Nigel G

16 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I've got my Baader 'Nige-beater(TM)'  Ha filter in tonight and seem to be getting some might good 5-minute subs of the California Nebula despite the moon. Lots of lacy texture visible in the preview.

The plan is at least an hour and a half here, then to the Flaming star nebula. Switch to portrait + maybe 10-minute subs for the Witch Head, then back to 5 mins for the Flame and Horsey.

Although about the same RA, Orion is behind the house for at least two more hours.

Excellent  good luck Neil.

I have an OIII filter waiting for me to pick up tomorrow morning at the post office, it arrived today but no one was here  

Nige.

Just now, happy-kat said:

Interesting image, is Ha not as yellow?

Opened Ha as red and the normal RGB as blue.

IC 63 bi colour NOT RED  

Opened in StarTools LRGB.... Ha as red & RGB as blue, a nice change from red. 

Cheers

Nige.

Clear here, started imaging just now, hope you get the clear sky's Neil.

Another couple of tests before I get serious tonight. both less than an hour of subs between 6m & 10m dithered, flats and bias.

I'm finding focusing difficult with the Ha filter in.

Question... Will the focus point be the same with and without a filter with DSLR clip in filters or could I focus with my CLS CCD filter and swap for the Ha ?

Nige.

My first success with the new Ha filter. I love the stars, the filter really keeps them under control.

Rosette 1h 40m of 6 - 8 & 10m subs, ISO 800. dithered with added flats and bias.

Modified Canon 1200D with 12nm Ha filter, 80ED & EQ3.

This was very easy to process, the easiest image yet.

Still a little banding but 200% better than at 1600 ISO.

PHD2, DSS & StarTools.

Another hour or so should clean it right up.

Cheers

Nige.

21 hours ago, Peco4321 said:

My latest attempt at M42, 58 x 45 sec ISO 800, darks and bias, flats made it worse!!  150p eq3-2 canon 1100d dual motors. 

Thats a very crisp and clean M42, good core too.

Well done.

Nige.

On Wednesday, November 15, 2017 at 20:48, Stub Mandrel said:

Far from happy with the colour in this one. An hour and ten minutes of 2 minute subs is far from enough here. The cooled subs show more detail than last years efforts, but colour is p*** poor and sadly mixing them wasn't very successful. I shall come back to this data and try other permutations - and add more cooled data, skies willing!

 

How did you add the Ha, I take it it's Ha + RGB. Looks like they haven't blended well. 

IC 63 in Cassiopeia. a bit of moonlite made this difficult to process. 

Around 1h 50m of 240s & 360s dithered. I started off with 360s but as the moon started to bleed into the subs I had to lower to 240s.

Nice to see other colours shining through  

80ED, Guided EQ3 pro, modified 1200D. 

Cheers

Nige.

22 minutes ago, mikey2000 said:

So, here's my stab at the pleiades, about 90 degrees from the half moon.  Not the darkest of nights.

 

24x3mins

Great image, I love the stars. 

Nige.

1 hour ago, Peco4321 said:

This is one of the most beautiful images I have seen on here, @Nigel G, worthy of printing out on a large canvas. 

Thank you Peter, I'm going to get another 2 hours worth, then I might just do that  

Nige.

I started getting data on the horseHead & flame nebula last night, so far 1h 48m of 360s @ISO800 .

Quite cold and heavy dew, but the hand warmers did there job and optics stayed clear.  Without a doubt my best effort yet. Looking to add a couple more hours.

Nige.

2 hours ago, Peco4321 said:

@Nigel G, you have inspired me to have another go at M31, going out shortly and will try and get as much data as possible tonight, before it moves behind trees. 

Good luck and clear sky's Peter

I have take a further 2h 24m of 12minute subs making a total of 7 hours with my non modified 1300D Adding the 2 hours of modified subs does not help, if anything its harder to process but slightly better on colour.

Now its time to switch targets.

M31 final process maybe.

Nige.

1 hour ago, Filroden said:

Now that's that I call red shift!

I had a go with your jpegs using PixInsight to blend luminance from one and RGB from the other plus I used it's new colour calibration tool that uses the stars actual BV to calibrate colour across the image. Hope you don't mind!

 

Not at all Ken, thanks, any info, methods and results are very welcome  I have downloaded your image and it looks very much like one I layered the lum from the non mod to the all data one.

I have quite a file on M31 now, different stacks, processes and effects.

Just stacked and processing modified data only. Its good data although its only 1h40m its processing easy, now I'm thinking- need more with the modded cam if I'm to continue.

Cheers.

Nige.

Sorry.

Last image of M31 until fully completed. I wanted to show the accidental miss aligned version which I think is quite effective and almost 3D, giving the image depth.

