Wiu-Wiu

A dramatic name for a dramatic sky region. 

Took this image over 2 nights, with a 72 ED, Asi 533 cemera on EQ6, in Rooisand Desert Ranch, Namibia. 

Took me some time to process as the refractor didn't quite show nicely corrected star images. I finally ended up getting rid of all the stars and recombining it with the stars in the Blue Channel. 

For fun, here's the "starless" image too. I quite like the effect too. 

This nebula is really a showpiece in the telescope. I just had to make a picture. The whole nebula didn't fit so I made a 2 panel mosaic, but it could have even been a larger one, it stretches out really far. 

Enjoy!

Imaged at Deepskysafaris, Rooisand desert ranch, Namibia. 

TS100Q, Asi 071, EQ8. L-extreme filter. 

The right side was still showing soe borders so I redid the mosaic. Also made it a little less dark  

This image was taken under the superb skies of the Deepskysafari Rooisand Desert Ranch, Namibia. 

Scope: TS100Q on SW EQ8 mount, asi 071 camera, controlled by asiair pro. I manually framed the panels to match up. The image took me 3 nights to gather all data.

Image resized for data purposes

I'll work on an annotated version, there's a couple of globular clusters and other stuff in there too  

Will post a link to a larger size image later, as the original is almost 60 GB large. 

Might help to include the time and direction of the picture, at least to try and identify the two stars - if that’s what they are, because those could probably just be reflections from all the glass the picture is taken through (windows, camera lenzes,…)
 

if you say the moon was further to the right, my thought would be a moondog, a strong reflection of the moon’s halo in the clouds. They usually occur on certain angles and distance to the moon’s position, so that would be a good thing to research first. 

This small but bright part of the Vela SNR is easily observed visually, so I decided to put it on the photolist. If I'd known the intricate details at the left would be so visible, I would have framed it differently. 

Not disappointed, though  

I puzzled together a new imaging rig, wanting to go a little more widefield. Plan was to attach my canon EOS camera to it and throw it on a skyguider, making a nice and light mobile travel unit. 

Things turned out a little different. Taking the skyguider on the plane would have taken too much out of my 23 kg baggage limit. I also had added a small guidescope to be sure it stayed on track. So I rented a SW EQ3 mount on location. But then I figured I could as well buy that nice new camera I was eyeballing. 

And if I had all that, I should definately attach my spare EAF, so the thing could autofocus. 

Well, I could have done worse, I think. 

Imaged at Rooisand desert farm in Namibia with a Redcat 51, controlled by my asiair V1, motorfocus, asi 533 mc pro on a SW EQ3 mount.

This area in Corona Australis is quite interesting. I made a 5 panel mosaic, each panel having 20 subs of 300 seconds. 

Some nice detail is seen in the darkest part - some of the gas is colored blue.

Images taken with a TS 100Q and asi 071 on EQ8, Namibia. 

5 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

So many stars! Oh how I wish for skies like that! Great image 👍

Thank you - I've always wanted to get under these kind of skies. I was not disappointed! 

Winter just started now, and they still had some spots free. I kid you not - this is a perfect place! You'll find more info on deespkysafaris.com 

I just got back from a deepsky trip at the Rooisand farm in Namibia. By far the best sky I have ever seen! Absolutely NO lightpollution, good transparency, and when the wind played nicely, excellent seeing. We had 10 nights under these skies, with 10+ hours of astro darkness. Needless to say I have A LOT of data to process. 

The final object I shot, was this dark nebula. I processed it first, as all other dark nebulae I shot, are mosaic projects. And I need to sleep  

Only 3 hours, from 3 to 6 am. NO filter, straight from the camera. 36x300s, TS100Q, EQ8. 

I only have a small city garden, the rig is just 6 meters away from the back door. Still, I placed a wifi mesh under the balcony (in a waterproof box) to extend my signal in the garden. 
For the 100m range, I’d look into wifi solutions over your electric net. (Powerline wifi adapter) One receiver at the setup, another one indoors, that should work just fine! 

If I can make it work without broadcasting my imaging live to all the neighbours, then anyone can! 

This is both of them mounted to my imaging scope: 

You could broaden your home wifi signal with a mesh, and put a TP link travel router on your asiair, that connects to your home wifi. 

Whenever you are connected to your home wifi, you can control the asiair as if you were standing next to it. 
 

It works with any router, but the TP one is light, can be powered through the asiair, and if you know where to 3d-print, you can download a contraption on thingiverse that holds it firm on the back of the asiair. (That way you keep it free for cooling) 

I've had this in my agenda for quite a while, happy to see the predictions made then could still be valid  I'll be up and watching! 

.. feels like shooting fish in a barrel. 

Slightly windy conditions forced me to seek cover and observe away from the attractive low South. 
 

still, lots to see there, too. 
 

this lovely pair is seen in the same FOV. Ngc 4625 shows lots of detail, one of the brighter patches (in the direction of a companion star) is actually designated an IC number. 

 

This lovely galaxy shows lots of mottling, and one bright star (a superimposed one?) is seen over the disc. 

couple of nights later, the scope was already tucked away, but we had another clear night so I took the bino to find some wider fields. 

Some binoviewing time was spent to sketch this cluster, Cr 140. 

I'll be visiting Namibia shortly, we'll be staying at http://www.deepskysafaris.com . They have quite a lot of equipment for rent, both for visual and astrophotography.  But you can bring your own equipment too if you want. 

I’ve been able to spot Crux and the Jewel Box from the top of the Roque, but that was looking downward to the horizon from the edge of the Caldera. Omega is a naked eye object, but you need free line of sight towards the South. That’s why I thought it would be nice to add the scenery. 

Our final night on the island of La Palma, had to catch my flight at 10 am, so the telescope was already stowed away. I spent all night scrolling through the sky with a pair of binoculars. 

I might as well make a sketch then, this is Omega Centauri as it was rising over the mountain, in between the trees. 

I use the IDAS D1 and my typical SQM here is 19,3 - 19,6 on a good night. 
 

as for software, I have both APP and PI but still process comets in PI, i haven’t tried the comet function in APP yet. 
further processing is done in Affinity. 
 

thank you for helping! I’ll look for a way on how to do this in the software I have, there should be a similar way, i think.  

I’ve seen lots of excellent images of comets here, and one thing always strikes me: they usually have a green hue in them. 
but how much I do try, I can’t seem to be getting any color in my comet images. 
 

is it because of the use of an LPS filter? Or is it lost in my processing? 
I use an OSC camera and usually integrate at least 30 minutes per image, for fainter comets 1 or 2 hours. 
 

My comet images

The moon is starting to get brighter, so shooting galaxies is not an option anymore, lucky Cygnus is starting to rise, bringing a bunch of lovely nebulousity with it so we can still shoot narrowband images. 

I started with NGC 3726, a face on spiral galaxy in UMA, which can be added to my list of underrated galaxies. I really need to make work of my longer focal length setup, and do these with the C11 Edge one day. 

After this, I spent some time on the Propellor, which doesn't show up in the Asiair database, which is a shame as it is missed by a lot of imagers that way. This is clearly a quite bright and easy target. I need to add more data over the summer. 

I used the coordinates to find it, hence the strange composition. I'm lucky to have that bright streak to the lower richt, to fill in some empty space.