emyliano2000

The Eskimo nebula, my third planetary nebula of the year. 
I had a lot of problems while capturing this target and ended up using a third of the total frames that I shot.
I think my mount has a problem in the DEC axis and the guiding doesn't wanna play ball when shooting targets at declinations close to this targets.
The nebula itself is quite small for my setup so this is a massive crop out of the larger photo.
I'm fairly please with it even though I would've loved more detail in the nebula itself.

Eq6
AstroTech 106LE with upgraded Moonlite focuser
TSFlat 2" field flattener
Qhyccd QHY183M Coldmos, cooled at - 20°C
7x1.25" Starlight Xpress USB filterwheel
Baader 1.25" filters, 3.5nm Ha Ultra-narrowband, 8.5nm Oiii and RGB
Qhyccd QHY5L-IIM guide camera
TS09OAG off axis guider
Qhyccd Polemaster

Ha - 11x300sec
Oiii - 9x300sec
Red - 19x60sec, 49x120sec and 10x180sec
Green - 20x60sec, 49x120sec and 15x180sec
Blue - 11x60sec, 41x120sec and 9x180sec

Total integration time: 8 hours and 50 minutes

Date: 19.01.2020 to 10.04.2020

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

Location: Bushey, UK bortle 6

Stacked in AstroPixel Processor and processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop CC 2019

Very big crop of a wider field of view, I only processed the crop. 

Emil

A few days ago I commented on a photo of this target while my was busy stacking. 

Last night I managed to get the processing done. 

Equipment used:

Eq6 hypertune

AstroTech 106LE

QHYCCD QHY183M Coldmos, cooled at -20°C

Baader 1.25" filters, Ultra-narrowband 3.5nm Ha and 8.5nm Oiii

QHYCCD QHY5L-IIM guide camera

TS09OAG off axis guider

Software used:

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

Location: Bushey, bortle 6

Date: 17 Jan 2020 to 02 March 2020

70x600sec Gain 11 Ha

66x600sec Gain 11 Oiii

Total integration time: 22.7 hours

Stacking and calibration in AstroPixel Processor with Dark frames, Flat frames and Dark Flat frames. Channel combination in AstroPixel Processor

Processed in Pixinsight, Fitswork4 to remove some residual amp glow and Photoshop CC 2019

Emil

Thank you guys, I'm glad you like it. 

I now wish I would've startef sooner to add even more to it but I guess I can do that at the end of the year when it's higher in the sky again. 

Emil

Very nice. My headphones subs are stacking as I type and Abell 39 is work in progress. I love the Abell 39 bubble, that's why I decided to go for it 🙂

Emil

A target that I wasn't intending to do this year but one night when I wasn't sure what to go for I thought of shooting a few subs and when seeing how a 5 minute sub looked like, I decided to go for it after all.

Very happy with the result 😁

Eq3 Pro mount
TS65 Quadruplet imaging telescope
ZWO ASI294MC PRO 
Astronomik 6nm Ha clip in filter
Altair 2" Tri-Band filter 
Qhy5 guide camera 
9x50 finder-guider 

Software used:
Eqmod, SGP, Stellarium with StellariumScope, PHD2, SharpCap for polar alignment 

Location: Back garden, Bushey, UK (Bortle 6)
Date: 24.02.2020 to 04.04.2020
Total integration time: 12 hours and 40 minutes 

Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop. 

Emil

Yesterday I went back and reprocessed what I consider to be my first successful photo. 

It was shot 3 years ago in March 2017

The Leo Triplet

Equipment used:

Eq6 Pro

Skywatcher explorer 200p, f5 newtonian

Astromodified Canon 700D

Astronomik CLS-CCD clip in filter

Baader mpcc coma corrector

Lacerta Mgen standalone autoguider

TS09OAG off axis guider for EOS.

