Fegato

PS nice M106 despite your issues!

I have an 8 Edge HD, but only use it with an OSC (ASI294MC Pro), and not at all recently as my RASA 11 tends to take preference. I'm not sure I can help much really, but thought I'd give you one response at least! What I will say is that I'm surprised to see that much vignetting with a smallish sensor. What's your image train and what size filters? I don't get anything like that with the 294 and 2" filters. And I'm afraid I don't know why you'd get such a bright central area with Lum. What method are you using for the flats? As for collimation, I have the original screws not Bob's knobs. I find it holds reasonably well, and don't often bother to reset. But I think this is partly because I find the whole process a bit of a struggle - seeing always seems to be appalling when I attempt to work on collimation! Anyway - I wonder if your star shapes might relate to backspacing, as there's a bit of pointing into the middle going on? Maybe try pushing the sensor away a little and see if that helps?

thanks Olly, that's very kind - it was certainly one that took a lot of time and a certain amount of care! As for the Ha - well, I largely got the idea from this image, which has tons of integration and has found a bit more than I did, but to my mind is perhaps just a bit over-done in the processing / stretching https://www.aapod2.com/blog/m45-pleiades-in-hoorgb

Yeah I've had similar feelings... think the depressing weather is definitely part of it. And my clear 4 hours or so forecast for tomorrow evening has changed to part cloud, so I'm not holding my breath.

OK, so I just averaged the two images together (half and half as we say in Wales)... and like this one better!

I've seen one or two images that pulled out some faint HII areas around M45, so I thought I'd have a go. This three panel mosaic was planned back in November, but well, you know what the weather's been like.... Before Christmas I gave up on any chance of getting the Ha with my equipment, and booked some time in Spain with Roboscopes on their Tak 130 Epsilon, which has a similar FOV and alignment to my set up. This seemed to encourage poor weather in Extremedura, and in the end I had to call a halt on the Ha gathering on my final panel a few days ago as M45 was fast disappearing below the Horizon in astro-darkness. So excuses first - I'd have liked more data in both RGB and Ha, but, well, beggars can't be choosers. The HII areas are so faint that bringing them out was very tricky, and I hope that what I've got bears some relationship to reality. Anyway, having spent all that time and money, I had to get something in there! This is the first time I've combined data from two separate setups - at least that went smoothly. As for M45, I played around with HDR and masking to try and contain its blousiness... but in the end, I think the blousier version is the one I prefer. The best of my HDR versions certainly accentuates some of the detail in there, but just looks a bit flat to my eye. But then again, I keep changing my mind as they are so different. I'll attach them both anyway - always interested in any feedback! Apart from that, the wide field of view was aiming to pick up all the surrounding dusty areas as well as the Ha. I've tried to bring these out, but also tried to keep the end result reasonably subtle. It took nearly 5 months, but I sort of got there in the end! RASA 11 v2 on CEM120, ZWO ASI2400MC Pro, 326 x 30s across 3 panels Tak 130 Epsilon on Paramount MX+, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, Baader Ha 7nm filter, 189 x 240s across 3 panels (but only 80 providing anything useful!)

I like it. Not sure there's much more detail to be found than that. Amazing just to contemplate all those galaxies...

Hi Anne - 6 weeks in Portugal sounds good! Having said that, in desperation I ordered some data from Roboscopes in Extremedura in December, and the weather there seems to have been pretty poor since then. 15 hours worth, and the last 3 hours are still outstanding with the target fast disappearing for the season! Robin

thanks, yes I will try some tweaks when I get a moment. I use NINA to control everything, installed on a mini PC on the tripod tray, and PHD2 for guiding. NINA works well for me, no issues with that.

Looking at it on here, maybe needs a bit more contrast, black point adjustment. And not sure if all those colours are real or "invented" by my OSC processing...

