emyliano2000

I managed toadd a little bit more data to it.  I think it's quite an improvement over the original. Managed to get some detail and colour in some of the little fuzzies too. 😁

Here's the astrobin link

https://www.astrobin.com/lbnn92/

39 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

You've got some beautiful star colour. What's your process? I'm struggling to get any blue in my m106 image

Thank you. 

I originally did a Photometric colour calibration in pixinsight on the RGB stars. That gave me a pretty good colour from the start. The background didn't look great but it really didn't matter as I was only gonna use the stars from that blend. After that I flattened the background using GradX in photoshop, blackened it and added the Ha as the red channel and 10% luminance. Increased the overall saturation and with a blurred inverted star mask, I applied a few iterations of Noel Carboni's Increase star colour action. Some of the stars had a purple hue so I took it into Camera raw filter there I changed the purple hue to blue. 

Emil

After seeing on the web a nice cluster from the southern hemisfere with a lot of backround Ha, I had a zoom through stellarium to see if I can find a similar one that I can do from my back garden.

It didn't take long until I found the NGC2112 cluster that sits very nicely inside the Bernard's loop, so I went for it.

Originally I only shot 15x300sec Ha but that didn't give me the details I was after, so I added another 3x300sec and 13x600sec in the hope that I could get some structure in the hydrogen alpha cloud.

Even with this amount of Ha the details are not as I was hoping so I presume that it won't be getting any better if I add more to it.

Date: 25.01 to 18.02.2021

Location: Bushey, bortle 7

Ha: 18x300sec and 13x600sec Bin 2x2, Gain 200 Offset 10

RGB: 12x180sec per channel Bin 2x2, Gain 125 Offset 30

Total integration time 5 hours and 28 minutes

 

Emil

 

 

Thank you guys. I think I'll keep adding to it until I get close to around 20 hours. I try to shoot the luminance when the target is at its highest and the streetlights are turned off but I think a good light pollution filter would help a bit more. Maybe some 300sec on the RGB too. 

Emil

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

Btw, what is your source for the galaxy data?

I found this and indeed with a 1.13 redshift it workes out at 12Gly

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html

33 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Nice!

Try to get 20 hours or more. Once the noise gets less, all kind of redshifted galaxies pop up, many of which aren't catalogued. The great dipper is a real treasure trove for distant galaxies, and not having a long fl actually helps, because it allows wider vistas.

Btw, what is your source for the galaxy data? Be aware that redshift for quasars for some reason isn't the same as for galaxies; it overestimates their distance.

Thanks, I'll try to add more to it and see what else pops out

I didn't actually calculated it myself, I found it on this website https://astrovirusblog.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/m106-quasars-and-cosmological-distances/?fbclid=IwAR2_zqXun40oGqzGSfIq6WAYHrLJO2UdBd5VefqWLa_8Sj88K37JUDFBQOMhash=59fa4c9a54d59330b10735ae0c945b05#comment-699hash=59fa4c9a54d59330b10735ae0c945b05#comment-699

It was showing 15bly under the photo, I messaged the owner and it looks like he rectified it to 12 bly. It's saying that it has a 1.13 redshift.

Where do you get your data from, I would love to know.

Emil

2 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

Very nice, this is one of my favourite targets to image, yet I've never managed an image that I'm satisfied with.

I hope that having a dual rig now will help eliminate that once I get some clear skies.

Thanks. I could've probably done with a bit more data on it, being under bortle 7 skies, to be honest but I was so excited to see how it looks so far that I decided to stack and edit 😁

Emil

Hello again,

As the galaxies are starting to get higher in the sky, I started to point my telescope a bit more towards them. The first that I can say I have enough data to produce a decent image is M106.

Because @wimvb pointed out that my M97-M108 photo had some objects that are very far away, I took the liberty to go online and try to find how far some of the objects in this photo are.

I was quite shocked to find that I captured a 19.5 magnitude quasar, 7C 121446.70+472852.00. I added it in white writting to the annotated photo and I also cropped a part of the large photo to show it better.

This is by far the furthest deep sky object that I ever imaged and also in the crop photo there are a few galaxies that are more than 2 billion light-years distant.

M106 - 21.5 Mly;

NGC4217 - 61.6 Mly;

NGC4220 - 44 Mly;

NGC4248 - 24.5 Mly;

NGC4232 - 336 Mly;

PGC2296601 - 338 Mly;

PGC213962 - 428 Mly;

PGC2297038 - 932 Mly;

PGC2300151 - 2,455 Mly;

PGC2299019 - 3,746 Mly;

PGC2299122 - 3,814 Mly;

7C 121446.70+472852.00 quasar - 12 Bly.

