Nigel G

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Whooo.. going to be playing with the big boys soon!

Not so soon, taking a long time saving and only about halfway.

Sailing and astrophotography are both expensive hobbys but I need to do both  

Me too, Hoping to get a couple of hours on M31 with the scope.

Looking a bit patch cloud here though.

Focusing the stock lens, try on Saturn or a bright star before mounting the camera, I found that a bit easier.

Nige.

1 minute ago, Graham Darke said:

Eq3 pro with a TS65q riding on it.  20 two minute subs through a Canon 600Da. 

 

Very nice image, good detail in the spiral arms and nice stars.

A touch blown in the core, but it is a difficult DSO with such a bright core. Still a better job than me  

Great little scope you have there  

Thanks for sharing

Nige.

38 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Nige, now you have tracking sorted, why not save up and try a Ha filter for moonlit nights? That's the route I'm probably going to follow, returning to Ha-rich targets to on moonlight nights.

Great minds  I found a 12nm clip in filter for sale £75, still deciding  I have the funds but still saving for the Zwo 1600mm which has 3 narrow band filters. Do I borrow from the funds?

Nige.

2 hours ago, Filroden said:

I guess its also down to target selection. With a bright moon, it may be better to stick to clusters where you can attack the gradients a little harder; something that you cannot do well with nebula or galaxies.

Ken, thats a good point, there's plenty of clusters and doubles to capture during the moons presents.

Nige.

The first image is 1h 8m, the moon had caused a fair amout of glow in the full stack ( second image) quite a bit of work to remove it compared to the first.

So I'm better off getting 1 hour of no moon than 2 hours with moon, unless the moon is opposite in the sky to the target or you have narrow band filters, It's not really worth it.

On the other hand, we get so few clear nights here that a moon lit night can't be waisted and is better than a cloudy night.

Carry on as usual then  

Nige.

We had a couple of hours of clear sky before the moon destroyed the dark so I set my scope towards NGC 7380 the Wizard nebula.

I took 2 hours of 240s subs ISO800, the last couple had too much moon lite in so only dumped 2 subs. After about an hour each sub was getting a little brighter.

I did 2 stacks. One had 28x240s with darks, flats and bias, the other stack had 17x240s ( the first 17 of the session) with flats and bias- no darks.

Modified 1200D, 80ED, EQ3. - PHD2, DSS, ST & PS.

Which do you think is which ?

I think I prefer the first, seems to show more detail.

Cheers

Nige.

Just buzzing around the interweb at some pics, The Hubble Pillars of creation in M16. considering a light polluted back garden at about sea level with a tiny 80ED EQ3 and cheap DSLR they are visible, a massive crop of M16 and the famous Hubble image. Mines the one on the right

Nige.

Nice M17 @Art Gecko hope you get over your flu soon.

I was looking for a target as far from the Moon as possible, IC1805 the Heart nebula fitted the bill and perfectly in frame for my 80ED.

A misty evening turned to a clear night, dumped 12 because of moisture in the air, I tried wrapping a warm tea towel around the scope and changing it every 10 minutes for another warm tea towel ( 2 tea towels warmed down the front of my trousers to body temp  ) No dew build up on the main scope.

20x240s + darks, flats and bias. ISO800 - EQ3, 1200D, 80ED.

Cheers

Nige.

On Friday, August 25, 2017 at 15:57, Art Gecko said:

. Enjoy your sailing, you going anywhere nice? Ever drop a hook over the side?

Thanks ☺yes very keen fisherman ( www.fishynige.co.uk  ) , we are Sailing the East coast, Ipswich,  Aldeburgh,  Orford.  

Nice dark sky's  so far,  great observing with the bins, laying on deck gazing at night. Hope to get some Milky Way shots from Orford in a couple of days time.

Cheers. 

Nige.

10 minutes ago, Art Gecko said:

Sorry, I've only just noticed this, been away on a summer break to Holland! Nice work Nige, how did you find out? nova.astrometry.net?

No worries  I saw another Bubble image with the lobster claw nebula in it, here on SGL  

I'm off sailing for a week tonight, bet its going to be clear and moonless for the whole week  

Nige.

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

At the risk of clogging things up, here's a version done without any darks.

That looks smoother, the dark dust is showing better, a slight loss of bright gasses, overall better I think.

Nige

42 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Took a few images last night, this is the best one of Sadr. I've done some noise removal with a star mask as the background suffered badly from the thin cloud. Transparency was awful, a hardly anything to see naked eye other than the main constellations:

Rest of them and the original Sadr are here (see I save the best for you lot!):

 

Thanks Neil  that's a busy bit of sky. Plenty there. Maybe a little over developed ? Love the gold and blue star colours  

Mind you bad seeing doesn't help.

