john2y

Hey guys, I have an Explore Scientific 102/714 APO and I use it with ASI1600MM and it works great, recenly I've been thinking about upgrading my reducer/flattener to some that can correct wider field so I could use my Canon 6D with it. I found couple of 0.8x reducers that would fit my needs but they're for 2.5'' focusers and larger. I wouldn't mind getting a new focuser too (mine is 2''), the problem is that I've read that ES doesn't have officially switchable focuser and I'm afraid that if I'd get a new one, it wouldn't fit. So my question is, do you know about any focal reducers around 0.8x that are for 2'' focusers or does anybody here have an experience with swapping the focuser on an Explore Scientific refractor? Cheers Jan

I'm an idiot, exactly as Jkulin says. I almost never do a calibration and once I did it it fixed the problem. Thank you everybody for the help and suggestions.

Hey guys, so we've had a lot of cloudy nights lately so I had a ''briliant'' idea to update all my drivers and firmware. That included my CEM60, I got the latest firmware for DEC, RA and MAIN board (also HC but I don't use it or even connec it to the mount) and the iOptron commander with the ASCOM driver. I got the latest non beta version of PHD2 and bunch of other stuff. The problem is that tonight when I started the sequence in SGP everything went well untill PHD started guiding, once it did a correction on DEC, my mount just started slowly drifting in the opposite direction of that pulse and PHD just wasn't capable of correcting it. After couple of attemts and bunch of resets I didn't get anywhere. It does it only in DEC, RA is guiding normally and it does it both ways depending on the first pulse it receives. Any ideas on how to fix it? Cheers Jan

It looks like a really nice image but I'd definitely crop out the stacked edges, also try to denoise it a little less, a little noise is better than completely smoothed out image 😉

So about two months ago I did a widefield of the Cepheus using my Canon 6D and Samyang 135mm. Out of curiosity I cropped the Shark out of the image, using dynamic align I align it with my luminance data, then I really strongly denoised it and combined it to make LRGB image and even though it looks bad as an image it looks good as a preview of what I'm gonna get when I'll be done with it 🙂

You got good data but something wrong has happend during processing, using deconvolution you've managed to produce some artifacts that look like a white thread and the stars are really deformed possibly due to excessive use of star reduction. Try some reprocessing it I believe you'll get much better result 😉

New update in the first post 🙂

It looks like really nice image but try to reduce the chrominance noise either in Pixi using MLT or photoshop using Luminance denoise and cranking up the color noise reduction.

Thank you for the compliment but it wouldn't be possible without such good data 😉 about the noise, try cutting the exposures a little, it might be that but I don't think so, I use asi1600mm and I do 8min exposures but as I've said the data looks solid so you'll just need some experimenting, you could also add more data, that always helps if you're not running 40 hours already 😄 . About the processing it just takes practise, I usually try to process at least one image per day, even the same one over and over. Practise makes it best 🙂

This is what I've come up with, I've never seen data so clean, so well applied flat and everything and yet I had trouble denoising it which quite suprises me and I don't know the cause of that. I started by resampling it by 50% then manual DBE, TGVDenoise, LRGB combination as HOO, Masked stretch, Lum mask and playing with curves, Range mask and another curves and then ACDNR for smothing the background. What filters are you using, they seem really good. I'm asking as I use ZWO and they're not the best.

This is an awesome image but I can't help but notice the vertical banding. If you're using Pixinsight for processing, try Canon Banding Reduction script, it should get rid of all the bands 😉 otherwise it's an excellent result 🙂

I'll gladly have a look at that 😉

Sorry for tinkering with your data, I just wanna show what I ment, background does shine, it's not pitch black but it also doesn't shine like the nebula in front of it. If you look at your image, the background in the center is black but outside isn't. I did manually DBE (and yes there was a gradient from the center to the edges) and then just applied inverted luminance mask and using curves I slightly lowerd saturation and brightness of the background. It's jpeg so it's not ideal but you get the gist.

First post was updated with a preview of the mosaic

I know you were trying to pull as much nebulosity as possible but the background doesn't shine like that, what program do you use for processing? It also looks like your flat didn't apply correctly as the edges are much brighter than the center of the image. Overall the data looks really nice so it would be shame if you didn't give the processing another go

Thank you for the tip! I'm looking into it and just from what I've tried in pixi just to see what's it about I really like it. Thank you, I googled few images and I know exactly what you mean

This image consists of 4 widefield panels taken with Samyang 135mm on Canon 6D this year in Chile while I was visiting for the eclipse. Under really dark skies it is a naked eye object.

Hey guys, few weeks ago I started shooting the Wizard nebula in narrowband so I could process it in SHO. I was originally planning on doing 10 hours per channel but then I've decided to cut the times short as I started a different project which is much bigger than this one (the Dark shark nebula) I ended up with 6 hours of Ha and 2 hours of Oiii and Sii each. Processed it in Pixi and even though the image is noisy and the stars look terrible, it's done. Next time I'll try to do better. Cheers Jan

That image looks great and I admire your dedication for this one, but something's wrong in your imaging train, look at the stars in your top right corner. It's like the camera was pulling on one side of the focuser so much the sensor stopped being parallel with the rest of the imaging train. I used to have the same problem, I'd recommend checking the stiffness of the focuser and retightening of every screw around it. Also this might be just my taste but I would hold back on with the denoising, with 53 hours you don't really need it and the result looks a bit too plastic. A little noise is good it adds sharpness to the image.

