wimvb

5 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

Really nice Wim, that new tool is working well.

Did you use the same processing? I note the newer version has more stars - and I think it looks better for it 🙂

Thanks, Chris. I have several versions of the image by now. The image that I have in my first post is just RGB, without synthetic luminance, I believe. The one that I posted yesterday has a synthetic luminance and stretched somewhat differently.

Reworked the image with the new version of BlurXTerminator. This version does wonders on dodgy stars, and I didn't need to crop the image. I used the combined RGB data as a synthetic luminance.

On 08/12/2023 at 20:46, David at Bythel Obs said:

Thanks for this. I agree camera works fine when pluggrd into laptop. The problem is that asiair plus has not been modified to recognise the asi715 even though they have started selling.

This  is very poor on Zwo’s behalf.I will pass this on to Widescreen who sold me the camera.

thanks

I stand corrected. The vendor id for ZWO is 03c3. 0403 i s FTDI, the EQDIR cable

You can see my usb list here. The first device is my ASI294 camera. The next ZWO is my ASI290 guide cam (fourth in the list), and the last one from ZWO is my filter wheel

Should I go over to my image processing computer and examine my version of M33? 😁

https://www.astrobin.com/tr3ihi/B/

14 hours ago, gorann said:

Thanks and Yes, this was a surprise! Is minor planet the category below dwarf planet?

Minor planets are asteroids and such, I think. I'm not sure about the exact differences, but I beleive that the distinction between planets / dwarf planets / minor planets is about size. The definition of a planet that I saw a long time ago was that a true planet has cleared its orbit of any other matter. Only larger bodies can do that. Asteroids / minor planets obviously haven't done so, or there wouldn't be an asteroid belt..

2 minutes ago, gorann said:

Probably my first minor planet

Wasn't RASA developed for sky surveys of minor planets and other "fast moving"  bodies that might come close to Earth? If so, you finally use the scope as intended. 😁

Great and surprising image, Göran.

On 04/12/2023 at 09:27, Shimrod said:

Given the ASIAIR only works with ZWO cameras I assume there's a config file somewhere on the system with a signature for each of the  ZWO cameras.

Any  usb device has information about its manufacturer and model. ZWO has manufacturer code 0403 I believe. All my ZWO devices have that code when I check the usb ports. In linux (ASIAIR is based on linux), I use the command lsusb (list usb) to see this.

On 17/10/2023 at 19:46, Xilman said:

Others are encouraged to try for extragalactic globular clusters.

THE hidden galaxy (not IC 342) ... with a bonus https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/416757-the-hidden-galaxy-not-ic-342-with-a-bonus/

On 07/12/2023 at 00:25, Paul M said:

WoW, you certainly do some mind blowing imaging with that scope! They seem to be a bit out of fashion now. There is a Youtuber in your part of the world "Northern Panorama" who was using one, with great results, for a while. He's since gone onto reflactors, or some such.; telescopes without mirrors, apparently. 

That's another stunning image of an object I've never heard of and I'm sure there is no point in my wasting electricity trying to find it myself!

The threat title caused me some consternation initially, I imaged IC342 last week, so got confused with your image. I had to go back and read what you'd actually written!

Thanks, Paul. Yes, I know of David Björkén. He used to live in the very North of the country and used the 190MN for his "portable" setup. I guess he found out that the scope is just too big if you have to set up every night, and if you have to clear a foot of snow to do so. Daniel has since moved on to a small refractor and moved to the very South of the country. The 190MN works best in an observatory or semi-permanent setup.

The title of this thread is tongue in cheek. IC 342 is called the Hidden Galaxy, but with all the images of it on social media (not least AstroBin), it can hardly be called "hidden" anymore. UGCA 86 on the other hand, has so far been overlooked, even though it's very close to IC 342.

24 minutes ago, gorann said:

Outstanding image Wim of a galaxy never imaged properly before (not counting a faint fuzzy in my wide field image)!

Thanks, Göran. Not imaged by amateurs at least. There are just a handful of images ftom scientific publications and sky surveys.

A few months ago, Göran @gorann informed me about a rather unusual galaxy that happened to be included in an image that he was working on. pgc 14241 (a nice palindrome) or UGCA 86 as it is called in the scientific literature is situated near the frequently found and imaged "hidden" galaxy IC 342. But unlike its big neighbour, this gem is truly hidden.

The galaxy is situated in the constellation Camelopardalis, some 10 Mly behind the Milky Way and has a red colour as most of its blues are filtered out by dust in our own galaxy. It has an angular size of about 5 arc minutes.

On closer inspection of the image, it seems that I managed to capture a few of its globular clusters as well (indicated in the annotated image).

Technical details:

Telescope SW 190MN with ASI294MM camera

Integration time 66 x 5 minutes for R, G and B, 16 hours in total

Processed in Pixinsight

It doesn’t happen often here either. At least not this early in the season. February is the coldest month of the year. Yesterday the trees where completely covered with frost. 

37 minutes ago, tomato said:

I shudder (appropriate word) to think how my vast array of cables up to the scopes would behave at -20.

