Hughsie

Hi Shamba, nice image you have captured there, lots of detail. You may benefit from taking flat frames and calibrating them with your main images. If you are capturing Avi and stacking in autostakkert then it’s pretty straight forward. Just give me a shout if you need more info.

Attached is an inverted image of the Sun taken in Ha on 14 May 2019. The final output is comprised of two images, one capturing the surface detail and the second the prominence. Both were taken with my William Optics Z61, Daystar Quark Chromosphere, ZWO ASI174mm and captured using SharpCap. Surface image - Exposure time 10ms, Gain 40. 3,000 framed AVI. Prominence image - Exposure time 10ms, Gain c290 (memory bad!). 3,000 frames AVI. SharpCap settings then restored to the surface setting. Telescope was then centred on the Sun and defocussed. Further 3,000 frames of an AVI were taken to create a stacked flat frame. All three AVIs were stacked in AutoStakkert2 with the surface and prom image calibrated with the stacked flat frames. Best 60% taken. Levels adjustments undertaken in Photoshop along with high pass sharpening. Two images brought together as separate layers and combined in difference mode. Some contrast adjustments made to surface image as well. Many thanks. John

Great shots once again.

Hi Chris, very interesting and thank you for sharing. I am interested in doing something similar so just wanted to pick your brains on what you have done. If I am reading this right the workflow is; 1) Take a 1 minute avi 2) Stack Avi frames for the 1 minute film with a flat. 3) Output is a single stacked frame. Repeat step 1 every 4 min, in your case 20 times. Combine each of the 20 frames into ‘gif’ software to create the animation?

SharpCap is a free piece of image capturing software. It has a tool called Sensor Analysis which can be run in 15 minutes and will provide read noise for various gain settings on your camera. Once you have run this my understanding is that SharpCaps “smart historgram” and brain will provide details of appropriate settings for the camera. I am very much finding my feet with this and further details can be found at https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/features/smart-histogram Also the author of SharpCap gave a great presentation on whether long exposures are necessary:

I use a quark and asi174mm as above. My scope of choice is the William Optics Z61 if I am looking at the wider disc or putting together a mosaic. However, I have also started using the WO Z103ED for more close up work.

Second session this year with the old current bun. Would have finished a lot sooner but I left some dodgy settings in place on SharpCap and couldn't find the Sun for ages. Any hoo, here are two pictures. Both are compiled of two images, the first capturing the surface detail of the sun 10ms exposure and a gain of 40. The second captured the prominence, same exposure but the gain has been ramped up to see the prom, effectively overexposing the surface. Both are then over layed in photoshop using the 'difference' layer setting coupled with some sharpening and levels adjustments. Taken with my William Optics Z61, Daystar Quark Chromosphere, SharpCap, AutoStakkert2 and butchered in the usual way in Photoshop. Enjoy.

I have only shot one previous moon image and that was during the lunar eclipse in January 2019. I guess it's because the Moon is just 'there' and can be seen most of the time plus it gets in the way of deep sky imaging. But when its a new moon and cloudy and clear skies and a 70% waxing gibbous, if you can't beat them, join them! Here is my output from yesterday evening under a clear blue sky. 75% of 3,000 images captured with a William Optics Z103ED, ZWO ASI174MM complete with a Baader Neodymium filter. Thanks for checking in and any thoughts or feedback welcome. John

My turn to add to the great solar images posted today. This was a day of firsts today. First solar image for 2019 and the first taken with my new William Optics Z103 scope. Close up of AR2741 showing the umbra and penumbra as well as a small plage to the bottom left of the spot. Thanks for checking in.

Love the way it is offset to the right, and that sun spot.....feels like the all seeeing eye. The shadows give it that 3D view. Great picture imo.

After stretching I am seeing some nebulosity around the top of the mug and a faint view of the jelly bean galaxy to the right of the main target. As for the nappy pin in the mug, i can only put that down to some artefacts generated by your processing workflow. Other than that we have lift off.

Here is my first image taken with a William Optic Z61

I am happy with the camera and the photos I have captured so far. It is a learning curve but one worth climbing. The proof is in the pictures and a search on Astrobin using asi294mc as a search filter will reveal a lot of photos which you can check for yourself.

I went through the same dilemma a few months back and plumped for the ASI294MC pro cooled. So questions for me were the concerns over calibration. Sure there is amp glow but then you need to take calibration frames to overcome that and remember this is a one shot colour camera, no need to take separate luminance, red, green, blue subframes and no need to take calibration frames for each LRGB filter. Question for me was this - do I have the time to sit there and run individual image plans and calibration frames in one night or over a course of nights (weather permitting) to capture a dso AND do I then have the time to process and combine each LRGB set of frames? If your answer is yes, then go for the mono camera, filter wheel and filter option. You will capture more detail. If you answer is no, then a colour camera will allow you to capture an RGB image in one session (clouds permitting) and will be quicker to process.

This started out as a test run for the newly acquired ZWO ASI294MC Pro Cool camera and then has become a bit of an obsession. The first set of images were acquired on 29 March 2019. Overall there were 24 light frames at 5 minutes each taken at a gain of 120, no filters. With the Easter weekend offering clear skies I was tempted to look at other targets but in the end I went back to M51 as anything south facing would have been looking into a near full moon. Overall there are 60 light frames and 5 hours of data, by far the longest session I have done. I also took a further 100 minutes of Ha 12nm data but decided against combining because there appears to be some odd artefacts in the images which I haven't quite figured out what they are and the target is so small using a 60mm aperture scope that it doesn't really make an impact. I may come back to this again but for now I am done with it.

Potentially a dumb question, but the only stupid question is the one never asked. I have created a dark frame library for my ZWO ASI294mc pro cool camera when attached to my William Optics Z61 image train. I am now going to be using my William Optics Z103 scope more with the same camera attached and wonder whether a new dark frame library is required? Given all I am doing with the dark frames is capturing the noise within the camera sensor at a given temperature/gain/bin/exposure time, I imagine that a new library is not needed. Thank you in advance. John

Great images Wouter. Very nice work. Those mares look so smooth it just calls out to have a something drop into them.

Came to the conclusion that if you want to pay top dollar for an observation chair then just type “astronomy chair” in google and watch your wallet empty. However, type “ironing chair” and suddenly things become a bit more sensible price wise. See example below; https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leifheit-Multi-Seat-Niveau-Chrome/dp/B000VJE5SI/ref=sr_1_2?s=kitchen-appliances&ie=UTF8&qid=1534702409&sr=1-2&keywords=Ironing+chair