I have been messing around with past stacks, processing and developing quite a bit less than normal with great results, less noise more depth and better colour overall.

Here a little less exposure and a touch more vibrance. Hope you don't mind.

Nige.

On ‎26‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 20:12, Art Gecko said:

Nicely done @Nigel G I wonder what the nebulosity is left of top centre?

 

 

Art, I just found out its part of the Lobster claw  ( my Bubble image )

Better late than never  

Ahh

TVM  

Nige

Forgive my lack of knowledge,  What is OSC  ?

Nige.

Mikey, what a lovely trunk image,  I love the star colours, good detail,  well captured especially with an unmodified camera. 

Neil,  your Bubble nebula is fine, definitely not embarrassing,  better than mine and I like mine ☺

Your doing well, learning new equipment takes time. Everyone posting in this thread shows great images and all move forward,  whether it be fast or steady doesn't matter. 

Keep them coming. 

Nige.

I know its not using an EQ3 but this is what turned up just after my whinge about NLC  It pays to whinge now and again  

The problem is after NLC normally comes a weather change, heavy clouds or clear sky, heavy cloud is what came shortly after, followed by an all night downpoor.

Nige.

Thats loads less noise with a bit less Ha showing,

What exposure times was this ?

Do you or have you thought about dithering after each sub, I found it works well with both Canon banding and camera noise, although I dither about every 4 or 5 subs.

Nige.

9 hours ago, jjosefsen said:

If so, how do you like Star Tools compared to PixInsight?

I did trial PixInsight for 40 days. I got about the same final image as with StarTools, BUT I know StarTools tricks and processes whereas I do not know PI.

Startools was quicker with processing but thats not what its about.

Imagers that know PI well would not use ST over PI, I can't say the same for the other way round.

I think PI has more tricks and can produce some top images, I have not seen a top quallity narrowband or mono LRGB processed with ST yet ( top imagers prefer PI or other software).

I know people who use PI prefer to stack there data using PI too.

StarTools was designed for the imager with shallow pockets, I would say PI has the potential to produce a better final image.

Hope this helps.

Nige.

18 minutes ago, jjosefsen said:

Second attempt at imaging, first time using pixinsight.

Great image, nice colour and good detail, Well done.

Practice makes perfect, after 18 months with StarTools I find new tricks all the time  

20 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Here my Filamentary Nebula, FWIW. There's still plenty of background noise despite cooling and Ha filter, but the stars are small and round

Not bad at all Neil, your picking up a lot of Ha and tidy stars, time will sort the noise out  

Nige.

I'm a little disappointed to see that the EQ3 images didn't get a mention in the 30s challenge winners, but when there's large scopes, big mounts, dark sky's, mono CCD's and such to compete with. The 3 winners are awesome images. Nevertheless we shall keep trying, maybe something will come up, as for the NLC challenge, still not seen anything around here that passes as NLC, guess you got to be lucky or live in the right location. EDIT: Tonight is my lucky night  they are here now, whinge and you will receive  

Whinge of the day out of the way  

Looks like its going to be clear here again tonight, no work tomorrow either  

Nige.

I have been messing around with StarTools and M16. A vast improvement to detail and better colour I think by using "Artistic detail aware"  in the colour module. and a little less developing.

I'm surprised how much difference it made. Might have to reprocess a few more again  

Click on image for full size. 2nd is reprocessed.

Nige.

I had a pretty good session last night with no cloud to mess things up, PHD guiding was good enough to leave the kit doing its stuff with a check from time to time, although I did have to do a meridian flip as I noticed the camera very close to one of the tripod legs.

PHD had a few wild spikes and I also noticed a regular quiet clicking on the mount about 1click per 2 seconds, might need to strip down and investigate. I kept 40 of 45 subs, 5 had slight stretched stars.

I dithered after every 5 or so subs to try and reduce the Canon banding, with the meridian flip it did help.

Sadr ( Gamma Cygni ) & Cygnus, 40x240s ISO800 2H 40m, darks, flats & bias. Modified 1200D, Equinox 80 & EQ3.

PHD2, DSS, StarTools & PS.

Cheers.

Nige.

20 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Well done! An almost impossible target for me from home, sadly as roofs get in eth way as well as similar LP issues. Have you got a longer scope to use on it?

Thanks Neil, I have a 750mm FL which would be a better frame, the only trouble is on the EQ3 it ends up at very odd orientations with the camera hanging off the bottom, it has a fixed dovetail and its not a very stable scope at all but I think its worth a go.

Nige.