The simple solution to that is a Raspberry Pi and a Pegasus Astro power box. A friend has his remote controlled setup 1.5 m from mine in the same observatory. Last summer he upgraded his computer and chose a pc next to the pier in stead of a fanless Mele on top of his scope. (Yesterday his cables were like rods). To quote Julia Roberts: ”Big mistake. Big.”

Using any dslr with a mechanical shutter or mirror at such low temperature is a gamble. Otoh, modern non cooled astro cameras with their low dark current and no amp glow are a different matter. As I said in another thread on this forum, my next astrocamera may very well be such a camera, OSC with smaller pixels, used in superpixel mode. (2.9 um in superpixel mode would be 5.8 um effective pixel size. At 1000 mm focal length, this would give a very nice pixel scale.)

An unexpected clear night, here north of Stockholm. The second in a row, actually. Normally I have my camera at -10 C, but that won't do now. When I just finished a session (don't want to leave my observatory open since I can't trust the forecast), the temperature had dropped to -17.8 C. I have my cooling set to -20. Now I just need to take matching darks for the rest of the night.

I started imaging just after 7 pm, and managed to get 40 minutes H-alpha (wasted) and 4.5 hours RGB on my target.

1 hour ago, CCD-Freak said:

I reprocessed my NGC253 data that I took with an ASI482MC "non cooled planet cam" through an AT6RC with an AP67 reducer riding on a GEM45 mount.
120 x 2 minutes Gain 150 dithered every 3rd sub. Captured and processed with Astroart 8 with a touch up in Topaz Denoise

I am still a bit amazed at what I was able to capture with the ASI482MC

Excellent result. I'm starting to question the need for cooled cameras for DSO photography. The newest generation of cmos sensors with their low thermal noise, low read noise and lack of amp glow, make photography at ambient temperature a real possibility.

1 hour ago, gorann said:

Guess what, skies have cleared and I am exposing again!

I have to clear 8 inches of snow from my observatory before I can do any AP.

Great mosaic, Göran. I wonder, if you put all your images in one big mosaic, how much of the sky would they cover?

38 minutes ago, gonzostar said:

So from what you are saying is that the camera's (ZWO 385MC) gain is to high at 135. I thought this was the optimum for this camera? Should i reduce for next project?

I'm not familiar with the uncooled 385MC. I use my 294MM at 0 gain in order to get the highest dynamic range. But it seems I'm quite alone in that. If I were you, I might test at lower gain, just above the hcg turn on value of 60. Each gain value has with it a unique offset. When the gain increases, this offset also needs to increase. I determined the best offset for my camera by shooting darks and measuring the lowest pixel values. As long as these were 0, I'd increase the offset and shoot again. For 0 gain, I use offset 8, and for 200 gain (nb imaging), I use offset 30.

But because your camera has a very small sensor, it's more important that you can use the whole sensor area for your stacked image. I would look into improving telescope pointing first.

Here's my version in PI

Crop

Background equalisation

Colour calibration

Arcsinh stretch

Histogram and curves stretch (levels and curves in PS)

Colour saturation

Detail enhancement using MMT (multiscale processing)

On 19/11/2023 at 14:35, gonzostar said:

This is my  attempt with  the ZWO 385MC camera with a ir/uv cut  of M33 in  bottle 5 skies.  

Telescope used was the ES102mm APO AT f7 on a AVX mount

Settings used in sharpcap. 

Dean, I donwloaded the fit and have a few remarks before I start processing it.

There seems to be a rather large offset and some rotation between the various subs that went into this image. This is becomes apparent at the left edge and at the right corners of the stretched image. Do you use platesolving between sessions? Imo, if you don't you should start looking into it. I assume that you use a windows computer and that you already have ascom installed. In that case use NINA or similar software to control your mount. If you have to remove your camera between sessions, spend a few minutes to align the long or short edge of the camera sensor with the RA axis. Take a 30 s unguided exposure and 5 seconds in, slew the mount at 1 x sidereal in RA. This will create star trails in RA. Align the trails with an edge of the sensor. These steps will give you a better overlap between subs and maximise the usable area of the image. Second, the stacked image has a large offset. The average pixel value in the unstretched image is 0.11 on a scale from 0 (black) to 1 (white). My guess is that either the offset value for the camera at gain 135 is rather high or you have a lot of light pollution.

Very nice. I saw this on astrobin and also wondered where that wolf went. But a very fine image, 🐺 or no 🐺 

2 hours ago, tomato said:

Great image! Looks like some really extended spiral arms on NGC 974, and some IFN coming through also, or is that the sky conditions?

Thanks. I think that it may be a combination of both. Unfortunately there aren’t many images to compare with.

This handsome necklace of galaxies lies in the constellation Triangulum, not far from M33.

An unexpected gap in the clouds (there were actually clouds in most of the sky, except around this part) allowed for approximately 3 hours of imaging time with a 65% moon nearby.

As allways, captured with my 190MN and ASI294MM camera

RGB: 3 x 8 x 5 minutes

L: 20 x 3 minutes

15 hours ago, FLO said:

We don't have specifications or prices, nor if/when they will be released

After close inspection of the pictures, I'm even more convinced that Skywatcher are targeting the professional market with these designs. No need to start looking for a bigger warehouse yet. (Although, they would look flashy in a showroom.)