Vroobel

In 2017 I bought a Bresser Messier 10" Newtonian OTA with a Dobsonian mount. I built my ATM Opus Magnum EQ fork mount with hope that it will hold the Newtonian. When I finish building the fork mount I realised that a weight of the OTA causes big problem for guiding (inertia). Earlier I found that three clips holding its main mirror and a part of focuser tube staing inside the OTA make annoying shadows on bright star images ( https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/572839-how-to-remove-clips-shadows-in-a-newtonian ). Another problem was that a spider holding a secondary mirror wasn't a perfect cross, so the spikes became blurry. Also, the secondary mirror wasn't in a middle. And finally, a quite heavy Canon 6D and Baader MPCC were causing that the focuser didn't keep the optical axis. It caused that the position of the camera was changing within the night and flats were unable to counteract the vignetting properly. Everything together made that I stopped using it. I found that replacing a steel tube with a carbon one should eliminate problems of the load and stiffness of the focuser. But what about the rest? As it cost nothing, I made some alterations using my love to the 3D creations, but not only about that. It was to check, whether spending money makes sens.
 

1. A 10 mm thick arched supporting plate providing a bigger stiffness for the focuser thanks to its area. As it's 10mm thick, the focuser tube goes outside 10mm less.
   
   
   
    
2. A collar reducing slightly an aperture of the main mirror, but hiding the clips causing shadows.
   
   
   
   
   
    
3.  The focuser tube is shorter now that eliminated another shadow, bigger than the ones caused by the clips.
   
   
   
    
4.  The secondary mirror is equipped with a home-made horse-shoe-style dew heater and PTC sensor that allows connecting it to my Smart Dew Heaters Controller based on the Arduino.
   
   
   
   
   
    
5.  And as last the ZWO EAF is attached to the focuser.
   
   
   
   

This way the old budget Newtonian became a quite nice OTA, especially that it's F/5. It's still hard to guide with 17kg + accesories, but the results are satisfactory for me (please take into account that it's 1270mm FL driven by fully ATM EQ fork mount). I can consider the carbon tube now, if I found any cheap. The guiding will be easier, if I reduce the weight around twice.

Coming back to the proper size? 

Hi,

Comming back to session from 17/10/22: a third version of the Eastern Veil Nebula. 

Newton 10" F/5, Optolong L-eXtreme, MPCC III, modified EOS 6D.
45 x 300s ISO1250 + 3 x 20 calibration frames.

It's stacked in the Affinity Photo, partly processed in the PixInsight (PCC, all X plugins separately on the nebula leyer and the stars leyer, modified HOO PixelMath by Bill Blanshan), stretching and some cosmetics in the Affinity Photo.

Edit.
2nd rev. of the Eastern Veil HOO with the PI & Bill Blanshan.

It's much better! 👍

I work on laptop, but it never display the colors like my 27" Dell QHD. Every display is different, even if they work at sRGB...

Beautiful picture, very detailed, even if taken with the 51mm only. 

Could you try to reduce the bluish cast from the background? 

And again, the same M81 and M82 captured on 4/11/22 using my ATM mount and 10" F/5 Bresser Messier Newtionian OTA.

Newton 10" F/5, IDAS LPS-P2, MPCC III, modified EOS 6D.
108 x 60s ISO1250 + 3 x 50 calibration frames.
Stacked in the Affinity Photo, processed in the PI and final cosmetics again in the AP.

HI,

Coming back to already presented work and reprocessing them with PI and all X plugins has become fashionable, so I'm not going to stay behind.

Earlier I based on a rule I developed within the Affinity Photo: the Ha and OIII colours came from separating the R as Ha and G+B as OIII (0.85*G+B). Now, thanks to encouragement from @Catanonia and @Radec I started using the PI which I have for several months. The Bill Blanshan's PixelMath HOO formula works incomparably better, so I think this is a milestone in my post processing of nebulas.

Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49, Caldwell 50/NGC 2244) - 2023.02.13
Altair 102/715 EDT, Optolong L-eXtreme, Planostar x1.0 FF, modified EOS 6D.
14 x 600s  (2h 20m) + 25 x dark, 25 x bias, 30 x flat.

