smr

This is really impressive! I can't believe I am faffing around with a DSLR unmodified and imaging for 16 hours to get an image with way less SNR than this. I need to buy myself my ASI294MC Pro !

Thanks Alan. Was looking for a star cluster which will look sufficiently big to image in my fov but M13 isn't that big, probably not worth imaging with 430mm.

Hi all, Is it okay to image star clusters when the Moon is out? I think I've read that you can do so, but is imaging them in moonlight affected by the moonlight as opposed to no Moon ?

Think you've answered it for yourself then, the ASI294MC Pro with say, the STC Duo Narrowband filter looks like a great combination. I think I'm going to upgrade to this as it will be a nice introduction to dedicated cameras from a DSLR and I could then upgrade to Mono perhaps when I've mastered cooling, gain, darks etc. all of that stuff. Since August I have had 4 clear nights, two with great transparency and seeing but two not quite so much. And that's every single night since then. If it's clear and moonless that's all we have had. I think if you live where clear skies are the norm (South of France for instance) then I'd definitely invest in Mono as you'd just have so much more time to invest in a Mono system, no rushing, no frustration in that you haven't completed a sequence of imaging or collected all of the data from each filter etc. As OSC Cameras improve as well I just think they're going to get better and better, and these narrowband filters are improving all the time as well. The QHY268C looks terrific, is in development, and will be around £1,900.

Jeeze. That's amazing. The best Eastern Veil Nebula I've ever seen. Wow. I definitely need to buy a dedicated astronomy camera. So this was imaged with an ASI1600MM Mono?

I think if i was starting out again I'd probably go for a modded camera. But, and I may be wrong on this, there are pros to having an unmodded camera I think, which are; Sometimes, in quite a lot of photos I've seen from modified DSLRs, there tends to be too much red. I don't know if this is a problem with the the way that they are modified or because they are modified / letting too much Ha dominate, or whether its a processing problem which presents itself in modified DSLRs and means toning back on the 'over-red' is just harder to process. Star bloat seems to be a problem / more of a problem sometimes with modded images I've seen, and less so without modified DSLRs. Star colours seem better with unmodified DSLRs. Again, this could just be my perception and not exactly how things are. But with a modified DSLR you can record more structure in the Ha and discern more of it visually in a quite a substantially shorter time. And you can also use Ha filters with modded DSLRs. I think I'd be happy to forego any of the pros of an unmodified DSLR if starting again. But just one thing - there are plenty of targets which aren't dominated by Ha so a modded DSLR is definitely not essential. Over the last two years I've been imaging with an unmodified DSLR, and here are some images to give you an idea of what you can achieve with one. Having said that I've been happy learning about astrophotography over the last two years and imaging with my unmodified Canon80D... soon I'll hope to be buying myself a dedicated astronomy camera so I'm excited for that. The Great Orion (M42) and Running Man (M43) Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr Rosette Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr HH & Flame Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr The Pleiades by Joel Spencer, on Flickr Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31 by Joel Spencer, on Flickr Eastern Veil Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr Cygnus by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Thank you very much.

Hi all, This is my longest astrophotography project to date. The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a many portions of which have acquired their own individual names and catalogue identifiers. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, which exploded around 8,000 years ago. The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full Moon). The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) data supports a distance of about 1,470 light years. Integration: 15 hours, 50 minutes of total exposure time ISO 200 No Darks (Dithered) 200 Bias Frames 25 Flats Per Session Equipment: Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 73 Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan Belt Mod Autoguiding Scope: Starwave 50mm Guidescope Autoguiding Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM Mini Camera: Canon 80D (unmodified) Software: PHD2 Guiding Astrophotography Tool Deepskystacker Adobe Photoshop Adobe Lightroom I've just started an Astrophotography channel as well so if you want to see the final session you can here...

Well it's accurate!

Good suggestion, thanks. Worth considering.

Hi guys, I'm starting a youtube Astrophotography channel and need a name / brand for it. Wondered if you have any suggestions? Thanks! Joel

Hi guys, Just wondered when you start imaging with regards to a full or illuminated Moon and it's position relative to the horizon/setting when imaging nebula without Ha filters for instance. Do you wait until the Moon sets, so tonight that would be 10:59pm. Or do you start imaging when it's below a certain altitude, or do you wait until well after the Moon has set and it's below the horizon? Wondering how much moon light affects imaging.

It does seem very good. I've watched quite a few videos and am onto the realm of pixels part... but I'm a bit confused...Adam uses CCDstack and stretches the image / adjusts brightness etc. before Photoshop showing a really nice result already.. But I use Deepskystacker to stack and then use Photoshop for everything - stretching etc. So should I be using a program similar to CCDstack before Photoshop? I also don't record FITS files, and instead capture RAW files as I use a DSLR. But CCDstack only seems to work with FITs.

Thanks Alan. Yes I've just been looking through Adam's website, it's $99. But it does sound like it's exactly what I'm looking for. May well be worth the investment. Have you purchased it yourself?

Thanks for the above books. I'm not sure I need the imaging primer though? I thought that was to do with gear needed and acquisition rather than image processing?

Yes I'm using Photoshop CS6 and just a bit weary of the older books and their relevance now. Ie. would they be teaching steps which I can't find in the newer version of PS etc.

Hi, I'd like to buy some good books for Astrophotography processing. I use Adobe Photoshop so books relevant to this software would be most beneficial. Thanks. Joel

I think you need to take flats for each session, as everything in the optical train has to be exactly as is when taking the lights. I do this by using my laptop screen and opening notepad, really easy and quick to do at the end of each imaging session. Does look like you need to sort out your dark frame calibration properly though, I think that's amp glow on the top right of the frame which I've read should be completely eliminated by using dark frames. Apart from that, very encouraging. The colours look nice though calibration will make them look better and there's a good amount of detail. Best I have seen so far from you with the 294.

Fantastic photo! You must be really happy with that. What are your sky conditions like? Bortle ?

Yes it produces a single image at the end. I'm not sure if it would work as well by importing multiple nights worth of data into one group. How would it know which flats belonged to which night for instance? Or would that even matter?

So just stack all data from each night into group 1 basically improves the final stacked image?

restack everything into the groups in DSS. So night 1 data group 1, night 2 group 2 etc.

Nice. Mind linking to the image? Would like to see that.

Thank you guys. I've decided I'm going to try and get as much data on this as I can. I've got 7 hours now and am seeing a difference in the data. I'm going to try and get 20-30 hours for the first time (longest I've gone is 7 hours on any DSO) to see what the result should look like then.