Obviously this winter has been terrible on the weather front, certainly the worst here in my 8 years, and I won't go into that again. But with very limited opportunities to image, I then found things were going wrong when I did try, which was getting me down somewhat. My guiding had collapsed into a mess - 1.5" and worse RMS (versus a usual 0.6-0.9"), with both RA and DEC not seeming to want to respond adequately to guiding pulses, but I couldn't for the life of me see why. Also my recent flats have not been working very well. And then my ZWO camera started playing up for the first time on my last imaging run - 4.5 hours worth of images with large unexposed (black) bands across them in varying positions. Weather closed in again, and I just left it, and for the first time in a while wasn't even looking at the night time weather forecast. Time off helps I guess, as does a short holiday in the South of France, and I've now stripped everything down, checked my mount belt tension and gear meshing, cleaned up all my glass, and put it all back together again. I'll have another go when I can, but I'm not impatient to do so right now. Anyway - I produced an awful looking Sh2-280 and 282 image from early in that last run at the beginning of the month. The flats had made a mess of it. So I took some more flats with longer exposures yesterday, and they worked better. So here it is - some sort of an image. Nothing special - some stars and nebulosity, and I've tried not to over-stretch and saturate to find something that's not there. RASA 11 on CEM120, ASI2400MC Pro, 144 x 30s

Yes well done Göran, interesting stuff and a very nice wide field. I've just about given up at the moment the weather has been so bad, and have made a dash to the South of France, where at least I can see the stars, even if I can't image them (suppose I should invest in a mini portable setup for such occasions, but can't quite raise the motivation levels to do so)

Blimey! None...

That's a wonderful IC443 - subtly done and lots of nice detail! My only comment would be the stars - to my eye the bluer ones seem maybe a bit purple? But then my eyes are not what they were...

Yes I can see it on Aladin too. I checked on http://planetarynebulae.net/ and I can't see anything at that location - RA 06 46 25, DEC 08 29 00, although I only did a quick search, so you might want to go on there and do a thorough check. Certainly looks a bit like a PN to me. Maybe one with your name on it, you never know!?

Well I'm kicking myself. My Sunday night forecast deteriorated so I left the rig inside - stupid!. By 7pm it was totally clear here, and stayed that way at least 2 hours. And then it was totally clear from 3 or 4am. I could have finished off two unfinished images with those two slots. Bah!

yes, I might have a brief hole at 2am this morning, but I can't honestly be arsed with that! Sunday night forecast looks good, but like Richard, I'm not holding my breath...

It's raining. I should be pruning apple trees, but not in this. So, I thought I'd re-process some horsehead nebula data from last year. The inspiration for this is the stunning recent IoD by John Hayes on Astrobin here - https://astrob.in/1xk09q/C/ My data comes from a 4 panel mosaic of the Orion's Belt area, and in this wide field the horsehead area was stretched to the limit - very pink, and NGC 2023 very blown out. So with this I've tried to bring out the vibrant colour that John managed and a bit more detail than my previous attempt. Of course, I can't compete with a CDK20 at 0.5 arc secs per pixel in rarified Chilean skies (or with John's processing skills), so this is just a smudgy imitation! I also had major issues with colour, and despite calibrating every combination of monitors and laptop screens I have, I still always seem to get a more vibrant rendition on my dedicated Pixinsight system than I do when I move it elsewhere. So now I'm not sure I haven't overdone it. I should also probably have pre-processed again with a 2x drizzle for this level of crop. Ah well, sure there'll be another rainy day soon to have another go... RASA 11 on CEM120, ASI2400MC Pro, 102 x 30s, data from January 2023.

