopes and mount indoors, then set them up on the pillar for a session?

22 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

My obsy will get jealous, all it ever gets is a shake to check for spiders. 

 

 

  I vacuumed the little devils and relocated them to the garden. I expect they are all back inside by now!

Just over 2 hours luminance and about 90 mins for RGB I think,

Well, if you can, try and squeeze it in! 6 X 6 was the right size for me, at a push, 5 X5 would have done ,depending on scope.

The internal diameter is approximately 24 cm , external about 27. To be honest , I had a bit of that size and about the right length , so that was what was used. I did toy with the idea of making a box but decided it would be too fiddly and ugly to boot!

I built my 'observatory' (= shed) in February 2019. It's a 6 x 6 shed, with the roof opening from the centre. One half of the roof has an overlap and a     'seal' made out of plumbing  pipe insulation. This is the heavier side and I have a couple of counterweights to help lift/lower it and it rests on a wooden support when open . The other side is easy enough without counterweights and rests on the fence.  The two halves over the roof hinge on three brackets. The shed is rests on paving slabs but I have a waterproof layer between the slabs and the shed floor (£5 of sheet plastic used for damp courses). I have a power cable to the shed and a 12 volt supply coming off that.

The shed cost £280 from Ebay (all tongue and groove, even the roof). Hinges , screws , maybe another £10 .

Originally I had a tripod inside, but in June last year I got hold of some old plastic water pipe, dug a hole inside the shed about 3 deep, hammered in some metal rods even further then filled the whole pipe with concrete, with the studs for my homemade mounting plate sticking out the top (SW EQ6 Pro mount). Mount went straight on. The pier is separated from the floor of the shed  and polystyrene packed in so there is no vibration when moving around the shed or opening/closing the door. The gable ends of the shed aren't a problem when observing; one gable end is where the LP is worst and the other  is actually low in the sky from the telescope so I wouldn't be trying to image at that angle anyway.

Pier cost around £40 , mostly for concrete and stainless steel studs/nuts.

It's the best thing I have ever done in terms of astronomy, I should have done it years ago. Before I had to carry everything outside, set it up, get it calibrated, etc, then watch the clouds roll in, get it back in and so on. Now, 5 mins and I am observing. At the end of a session 2 mins and its all safe and sound.

It has now lasted over a year, been through a very wet winter. I haven't had to  do any repairs apart from adding a lower of waterproof material  to the exposed corners. 

So, its now had its spring clean and  a coat of stain and is ready for another year! 

And amazing image , BTW, forgot that ! lol

Can you imagine what the sky would be like in the centre of the core (assuming it was possible to survive the radiation that is !)