Software used:

Eqmod, APT, Stellarium with StellariumScope, Astrotortilla, Lacerta Autoguider PC app

Location: Bushey, Bortle 6

Date:24 and 31.03.2017

The image is the result of photos taken during two imaging sessions with a total exposure time of 5 hours and 40 minutes and is composed of 15x300sec, 13x600sec and 9x900sec exposures all at ISO400 with 49 flat frames and 20 bias frames. The calibration and stacking with APP and processing in Photoshop CC. 

Emil

41 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Very nicely done.  Extremely hard to process I found when I did mine.

I found that too. All the galaxies were red when I started with it. I tried the photometric colour calibration in pixinsight but for some reason it couldn't solve the photo so I've done a star calibration in APP. Things started to look a bit better from there but I think there's a lot more that can be done with more data. 

Emil

This is the start of my Markarian's chain project, well, more than half way actually as I want to make the fainter stuff show up a bit nicer and also reduce the noise in the final stack.

A few days ago I stacked what I gathered so far to see how it looks like and after adding the annotation in pixinsight I was shocked by the number of galaxies in the photo.

4 minutes ago, StargeezerTim said:

That is lovely... this should be called the humpback bridge nebula!

47 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

You got that from Bortle 6 Emil- wow..!! It's a belter of an image and well worth the 17.6 hours.

Thank you! I think the Tri-band filter helped a lot with the horrible light pollution coming from London. 

Emil

A target that I could never get right. I really like this year's attempt but I still feel it could use more data. Not easy, not easy at all when I have London in the direction that I'm shooting.

If I'll still be alive at the end of the year 😂, I think I will add more to it but fir the time being I'm sharing with you what I have so far. I hope you like it.

Eq3 Pro

TS65 quadruplet f6.5 imaging telescope @ 420mm fl

ZWO ASI294MC PRO cooled at -15°C

Altair 2" TriBand filter

IDAS LPS-D2 2" filter

Qhy5 guide camera

9x50 finder-guider

Software used:

Eqmod, SGP, Stellarium with StellariumScope, PHD2

Location: Bushey, Bortle 6

Date: 03.11.2019 to 16.02.2020

Total integration time: 17.6 hours

Emil

Thank you guys, I'm glad you like it. 

Being in such a bad location for low Southern targets, the only thing I can do is push the integration time as far as I can. I guess it really paid off. 

The 3.5nm Ha filter helped a lot too. Can't wait to get the 4.5nm Oiii but who knows when that will happen. I've been waiting for it since the end of December. 

Emil

Last year in November we moved to a house in the same area but with the Southern view much better than the one we used to live before that. 

Knowing that I now have the chance to shoot some targets that I could never think of from the old house, I decided to push my limits and try a target that I wanted for a very long time. 

NGC2359 is passing the meridian above London at 25 degrees in altitude so this is a difficult target considering the circumstances. 

The photo is a bit noisy and I think that might be the London noise but I'm very happy with the result. 

AT106 with Qhy183m 

115x300sec baader 3.5nm Ha filter

114x300sec baader 8.5nm Oiii filter

I think it would've been much better with a 4.5nm Oiii filter but I'm still waiting for it as it seems that no one has it in stock. 

I hope you like it. 

Emil

1 minute ago, newbie alert said:

Is it belt modded Emil?

Don't shoot me down lads but thought that if it's belt modded it don't need to be east heavy as there's no gear teeth to be engaged?

It is belt modded, yes. I checked the balance again and on RA is very good in all positions but in DEC in some positions, the cables are pulling down  the camera end. I adjusted it a bit more and it is a bit better but still not good enough. 

I'll tick the correction bix on my next clear night. 

I noticed the star was saturated and I changed it after I took the photo. I usually let them run on their own and go to bed so I have to let PHD choose the guidestar. 

I was thinking it might be backlash but this only started recently. When I had it on the pier, the total RMS was 1" on bad nights and 0.5" - 0.6" on very good nights. 

I recently moved and now the mount is sitting on the tripod. It was good at the beginning but about a month ago it all started. 

I would make the mount east heavy but letting it run on its own because of my work commitments, after the flip it will be west heavy. That's why I try to balance it as good as I can. 

Hi guys. I dont know what's going on but I think my mount has a problem. 