I should add that as soon as I put my Roboscopes order in, Spain seemed to be hit by a blanket of cloud! 😂

I agree with the others - a really nice composition! Good luck with the completion. I'm normally quite quick getting mine done (mostly broadband with RASA), but I've been sitting on five unfinished images for the last few weeks - very frustrating. One got finished last week, one has the broadband completed but needs a lot of Ha and I have ended up giving up and sourcing this at Roboscopes so will hopefully get it finished this season, and the others await some clear nights!

thanks Carole! Looks a bit 'soft' now I look at it again, but I guess it's pretty faint and stretched quite hard, so not easy to get clear details, and conditions weren't brilliant on either night. Anyway, at least it's one off my list of "in progress" targets that I can't seem to get finished!

LBN 923 sits on the border of Orion and Eridanus. Molecular clouds, dark nebulae and HII areas are topped with the bright reflection nebula NGC 1788 aka vdB 33. Not so often imaged due to its more famous neighbours, but there are still plenty of images around, including a very nice recent IoD on Astrobin. I shot some Ha (dual narrowband) earlier in January when the moon was up, and was looking glumly at the forecast for the coming new moon period when a little break in the weather appeared last night and gave me 3 hours or so before the moon came up. The session was close to disaster, as I had to get it going quickly and dash out for a couple of hours. Needless to say, for the first time in months I had major connection issues - nothing would connect to the mini PC on my tripod tray. I ended up running around pulling wires out left right and centre, and in the end I assumed that my OTA mounted Powerbox had given up the ghost, causing issues with power distribution, as well as causing all the USB from my mount hub to fail. I gave up on dew control, replugged the cameras into the mount USB, got it all going, and rushed off. When I came back, I realised that the guide camera had disconnected before it even got going. Anyway - I got 2 hours of data, and if nothing else, this shows that guiding at 30s with my rig is somewhat unnecessary (albeit I lost all my dithering too). Of course - this morning I take a look at the rig, and realise that the power feed into the mount had become unplugged... in my hurry, I forgot to check the obvious! What a berk! More haste less speed as they say... Anyway, here it is - broadband enhanced with Ha / Hb (fed the Ha into red channel and blue channel at 20% of red). RASA 11 v2 on CEM120, ASI2400MC Pro, 236 x 30s plus 104 x 60s (NBZ dual narrowband filter)

sorry - should have added, if you weren't aware (not sure), Aurora panels are a particular make of flat panel by Gerd Neumann - see https://www.gerdneumann.net/english/astrofotografie-parts-astrophotography/aurora-flatfield-panels/uebersicht-aurora-flatfield-panels-overview.html

Well, your flat looks OK, but whether the colour side of it is right I don't know. As pipnina says, laptop screens may not work that well. For a Redcat 51, I assume the smallest Aurora panel would be fine, which is not too costly. You will probably need to buy one or two of his "filters" too, as the panels are not dimmable, and this is the only way of dimming the light a bit (more of an issue with broadband flats, although at F/2.2 I use one of these for my dual narrowband flats too). As I said - I did have some success with a tracing panel previously, so you could pick up an A4 one of these a bit cheaper and try that. I can't see any obvious signs of vignetting, and I guess you shouldn't have any visible with a 44mm image circle. So I think this is just about the OSC bayer filter and an effect that does happen with narrowband filters. I'm not an expert - you can probably find articles and posts about this online. Perhaps the signal is very slight weaker around the edges, and the red signal has less intensity anyway, and this is the end result (albeit your integration should be taking account of the different channel intensities - certainly Pixinsight does this). But as above, I do get this sort of red / green issue too in narrowband. I suspect you'll still see it even with a better flat panel, and you just have to use gradient removal techniques to get rid of it.

I think with a narrowband filter and OSC something like this is almost to be expected. I do have vignetting to deal with, but also tend to get a red to green gradient across the frame when using a dual narrowband filter which has to be removed using gradient removal techniques (DBE in Pixinsight for me). Maybe you have some vignetting here as part of that too ( I do too). It is worth trying to get good flats certainly... never tried the laptop method. I did have some success with tracing panels, but when I got a RASA 11, I invested in an Aurora Panel which works well for me. Can you post a sub and a calibrated sub and your master flat? Might help to see if any issues there...