old_eyes

F5 is still pretty fast. Around 3x longer exposure for the same number of photons, so a few nights at 2 hours will give you a nice SNR.

I would be interested to see what Ha adds to the image!

At 300mm FL I assume you are using a camera lens. What F ratio are you operating at? The Epsilon 180 is F2.8, and therefore pretty fast (near RASA fast). As I noted, I only used 2 hours exposure to get that image, so depending on your F-number and skies, you should not have to wait too long for a nice image.

Glad you solved it. And a very useful tip when upgrading/moving computers. Now I come to think of it, it might explain some oddities I experienced when setting up a new PC. Anyway - have a good New Year, and clear skies.

Me too

Nah! You are all making it too complicated. It is just the guys who make the slides for the sky projection just accidentally left the PowerPoint guide lines in. Fortunately, it was noticed quite quickly and the correct slides uploaded. They had hoped no 9ne would notice!

Thank you Olly. I am experimenting with full automation of my home observatory using Voyager. I enables me to grab odd hours of clear sky which come unexpectedly and makes me more productive (well more productive for the cloudy skies of North Wales). I don't know if it is getting harder to provide an accurate local weather forecast, but I seem to be getting a lot more unexpectedly clear or cloudy patches. Even when Clear Outside and Meteoblue Astronomical Seeing agree, what actually happens is often completely different. Automation means I don't waste those opportunities, or risk rain on my rig. So this image was one of the first tests of the new system. Hopefully more to come! Anyway can I wish you a belated Nadolig llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd dda!

12 hrs exposure (Ha:03:S2 1:2:2) of IC 410 and NGC 1893, from my home observatory in North Wales during the recent cold spell. Esprit120 & Atik 460ex mounted on a Mesu 200. I ended up with some sharp gradients at top and bottom of the image which I could not process out, so I have cropped the image quite severely. Fortunately, the objective was to get a good view of the Tadpoles, which the image delivers. Overall quite happy with this. Processed in PixInsight.

Very nice! I also have some data of the same target collected those same cold, clear nights. You have inspired me to get cracking. A good Boxing Day project!

That is a really beautiful image. Lot's of fine detail in the nebula and excellent coloration. The gold is very effective against the blue (something I struggle to get right!). I just wonder whether a little more saturation in the RGB stars would improve the image? The immediate impression is of typical 'white' narrowband stars. There is colour in there, but it is subtle and not obvious against the strength of the nebula. Having gone to the trouble of getting RGB stars, perhaps you could make more of them? But goodness me, I wish I had produced a Lion as beautiful as this!

Yes, the whole reflection complex of IC 2169, NGC 2245, NGC 2247 and IC 446 is very nice, and there is a lot more detail in those nebulae than I have brought out in this image. If I can find a way I will try and get a closer view of these objects. Do you have OSC or LRGB data? I was surprised how good the OSC came out. old_eyes

A widefield OSC image of an attractive part of the sky from IC 446 to the Christmas Tree Cluster (NGC 2264) in Monoceros. Emission, reflection and dark nebulae. A total of 2 hrs exposure on Pier 5 @Roboscopes in Spain - Tak Epsilon 180, ASI 2400 MC Pro, unguided Paramount MX. Annotated version

Göran, Do you happen to know your camera angle? I couldn't platesolve your final processed image. It would help me check framing, although I think I am OK no matter what the orientation, but good to check. Thanks

Göran - just a quick processing question. Which channels from RGB did you use as O3? I know a lot of people throw away the B and only use the G for O3, remapping that to get the colour they want. Interested in whether you had 3 out of 4 pixels in the Bayer matrix for O3 or only 2. As you had to boost the Ha to get the effect you liked, I wondered how much O3 you started with.

What a fabulous object Gorann. A touch of a Klingon Warbird perhaps? I am really tempted to have a go with this using our mono reduced FSQ 106 in Spain. A slower rig but a mono sensor.

Looks pretty damn good for the 'lazy' process!

Here is my initial process of the Fish Head Nebula (IC1795). 46 x 300 sec Ha, 42 x 300 sec O3, 78 x 300 sec S2 - 13.8 hours in total. Pier 1 @Roboscopes in Spain (10" Dall-Kirkham, ASI 1600MM binned 2x2, GM1000 mount) Processed in Pixinsight SHO palette. Didn't get the framing quite right, but OK I think. I hoped for a bit more detail, but not to be.

Might it have been this Hubble image? Ghostly Reflections in the Pleiades (hubblesite.org) This shows gas and dust around Merope, but 'ahead' of the star. Radiation pressure is supposed to be affecting different particle sizes differentially, slowing down the smaller particles more and stretching out the nebula in the lines we see pointing away from the star. I see the 'wake' effect in your image streaming behind the cluster, but I am always cautious about our human tendency to see what we believe makes sense. We are just too damn good at pattern recognition. Could the nebula have been sculpted by some other process? I would be really interested to know.

Very nice indeed @ollypenrice. I particularly like how the widefield puts the cluster in context. I have shown many people M45 images who assume that the nebulosity is part of the cluster - "is that the gas the stars formed from?". This image really shows M45 is illuminating the gas and dust. A candle on a foggy night!

Well you certainly got an improvement! The latest version in much better. The trick now, in my experience, is to understand what you did differently. I have been reprocessing some of my older images, and they are better, but since I did not keep the process history, I don't know whether it is being more selective in data, a software improvement, or me improving my eye and 'touch'.

Very nice image. Could you post your previous version so we could do a side by side. It would be really interesting to see the improvement from better tools, and your own developing skills no doubt.

Thanks Grant. Much appreciated from someone who sees so many images!

Narrowband image of California Nebula (IC1499). Image taken on Pier 14 @Roboscopes (Reduced FSQ106, ASI 2600MM Pro, unguided Paramount MX). 38 x 4 min subs Ha, 51 x 4 min O3 & 51 x 4 min S2 - 9.3 hrs total exposure. Processed in Pixinsight. Pleased with the O2 signal, which is often hard to dig out.

I find the fantastic range of the .xisf format give me greatest flexibility when processing (particularly in the early stages). The only issue is that when you need to reduce the bit depth of the image for presentation, there are always going to be some compromises as you compress the image. Maybe it is my lack of understanding of how the process works, but I am sometimes taken by surprise by the difference between how the image looks in pixinsight and how it appears from a .jpg in a standard image handling programme.

New version. A bit softer. I like this better.