My guiding is always quite good  (0.8" RMS) up to the meridian an flip. After the flip the DEC is starting to go crazy. 

I polar aligned, I don't know how many times, I balanced the scope the best I could but still nothing. 

Any idea what it might be by looking at my phd2 graph? 

1st image is before the flip and second is after the flip. 

The mount is a hypertuned eq6 that was done 2 and a half years ago. 

Emil

1 hour ago, Gina said:

Lovely.

1 hour ago, Mick H said:

Beautiful, I find all AP's pictures amazing and the dedication that you all put in to capture them. 👍

 

33 minutes ago, simmo39 said:

V nice widefield shot.

Thank you! Even though I'm not even close to being "up there" where a lot of people on SGL are, I decided to try and put a bit more effort in my astrophotography and even though I can't afford more expensive things to make my life even easier, I'm just gonna do my best with what I have and if that means I need to shoot much longer to get the results that I'm after, so be it. I've gone passed the stage when I wanted to shoot 10 targets in one night. Now I only shoot 5 but that's because my veiw is very restricted 😂😂

Emil

4 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

That’s very impressive Emil. The detail and processing is fantastic. 

Thanks Adam, I'm really glad it came out ok, it makes me wanna shoot more and more of them 😊

Emil

This year, because I love small targets and especially planetary nebulae, I decided to start shooting a few to see how they come out with my AT106 and Qhy183m. I'm quite oversampled at 0.72"/px when shooting at 690mm, with the qhy183m,  but In order to get a nice looking crop I decided to drizzle x2 for the crop and reduce the wide view photo to its original size. 

The first finished target is M76, The Little Dumbell nebula. 

With a total of 35 hours and 40 minutes, it's my longest integration time that I’ve done on a single target. 

I have a few more of these small gems in the making but I really wanna do at least 30 hours on each one, so that might take a while because of all the good weather we've been getting in the UK. 

I shot it in HaOiiiRGB, stacked and combined in APP and processed in Pixinsight and photoshop. 

I really like it, I hope you do too. 😊

I'll add an astrobin link with all the details later when I upload it there. 

Emil

Wow, that is amazing! Insane integration time! 

Emil

27 minutes ago, carastro said:

Very nice image.  I used to own a 450D and had problems with banding.  I was then given a tip off that if downloading to a laptop, not to have the SD card in the camera at the same time.  I removed it and the problem certainly got a lot better.

Not sure if this is your situation, but if it is give it a try.

Carole 

Thank you!

Unfortunately I don't have the 450D or any of the telescopes used to shoot that target but as far as I remember, I never kept the SD card in the camera. A friend told me that using the camera at ISO1600 would show a very good improvement but not having the camera anymore, I can't test it. 

The canon banding removal script in pixinsight combined with the background flattening tools in fitswork did a pretty good job. 

Emil

And here's the annotated version.

This is why I never throw away data that, at the time, I think it's good for nothing. I revisited my Deer Lick and Stephan's quintet to see how much better my processing skills are after one and a half years.

Here's tonight's attempt

And my previous attempt:

It wasn't very easy to get to this result but I'm really glad I managed to do it properly this time. 

Here's how the pixinsight autostretch looks like. The 450d banding is absolutely terrible. 

Full resolution and other details on my astrobin account:
https://www.astrobin.com/ncv0wn/0/

Emil

On 15/05/2019 at 17:39, FLO said:

 

Hi. Any idea when the 1.25" Oiii 4.5nm will be back in stock? 

Emil

I went back and reprocessed the cluster and I'm even happier with this version.

16 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

What a great project Emil and a superb result. 40 hours to stack 22 hours data - is that a steam laptop you're using? 😏 Seriously, it was worth the wait . Cheers, Geof

Haha, I stacked more hours in less time but the amount of subs (457) is very large for my computer (quite old I might say) and the fact that it had to stack subs shot with 3 different cameras, including CCD, at different orientations, made the local normalization take much longer than usual. 

I do need a new computer because sometimes during stacking, I thought it was gonna take off and fly around the room 😂😂

Emil