R26 oldtimer

What a great part of the night sky!

Sh2-54 is somewhat neglected, probably because of its proximity to M16 and the famous Hubble pillars of creation.

SHO palette  with HOO stars.

Ha:5x1200, OIII:6x1200, SII:7x1200
Nyx101-SWed80@480mm-Touptek 571m-Baader UNB.

I think they share the same optics. Both are nice, the bresser variant has an R&P 2.5" focuser which is great for astrophotography and the GSO has a smoother (but slipping under heavy load) crayford focuser with 1:10 reduction which makes it nicer for visual.

The bresser seems to have a better designed dobsonian mount especially the altitude rings, and can easily be adapted to ride on an equatorial mount.

If it's purely visual, I would probably go with the GSO (as is cheaper too), but if I wanted to keep my options open, then I would go for the Bresser variant.

Well this is my last image with a CCD, data were taken during last autumn. My image acquisition starts from July until late September and then I spend the winter with processing. This is my last one from 2023 imaging period, can't wait to try my new imx571 this year.

This is the often imaged M33 in SHO pallete, shot with a QHY9 mono, Bresser150NT-s with Lacerta GPU cc, Pegasus NYX-101 mount guided with SXoag & SV305pro and Baader UNB filters.

Ha: 59x1200 binx1, OIII: 69x1200 binx2, SII: 54x1200 binx2, so approximately 60 hours, drizzled x2.

Thanks for watching!

And an annotated version,

Different flange distance in simple optical design lenses should make a difference only in infinity focus position. But with complex design lenses as the Sigma it will introduce aberrations. So my guess is that you need some spacers / washers so your focus (when focusing at stars) mark is similar as when you had the lens on the DSLR.

It is very interesting. What differentiates it from a usual EAA setup is that you no longer need a laptop, so more plug and play.

Now, how can I get two of those for a binoscope? 😂

Moving to the CMOS era. Artesky delivered a Touptek 571 mono for a great price. They also have technical support for their cameras in Italy, so if anything goes wrong (hopefully not 🤞) the camera will be sent for repair in Italy instead of China.

Very excited with this purchase!!

A camera monitoring your equipment might be the easiest answer. I've had this problem and used my remote camera to roughly drive my mount to home position. Then after a plate solved go-to, the mount will return to it's true home position, after a home command.

It's not so much about the actual star shape rather than the diffraction spikes. Each filter produces an intermittent spike (dotted?) which has a different pattern for each narrowband filter. When all three channels get combined this results to "longitudinal rainbow" diffraction spikes.

13 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Nice. I can't see that it makes any sense to mix a colour mapped palette like SHO with a natural colour RGB palette, but RGB stars in HOO make sense since HOO resembles RGB.

Olly

I see your point. There are two reasons that make me want to try RGB stars. One is that I don't like magenta SHO stars even with inverted green SCNR, but that is sort of fixed with adding HOO stars instead. The other reason is that ultra narrowband filters produce really weird diffraction spikes with my newt that don't coincide between filters.

Other than that I completely agree with you, no need for true colour stars in a false colour image.

I would definitely use a beefier tripod to make the mount justice. In my setup (harmonic mount & eq6 tripod) even finger pressure on one of the legs, sends the guiding RMS from 0.6" to more than 1"

The lobster claw in SHO palette with HOO stars. Although HOO stars are better than SHO, I think that I should really try to take half a hour worth of data in RGB for the stars from now on...

Equipment used: Bresser 150NT-s & lacerta GPU cc, pegasus astro NYX-101, QHY9mono, Baader UNB filters, OAG with sv305pro

Ha: 47x1200sec binx1, OIII: 49x1200 binx1, SII: 27x1200 binx2

This is another nebula I captured this summer. As I mostly image during July through September, summertime is for harvesting data and winter for processing.

Equipment used: Bresser 150NT-s & lacerta GPU cc, pegasus astro NYX-101, QHY9mono, Baader UNB filters, OAG with sv305pro

Ha: 45x1200sec binx1, OIII: 40x1200 binx1, SII: 21x1200 binx2

Hope you enjoy it!

Well, in science you need an assumption (theorem) and the actual verification (through multiple observation & experimentation). We observe and verify, so are actually doing science, especially in times where even our planet's shape is questioned.

This is my version of NGC 6820.

Faint nebulocity with interesting details, might have to go back and gather more data next summer. SHO palette with HOO stars.

Equipment used:  Bresser 150NT-s & lacerta GPU cc, pegasus astro NYX-101, QHY9mono, Baader UNB filters, OAG with sv305pro

Ha: 29x1200sec binx1, OIII: 23x1200 binx2, SII: 31x1200 binx2

Thanks for looking!

I like playing with equipment too, but to be honest, it's like an endless tweak.

Perhaps the best route is to concentrate on a decent one scope/camera setup, iron out all of its quirks, and image, image, image, process, process, process.

@sajmons It would very nice to see a CC plugin for NINA. Would it be very difficult?

2 hours ago, mackiedlm said:

I really like this target and think it gets less attention than it deserves. this is a nice rendition.

Thank you for your kind words. It certainly deserves more attention. I've shot the central part of the nebula as well as Sh2-170 (a.k.a. the small rosette) in the past, with a mono camera at 750mm, so I may try to integrate the data in this widefield image.

This was my last imaging session for 2023. Shot over two clear nights during Christmas (full moon of course 😆).

90x300sec, total of 7.5 hours.

Equipment used: Nyx-101, Canon RPa, Canon FD 300L @ 2.8, IDAS NBZ.

Thanks for watching! 👍

That's a great attempt on this target, congrats!

No need to start a new thread, this is the full 56 hour SHO version.

Thank you 😊

This summer I managed to gather approximately 55 hours of data in Ha, OIII & SII of the wizzard nebula (NGC 7380). Things didn't go smoothly, as my collimation had to be redone after three nights and my data aren't as good as I expected. Anyway I am starting to process them, starting with hydrogen and oxygen and this is my take on a HOO image using 36 hours of 1200sec subs.

Equipment used: Bresser 150NT-s with Lacerta GPU cc, Pegasus Astro Nyx-101, Qhy9 mono & Baader ultra NB filters. Bortle 6

Thanks for watching!

Well worth the effort, congrats!

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

Good for a scope costing less than 300 quid isn’t it. 

Thanks, the optics are pretty good, certainly on par with the SW equivalent. And the 1.1x GSO coma corrector did a fine job for the price.

This is my version of the central part of IC 1848 in SHO.

Equipment used: SW eq6, Bresser 150NTs + GSO cc, QHY9m, Baader 7nm NB filters

Total integration time: 21 hours

Thanks for looking!