Adreneline

Nice one! I'm pleased I could help - it's a great image. All that with 90 minutes - just think what another 90 might give! Good luck. Adrian

+1

This is a mosaic comprising 20 x 180s of Ha and OIII from a Samyang 135 + ASI183MM combined with 20 x 180s of Ha and OIII from a RedCat 51 + ASI1600MM. All 80 subs were thrown into APP with associated calibration frames and after some cropping this is the resulting HOO image (with magenta removed). Completely processed in PI but the final image received a small amount (10 out of 100) of noise reduction in Topaz - there has been no sharpening at any stage in the processing. Starnet was used to allow processing of the nebula. A star image was processed separately (HT) and added back using a straight addition in PixelMath to the starless image; there was no star reduction or sharpening. Thanks for looking. C&C welcome as always. Adrian

That's a very pleasing result. If you were taking raw images it might be worth experimenting with DeepSkyStacker - it's also free and well supported. You could also experiment taking some calibration frames - all good skills to practise before getting that first telescope. Good luck. Adrian

Divide by three - ~0.6mm

An excellent result. IMHO GC's are the hardest of all things to image - they are way beyond my ability; you've done a great job with this one. Adrian

Very nice - I really like the colours. I too am a big fan of the ASIair-Pro - it has transformed my imaging sessions. Adrian

Nautical darkness is a good time for trying to shake out a few spacing and alignment problems with the Samyang+183. This is 20 x 180s Ha (Astronomik 6nm) + 15 x 180s of OIII (Baader 8.5nm) using a Samyang 135mm at f2 with an ASI183MM-Pro at g111 and -20 degrees unguided. Fully pre- and post-processed in PI. The strong OIII signal made up for the fact it was not the best conditions with no astro darkenss. Apologies to those who think it is upside down - the camera was somewhat randomly orientated following all my spacer adjustments and fine tuning. Thanks for looking. Adrian

Thank you. I love IC1396. In fact I love imaging all of Cepheus. There is so much to image. Adrian

Sorry. FWHM as I understand it is a measure of how well focussed you are. The lower the better. I think SharpCap focus aid uses FWHM and I know BackYardEoS has a FWHM focus aid built in - and maybe APT? Apologies. Adrian

Thank you. Well I am being picky. I noticed when I did the Star Analyse in Astro Pixel Processor it gave me fwhm figures of around 3.0 +/- 0.5 or so. I am pretty certain I can do better than that and get fwhm figures more like 2.0 +/- 0.25; in fact I generally get below 2.0 when imaging with the Samyang and ASI1600 in the past. When I looked at the BM diffraction pattern I did wonder if I had really nailed the intersection of all three lines but it was very close and so I left it cos' there wasn't much nautical darkness left to image. I rushed it a bit and rushing is never good HTH Adrian

Thank you - it turned out better than I expected - just wish I'd really nailed the focus. Thank you Peter. Had a spot of bother negating the amp glow at first so I re-took the darks (60 of them) and second time round it seems to have worked well - which is a relief! If I could get some OIII of the same quality I'd be a very happy chappy

Good question! The fov is even wider with the 1600 but the 183 is definitely a better match.

Was really lucky to get a clear night and try out my new ASI183MM-Pro with the Samyang 135mm using an Astronomik Ha 6nm filter. I know it's not a perfect match but the little 2.4um pixels of the ASI183MM are a better match with the Samyang 135mm than the ASI1600MM Completely processed in PI with a final bit of noise reduction (10) only in Topaz DeNoise AI - no sharpening! This is 20 x 180s unguided at 111 gain, -20 degrees C with minimal edge effect cropping only. I think the focus could have been better but I'm pretty pleased with the star shapes. The target is a little off-centre as I was using a RedCat+1600 sitting alongside to plate solve and capture more Ha at the same time. Thanks for looking. As always C&C welcome. Adrian

I'm with you Alan except I use the soles of my shoes! The soft heels (ethylene vinyl acetate apparently) on my Skecher house shoes are perfect for separating filters/spacers/reducers that have become one with each other.