 

Eq6 hypertune gen2 by DarkFrame Ltd

AstroTech 106LE with upgraded Moonlite focuser

TSFlat 2" field flattener

ASI294MM Pro Cmos camera, cooled at - 15°C

8x1.25" ZWO USB filterwheel

Chroma 1.25" LRGB and 3nm 1.25" Ha filters

Qhyccd QHY5L-IIM guide camera

9x50mm finder-guider

Qhyccd Polemaster

 

Software used:

Eqmod, SGP - Sequence Generator Pro, PHD2, Stellarium with stellariumScope, SharpCap for polar alignment

 

Date: 22.01 to 04.02.2021

 

Location: Bushey, bortle 7

 

Ha: 14x300sec, Gain 200 Offset 10

Luminance: 34x300sec Bin 2x2, Gain 125 Offset 30

Red: 30x180sec; Green: 31x180sec; Blue: 31x180sec; Bin 2x2, Gain 125 Offset 30

 

Total integration time 8 hours and 36 minutes

 

Emil

 

 

 

28 minutes ago, gorann said:

Great image with nice details and colours. It is impressive what you and your light-weight kit have accomplished here.

Thank you!

Quite a few people told me that I must have the best eq3 in the world

Emil

2 hours ago, peter shah said:

what a great capture...I had one of those  little 65 quads....stunning little scope

Thank you Peter, indeed they are pretty something, I love mine 😁

Emil

9 minutes ago, wimvb said:

That's a great image and very deep. Some of those faint galaxies are more than 600 Mly distant (pgc 34144; nearby pgc 2506900 is 760 Mly distant).

Wow, thank you very much for the info, I never had in mind that I could capture things sooo far away with my little TS65Q 😁

Emil

10 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Fantastic! the owl nebula always amazes me because of its almost perfect orb like shape, there are more fuzzies than my eyes can see in this image.

Thank you! Yes, it is a pretty nice planetary nebula isn't it? Quite recently I've seen a photo of it shot with a much longer focal length telescope and it looked incredible. It even has a very faint outer halo that was captured very nicely 🙂

Emil

Quite recently I sold my narrowband filters for my OSC camera to fund an upgrade and because I'm only left with the broadband light pollution filter, I felt like shooting a galaxy, but I when I was zooming through stellarium I thought that a galaxy and a planetary nebula in the same photo would be nicer so I stopped to M97 - M108.

This is a crop from the wider field of view photo. I drizzeled the stack x2 and cropped it to match the fov of my ASI294MM on the AT106 in case I will add some luminance to it at a later date. I annotated it in pixinsight to show the little fuzzies in the photo

Calibration and stack in Astropixel processor, edit in pixinsight and photoshop CC 2020

 

Emil

 

 

8 minutes ago, Kinch said:

Likewise - I would go with the 2nd one (top image on this page). I think a little more contrast in the original would make it equally as good - just then comes down to individual taste on the colours.

Thanks. Indeed a bit of contrast on the original might change its overall look and make it more appealing.

In the new one I used a star reduction script that seems to work quite well on some photos. I tried the starnet star removal but couldn't get a nice finish, way too many stars that gave me a very dirty finish, even after tweaking it in photoshop to remove the leftovers. 

Regarding the colour, I also tend towards the new one but again it's a personal taste 🙂

Emil

48 minutes ago, BCN_Sean said:

the second (the original, right?) seems to be a bit flat

Thanks, that's exactly what I thought about the original one too 😁

Emil

Lately I've been looking at the photos that I shot since I started and I decided to try and redo the ones that I'm not really happy with. 

I learned a few new things over time and I'm trying to see if I can use them to improve the photos. The first photo is the result that I got yesterday and the second is the original attempt. 

I find the new one to be an improvement over the original but I would love it if you would give me your opinion. 

Technical data:

AstroTech 106LE
TSFlat 2" field flattener
Qhyccd QHY183M Coldmos, cooled at - 20°C
7x1.25" Starlight Xpress USB filterwheel
Baader 1.25" filters, 7nm Ha, 8.5nm Oiii and 8nm Sii

1x600sec Ha @ gain 11, offset 8

20x300sec Ha @ gain 11, offset 8

40x600sec Ha @ gain 16, offset 76

40x600sec Oiii @gain 11, offset 8

40x600sec Sii @ gain 16, offset 76

Total integration time 21 hours and 50 minutes

Emil

3 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Thank you for this fantastic image! I made it my desktop background for this week, to me it looks almost Hubble-like quality.