55 minutes ago, Filroden said:

Mixing subs from 2 cameras shouldn't have that impact. Are you stacking all the subs together or stacking subs from different cameras then restacking the results? The latter is prone to degrading the image. But if you throw it all into the same stack and use an algorythm that weights by SNR and uses a good rejection technique then it should improve the image.

Your right thinking again... too much thought  

I'll have to check all the DSS settings see if I missed anything and re stack.

I loaded the 1300d lights flats and bias in 1 group and 1200d lights flats and bias in 2nd group, then DSS stacks them all together, using correct flats and bias for each set.

Stacking with sigma clipping.

Nige.

I opened both images, chose the base image, select duplicate layer, which gives you the option of choosing which of the open images the layer will be, so select 2nd image.

Then select free transform from the edit dropdown, set opacity to 50% on the layers tool pallet, zoom in and align the images.

Then in the layers tool pallet I am free to do what I want, choosing type of layer and opacity etc.

Thanks again.

Nige.

I was thinking about mixing camera data while trying to sleep last night  

Being slightly disapointed with my M31 result. Its now obvious why it was only the same as my first stack, although it had 4 hours of non modified data it only had 1h 40m from the second camera, it would only be as good as the lesser data, adding 1 sub from the modified camera would introduce loads of noise. If I take the same 4 hours with the modified camera the result would be greatly improved. If I want an image quality with 8 hours worth of data and add a second camera data I would need to take 8 hours with that camera too.

Thats a lot of data for an 8 hour image.

I'll stick to 1 camera per image  

Trying to layer in PS atm, got a result  not quite alighned yet but gives the image a sort of funky 3d effect which I quite like  

Edit. got it, thanks for your help Neil & Ken.

Hours of fun when you learn new tools  

Nige.

Silly question time.

First snag, how do I use a layer from one image to place on another.

I can only seem to layer the image opened in PS, if I open the second image and select new layer it stays with that image if you know what I mean.

I think its research time  

I have managed to blend them in photo merge but have no control over blending amount or type.

PS. I have Photoshop CS2 free version.

Nige.

43 minutes ago, Filroden said:

Can you extract the luminance from the middle and the colour from the right and recombine?

9 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Why not use the nice colour one as bottom layer, put the modded image as top layer and choose 'luminance'

I'll have a go, this will be a PS job, not to much experience with it but got to learn some how.

A result from last nights imaging. Very windy but mostly protected by a big shed up wind.

A negative result I would say. I took 14x8min subs with my modified camera on M31.

I stacked both batches with flats and bias as 2 groups, total 5 hours 40 mins.

The out come was about the same as my first stack of 2h 40m. much more noise to deal with and detail loss, although the colour was much better to control.

The best and easiest to process so far being 4 hours with the non modified camera, to be honest I have never had much success at galaxys with my modified camera.

DSS scores were higher for the modified camera at 4500 average, non modified scores average 3500.

So I will finish the image with a couple of hours with my non modified cam and leave out the modded subs next chance.

The first image is 2h40m 2nd 4h non mod. 3rd 5h40m both cameras mixed.

I prefer the middle one, with the colours of the 3rd, maybe by adding 1 1200d sub it will help the colours ?

Click on image to see full size.

They look so good as thumbnails  

Cheers

Nige.

11 minutes ago, mikey2000 said:

Last night was mostly clear when I set up but it gradually hazed over.  It turns out the last 45 minutes of shooting were merely guiding practice (and nicely successful too - not a single glitch in that entire period).

 

Sadly, the files from that part of the night were worthless.  But, I managed 12x3min before that all closed in.

 

NGC281 Pacman Nebula.

I had to work the data quite hard to get the nebula to show and I seem to be stuck with a pinky/magenta cast.

 

It's clear again tonight but rather windy indeed, so I think I'll stay indoors...

Great image Mikey,  you captured a lot of nebulosity especially with an unmodified camera,  well done.

bit gusty here to. Watching TV

Nige 

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

77 minutes of M33, best of last year's data (60s at iso 1600) plus 12 subs 240s at iso800 cooled from this year.

The scores on the new data are 4,500 - 6000 compared to 3,000 - 5,000 for the old data which is interesting.

I need the old data to let sigma kappa kill the thin haze streak effect.

Hopefully I can get 2-3 hours more on M33 if we get a clear night soon.

 

 

These galaxy's are hard to capture and process to get detail, I guess it's the enormous distance the photons have to travel,  you certainly done a good job with M33 another one I have struggled with, lovely image, hope you get the clear sky's to continue. 

Nige.

I hope Mikey and Pete had there opportunity to do some imaging, Mikey I hope they catch the [removed word].

I got some more data on M31, 1 hour of 10 minutes and a few other odd exposures totalling 4hours all told.

Still don't like the colours although I think its an improvement, a few aqua blobs to remove but picking up detail, the outer spiral arms are showing better, I can't decide either to add some data from the modified camera or continue with my 1300d next opportunity, any suggestions?

Nige.