It looks like something in the imaging train isn't parallel, otherwise the stars would look the same in all corners. Check the tightness of everything. Definitely use the L filter as it cuts UV/IR.

Hey guys, three days ago I started gathering some data for the Dark shark. Due to the FOV of my setup I can't fit the whole nebula in one pic so I'll have to do a 2 panel mosaic. As it's my most favorite nebula and so far I only captured it in a widefield using Samyang 135mm with Canon 6D so it was super tiny. Now I finally tunned out my setup to do it properly. As I already mentioned I think it's just so amazing and the resemblance to a shark is really uncanny so I'm planning on spending some real time on this one. I've planned out 15-20 hours of luminance data for each panel with 5 hours for each colour filter for each panel. My current record is 22 hours of integration time and I aim to surpass it more than twice 😅. It's gonna be real pain but I really hope it'll be worth it. This is the result so far after three days. 103x5min (8,6 hous) of L data for the left part of the mosaic. I was surprised how visible it is after this short amount of time, I processed it in Pixi but only did DBE, Stretch, Resampled it down by 50% and fiddled with curves. In the full resolution the noise is still problem but it should slowly disappear after I add more data. Telescope: Explore Scientific 102/714 APO Triplet with 0.8x reducer Mount: iOptron CEM60 Camera: ASI1600MM Pro - Gain 0, Offset 50, Cooled to -20 Update 28.8.2019: Last night I finished shooting of the head part and mannaged to squeeze a few shots of the tail part as well so this is first preview of how it's gonna look like You can see the difference between the head with 12 hours of data and the tail with just one and a half, I need some clear moonles nights. 7.9.2019 Update: I've managed to finish Luminance acquisition, so far 31 hours but I had to throw 7 hours out due to a lower quality. Now I'll have a couple of weeks of NB imaging as the moon starts to grow, then I'll hopefully do the RGB. Cheers Jan

That is beautiful, I'm saving up for secondhand 6D and images like these just make me want it even more ?

Hey guys, few weeks ago I got myself the EAGLE3 by Primaluce Lab as a replacement of my 8 year old laptop to control my whole setup. Even though I'm saving up for a new mount this was my priority as my laptop refused to start when the battery, optical drive or keyboard were connected so I always had to remove the keyboard, start the laptop and then reconnect it and I was really afraid that it's gonna die on me and I wouldn't be able to shoot. Even though I'm not promoting it in this review I should disclose that I got it for better price as I'm working with Primalucelab on Instagram. I got the EAGLE3 Q which is the same as the base model but with slightly better cpu. It has Intel pentium 1,5GHz quadcore cpu, 4GB of ram and 120GB SSD. The build quality is excellent, I already had their Sesto Senso motorised focuser and I knew that they're doing a great job building these things. The body is anodized aluminium with red finish and the bottom and top parts are filled with holes for easy mounting of it in whatever way you wish to do it. The sides are full of USB ports (4x2.0 + 4x3.0), it has three ports for heating and the back has 4 power outputs for powering your gear. The Eagle has Windows 10 Enterprise edition and on startup it launches their control software, so you can decide what to power and what ports will be active. It took me a while to get everything ready for imaging as I had to install all drivers, and programs. The only problem I had was with SGP not seeing my mount but it turned out I forgot to install driver for the RS-232 to USB converter, after that it worked flawlessly. Then I spent couple of nights just catching some bugs in form of tweaking settings. Integrating it into my imaging train was quite easy and I've decided to sandwich it between my main telescope and guidescope, probably most used type of integration. I got mine with better power adapter which can provide sufficient power to the eagle so it can power other things like camera cooler and ZWO power adapter. I'm planning on getting a new mount soon so I'll be getting power cable for it too and also for the focuser so my setup will have just one power cable coming out of it. The cable management with this thing is awesome. No hanging cables anymore and I got rid of the power brick for my ASI camera which I had attached with velcro to one of the tripod legs and it had bad habit of falling and pulling on my telescope while imaging. Pros: It is durable, quite fast pc, it can control your whole setup and cable managing is great with it. Cons: Definitely price, there are way cheaper options like ASIAIR. So far I haven't figured out how to reliably control it with TeamViewer without it loosing the connection so I'm forced to use Remote desktop. Also my unit hat only 40GBs of storage when I got it and the rest was locked in hidden partition but this was fixed immediately when I contacted the tech support. I really love this thing as it solved the problems I had with my old pc and I finally control everything remotely. The cable management is as I've said awesome and build quality too. BUT to be completely honest I wouldn't get it for the full price, I was actually looking for a miniPC something like Intel nuc which is half the price. What I'm trying to say is that with a little bit more work and a few compromises, you can get quite close to the Eagle with cheaper alternatives. On the other hand, the Eagle is made for astrophotography and it will make things much easier. I hope this can help out some people who are considering purchasing this thing and I also hope I didn't butcher the English too much ? Here is the timelapse from the first night where everything worked as it should be, completely controlled by the eagle.

It looks like the gradient removal process clipped the background completely so it's just black. Also some nebulosity got clipped as well.