Unbelievable! 😳

You must be tired after each session, there is no chance for a short sleep... 

Hi, 

When did you do all the acquisitions?

The progress is visible, but I think two things are to improve. This picture and the Jelly Fish look like out of focus, so medium stars look like donuts. It's visible also in the starless pic. The second, what software/plugin do you use to remove stars? 

Hi,

As usually, another DSOs in two approaches: simply stretched and splited between R and G+B then streched separately and blended, both with a typical work. It was a first light for my new 3" 0.8x reducer that in theory turns my F/7 triplet APO into F/5.6 astrograph. The 3" do the job with a full frame Canon 6D.

The Flaming Star and Tadpole Nebulae captured on 24/02/2023.
Altair 102/715 EDT, Optolong L-eXtreme, Planostar M92 x0.8 Reducer, modified EOS 6D.
29 x 600s  (4h 50m) + 25 x dark, bias and flat calibration frames, Bortle 8ish.

All post processing done in Affinity Photo (yet).

Hi. 

It's interesting problem that I'm also involved in. I discuss with my friend whether nice colours are better or true colours. For me personally, astrophotography is a kind of art, so we should be free in the colour pallet, but is there any range of reasonable colours? I.e., I'm not a fan of pinkish Ha red, so I like to move towards a colour of sand. Am I wrong? 

I like the gray version of your work, details are better visible. 

😊

It's like a big red broccoli sprinkled with diamonds. 😁

Awesome 3D picture. 

I'll send PM. I think it's wider subject, I live in Liverpool, so you understand... 

It's one of the best M51 pics I ever saw. 

And now I really don't know whether to go into 2600MM + narrow filters or 2600MC (also with some filters like L-eXtreme). 😳

Wow, 

I don't take wider fields seriously because of my location, but this artpiece means a lot of work put in, so hats off. 😮

Be careful with the modifications. It's easy to damage the camera and even if not damaged, you can face a tilt caused by the sensor screwed wrong. You will have a permanent coma on one side or corner. 

Masterpiece!

Absolutely gorgeous! 😍

Hi,

What is a reason of the dark circles? 

@imakebeer, you can find ypur Nikon D5500 here:

https://astrophotography.app/nikon.php

and compare it to i.e. my Canon 6D. The Nikon D5500 has QE = 58%, but smaller pixer, around 4um, while the Canon 6D has QE = 49(50)%, but its pixel has ~3x bigger surface.

I use modified C6D, which is one of the best cheap full frame OSC. Even if I buy a cooled mono camera with all stuff arround, I will always keep the C6D with the L-eXtreme.

If you are going to buy a dual-band filter, I would suggest to not compromise by buying some cheap replacement. You can consider also IDAS products or other, even more expensive, but remeber: "who buys cheap, buys twice".

BTW, I experience a greenish cast each time (easy removable by levels), but never any patterns. 

I have similar problems with my location, also garden on the North side. Recently I worked on the Rosette Nebula that required 600s subs to capture enough amount of photons, 2h 20m only. It was between a tall tree and my chimney. 😕 But I think about a mono camera and filters, then 3x 2h should give me much more satisfaction... 

I can also advise the Affinity Photo which is cheap and works with wonderful plugins: GradientXterminator, NoiseXterminator and StarXterminator. They cost together more than the software, but they do awesome job. The Affinity Photo removes all satellite or airplane trails. Recently I performed only 14 subs 600s each, some contain the trails, but I cannot see any in the final picture. 

It's not always true that the total integration time matters if you have lot of short subs. 

Hi,

If it's standard body, I advise to send it to modification by removing filter from the front of sensor. Apart from that, definitely you should by a dualband filter, like Oprolong L-eXtreme (pr L-Ultimate, if yo can...) 2" and perform much, much longer subs, like 240s.

What software do you use for the post processing?

Hi,

This time I'd like to present the Rosette Nebula captured at night 13/02/23 in two versions: first one is in sand or the yellow brick colour, which I prefer, second one is in the HOO-style.

Altair 102/715 EDT, Optolong L-eXtreme, Planostar x1.0 FF, modified EOS 6D.
14 x 600s  (2h 20m) + 25 x dark, 25 x bias, 30 x flat.