This is of no comfort to you - or help - but that has been exactly my experience with a CEM25-EC. Every so often the RA goes off on one for no apparent reason. I've tried numerous things/adjustments and watched lots of YouTube videos - helpful and contradictory - I've even tried three different guide scope - nothing has made any difference. Also had exactly the same problem with an original ASIair. The whole things is made all the worse if I attempt to introducing dithering into the mix. I've begun to think it is a conflict between the CEM25-EC and the ASIair. At some stage I will try using a PC based setup and PHD2 to see if that works. I am following this thread with interest to see if anyone can shed light or help. Maybe you can seek solace in knowing you are not alone - well there's you and me at least.

Some would argue we're all to blame for this - and with some justification. Stay safe!

The first one gets my vote - I really like dusty brown nebula. Very nice. Adrian

An amazing result for just four minutes. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you Lee. Maybe with more time spent I could have got closer but the data was not that good really, especially the OIII. Forecast is cloudy again tonight - and tomorrow - so I might try again just using the L stars. 🤔

Thank you! Glad your young son enjoyed the show. Even my wife was impressed - actually that might be going too far - very interested. I think it is interesting to see that space is not as 'static' as people imagine it to be. Adrian

I have used the ASIair and purchased the PoleMaster because I wasn't convinced by the accuracy of the PA I was getting. Last night following a PA with SC my first slew to an alignment star was more "off target" than I would have expected when using the PoleMaster. Recognising the ASIair uses the main imaging scope how accurately must the scope be aligned with the mount axis? Or is my understanding of PA completely up the creek and in fact it doesn't matter if you use an imaging scope that isn't perfectly aligned to perform the PA? I knew it was a mistake using the PoleMaster and then SC. I may not sleep tonight 😭 Adrian

Thank you. I wish I could have achieved a seamless transition in the gif between 2019 and 2021 images but I just couldn't seem to get there, probably because last night's OIII data was not very good. Glad you like it though. Adrian

I know this is a slightly dated thread but I used my PoleMaster and associated software last night to PA my CEM25EC. Because I was waiting for Nautical Darkness to start I decided to use SharpCap with my PoleMaster camera. Interestingly SharpCap gave me a "Fair" with the position determined by PoleMaster. A very minor tweak in Alt easily tipped it over into "Good" and after a bit more adjustment of AZ I finally got to "Excellent". Now I'm in a quandry! Which is the more accurate? Having completed the SharpCap PA I tracked to an alignment star and fair to say I was not spot on - plate solving with the ASIair sorted everything and the unguided imaging session (180s exposures) show no signs of trailing. More testing required me thinks! Adrian

I'm a bit late to the Nova party but last night conditions were good enough to try to re-image a region I last imaged in July 2019. I've done my best to process in the same way and achieve the same colours but it's really difficult. Anyway - enough excuses - I was pretty pleased that Nova V1405 Cas is visible. I know I missed it at it's best and this image does definitely not stand up to close scrutiny. The 2019 image on the left was captured with a Canon 200mm + ASI1600MM; the 2021 image with a RedCat 250mm + ASI1600MM. Classical nova like V1405 Cas are close binary stars comprised of a compact white dwarf and either a main-sequence star like our Sun or a red giant. The dwarf’s powerful gravity siphons hydrogen from its partner into an accretion disk. Material then funnels from the disk to the dwarf’s surface, where it’s compacted and heated to around 10 million Kelvin, hot enough to trigger explosive nuclear fusion. Only a relatively small amount of the stolen hydrogen burns; the majority of the material is blasted into space in a rapidly expanding shell. - taken from Sky & Telescope This is my first attempt at a GIF animation - pretty crude I'm afraid. Thanks for looking and aplogies for the quality of the images. Adrian