I made it a wallpaper too

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Love the level of detail on the 'animals'. Great image and only 6 hours as well! Can't believe its got less than an hour each of oxygen and sulphur.

Thank you. I was quite surprised myself to be honest. I think I chose the perfect target for my first light

3 hours ago, ampleamp said:

What an excellent image and you didn’t take long to use them

Thank you

I got to use them the night after I got them , I can't believe how lucky I was to have a clear night

Emil

27 minutes ago, MartinB said:

Beautiful Rosette!

Thank you Martin! 

28 minutes ago, MartinB said:

Do your flats look "normal"?

Indeed the ha and sii flats look horrible. The flats with the Ha filter on the 294MC were very similar to what I'm getting with the mono and it took me quite a while to find some good settings for the flats to correct properly so I applied the same settings to the mono and it works great. 

I'm aiming for a mean ADU value of around 25k and an exposure for the flats between 2 and 5 seconds. 

This works great and the stack came out very clean. 

Emil

Thank you guys, I'm really glad you like it and appreciate your kind words. 

22 minutes ago, Spongey said:

Great first light for these filters! I'm guessing that you're no longer getting the Antlia 3nm Pros now? 

Well, I guess not 😁

Who can say no to chroma? Alastair was too kind to sell them to me 🙂

Zoltan wasn't very happy when I told him. Did you get yours yet? He rang me after I told him I won't get them anymore and he said that he has the Ha and Sii but the Oiii will come at a later date?

Emil

4 minutes ago, CCD-Freak said:

Were you binned 1x1 for this image?   I am considering the ASI294MM-Pro

 

John
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

No, I'm not planning on using the bin 1x1 on my main rig as I would be greatly oversampled and my seeing is not that good. I might use the bin1x1 for my lenses though. 

I sit very nicely at 1.38"/px with my AT106 and I love it 😁

Emil

1 minute ago, CCD-Freak said:

One of the best images of the Rosette I have ever seen.....GREAT work !!!!!

 

John
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

Thank you John, I really appreciate your kind comment. 😊

Emil

Very nice Brendan, I love it! 😍

Emil

Hello guys.

First of all I would like to thank @ampleamp for selling me the incredible Chroma filters that I've been dreaming about since I started mono imaging.

This is the first narrowband image that I produced with these filters and I want to say that I'm absolutely in love with them.

As my first target I chose something that I always tried to get a good result of, but didn't quite get something that I would be pleased with.

Now can finally say that this is it, I've done, it and I love it.

So here is the Rosette and the beautiful animal parade.

The total imaging time is 6 hours , an integration time that I never thought could produce something like this from my bortle 7 back garden.

39x300sec and 1x600sec Ha

10x300sec Oiii

10x300sec Sii

all with a ASI294MM and my AT106 triplet refractor at 690mm f6.5

I'm very pleased with the result and I hope that you will like it too.

Emil

27 minutes ago, MartinB said:

That is such an improvement!  That is a seriously good image.  

Thank you so much. I'm really glad I posted this because it shows that even though I was starting to think the data wasn't really good, after 2 years of learning new things and tricks I managed to bring it to a pleasant results. 

Emil

43 minutes ago, Xiga said:

Very nice Emil! A big improvement over the original, and I really like the colours.

ps - Annie's action is a nice time-saver, but you can take full control of it if you want. When you run the action and the Levels window pops up, choose not to do it. This stops the action. You're then free to manually balance the Levels and then move on to doing as much of the Selective Colour adjustments as you wish.

pps - You can go further and actually edit any PS action you want really. If you look at the list of Actions on the panel, you can click on the arrow beside them, and drill down to see the order of steps and exactly what each step does. You can choose not to run one particular step if you like, or edit it to do something different.

This time I started the photos in pixinsight and applied the noise reduction while still in linear state. After the initial stretch I reduced the star size in the Oiii and Siii shots (being my first narrowband image, I didn't know how to use the camera and I used high gain and long exposure giving me very fat stars on those 2 channels) and only after that I combined them into SHO. 

Photoshop is still my main editor and I do use Annie's action tools (always as a layer to be able to control a bit the overall result) but what you said make sense and I will give it a go in the near future, thank you. 

Emil