Laurin Dave

Very nice Adam..  if you haven’t already done so then maybe try this.. check all subs in Pixinsights subframe selector and discard outliers ..   register and  integrate the panels separately ..  then background extraction, light stretch/ levels on each panel to get the backgrounds the same then register all against the master (I use Pixinsight Thin Plate splines plus distortion correction for this) and then integrate the whole lot in APP with Register switched off ..  you may have to use TIFs for this if APP objects 

HTH

Dave 

The Esprits are very good (I have two a 150 and a 100) ..  as Olly says the crucial question you need to ask yourself is what fov do you want.  What camera do you intend to use ?  The 150 (or a TEC140) is great for galaxies but needs a large (ie APSH or Full Frame I have an SX-46 ) sensor to capture decent areas of the most popular nebulae, (and may require a focuser upgrade to cope with the weight).   It can do planets but when I tried on Jupiter  the images were someway short of those taken with my 20 year old 10" LX200.   As for doing mosaics my experience is that I can get them to work in narrowband but not LRGB as the gradients (I image from Bortle4/5) are just too much to deal with...  as a result of this the Esprit150 is on the linen cupboard, the SX46 is on the Esprit100 and is dual scoped with a WOGT71/ASI1600.  

Dave

Nice one Goran..  

Dave

3 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

When did you order the 2600?  I've been mulling it over for a couple of weeks now, and plan to place an order tonight along with the NBX filter.  The plan is to use this on the Epsilon, then buy the mono version in Jan and put the colour version on the second scope, and use the mono on the Epsilon.

I ordered it last Monday..  wasn't expecting it till the new year as FLO quote 15-20 working days delivery but DHL just told me that it'll arrive on Monday  

6 minutes ago, gorann said:

Thanks Dave! Yes, I think your calculations are right, but it feels like the RASA somehow creates a much brighter image in a shorter time, but thinking about it now that may be an effect of the colour rather than the luminance. For the luminance the Esprit 150 also have the advantage of having a mono camera so all pixels collects luminance. When it comes to the colour, then the Esprit rig cannot compete as long as I collect RGB with the Esprit 100 that has a front lens area that is only about 30% of the RASA 8. Clearly also the RASA wins in FOV even if I have a full frame APS on the Esprit 150 and an APS-C on the RASA . I would need to make a two panel mosaic with the Esprits to cover the same area.

The total area of glass collecting light is nigh on identical at 25529mm2 for the Esprit duo and 25057 mm2 for the RASA (taking into account the 90mm diameter camera).   You could speed up the colour capture by going mono on the Esprit100 or as Adam has suggested use RASA colour data with Esprit150 luminance... be very interested to see that..

Dave

ps... my ASI2600MC and Askar200 should arrive tomorrow... what is the world coming to!

Both very nice Goran although I have to say I do prefer the top one..  I do think the f number thing is misleading ... your Esprit150/Esprit100 system captures photons/per unit area of sky significantly faster than your RASA/ASI2600 system does - 2.25 times if my calcs are correct although most of this is luminance with the colour data only being captured at 25% of the rate of the RASA (if you ran the Esprit100 with a mono plus filters it would double its speed)..     which I think you can see clearly by comparing the richness of the colours..    

Dave

To me they look like internal reflections from some part of your optical train caused nearby bright stars (Orion being full of them)...   the one to the top right is brightest so looks like its caused by Rigel, bottom right by Saiph and the left one by one of the Belt stars.   With the camera off take a look through your scope in daylight  and see if you can see any bright edges if so they need coating with antireflective paint or flocking.  The size of them would suggest to me that its the flattener

Hi Adam...  So you have succumbed!   I followed the tutorials at Light Vortex Astronomy - Tutorials which I found very good then got Warren  Keller's Inside Pixinsight and have recently got (on recommendation  of  @wimvb)  Rogelio Bernal Andreo's Mastering Pixinsight which is excellent and available as a .pdf for $25 or ,pdf plus paper for $55 plus postage.  

Dave

47 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Lovely Dave, beautiful processing on both the widefield and closeup.

Thanks Adam..  its a bit better than my first efforts with the data!  

Dave

Fireworks Galaxy NGC6946 through an Esprit 150ED... again - Imaging - Deep Sky - Stargazers Lounge

Fireworks Galaxy NGC6946 - Imaging - Deep Sky - Stargazers Lounge

Might not be the issue but when I first started using eqmod with an AZEQ6 I had a similar time out issue with my laptop,  it turned out that the USB ports were being turned off to save power..  for me the fix was...  Control Panel, Device Manager,  Properties  and then for each USB port disable power management 

HTH

Dave

9 hours ago, wimvb said:

Very nice widefield that puts different objects into perspective. If only the weather would allow you to collect more data. Getting some colour in the dust would lift this image, I think.

👍🏽

Thanks Wim..  yes indeed, I'll get more time on it next time around to try and get some colour and definition to the dust 

5 hours ago, CCD-Freak said:

Nice images.....You got part of the B150 dark nebula at the left edge of your wide image. 

The NGC6946 image has great color.

 

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

 

Thanks John,   a panel to the left to complete Barnard 150 is in next years plan

Dave

The weather has been abysmal here for several weeks apart from a brief spell early last Tuesday evening.   The winter targets were too low so I captured some wide field data on the Fireworks Galaxy (2hrs lum on the Esprit100SX46, 50 mins Red 30 mins Green and 20 mins Blue with the GT71ASI1600) to which I have added hi res data of the galaxy I'd taken back in 2018 with my Esprit150ASI1600 and which I have just reprocessed for the umpteenth and possibly final time.  The wide field includes NGC6946  open cluster NGC6939 and part of dark nebula Barnard 150 

From Wiki.. NGC6946 is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, whose location in the sky straddles the boundary between the northern constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. Its distance from Earth is about 25.2 million light-years.  Discovered by William Herschel on 9 September 1798, the galaxy has a diameter of approximately 40,000 light-years. It is heavily obscured by interstellar matter due to its location close to the galactic plane of the Milky Way, with a dimming of ~1.5 magnitudes.  Due to its prodigious star formation it has been classified as an active starburst galaxy.

Thanks for looking

Dave

7 minutes ago, Spongey said:

Yeah I can't complain! Considering the quoted corrected image circle, my stars are very good. APS-C is the sweet spot for me and my current setup, and I feel a lot of the astro-imaging community are similar in that they don't want to / can't invest in the extra gear required for full frame setups.

That is disappointing to hear, what would you define as 'heavy'? My current imaging train weighs in at ~1.2kg but I only expect this to increase.

Hi Spongey

My SX46 plus FW, filters, flattener, OAG and guide cameras weighs around 3.5kg,  the focuser was fine when it only had the ASI1600/EFW/OAG on it but as well as being less weight it was also a much smaller fov.  The SW focuser and Esprit150 was fine with a full frame DSLR with 6 micron pixels..

Dave

My Esprit100 is not flat at full frame..  it just about manages it to APSH ..   my Esprit150 is flat to full frame with a DSLR, slower f ratio I guess,  all with 6 micron pixels..  smaller pixels as people are finding are more revealing..   also with my Esprits the stock focusers are not up to the job with a heavy camera and sag..  this cost an extra £1000 to fix 🙁

8 minutes ago, gorann said:

Thanks Dave! The filter's bandwidth is probably quite broad. The blue signal was very weak compared to the Ha but is was there so I could bring the "blue figure" out. However, I should have said that I then did add a bit of my old refractor data to the blue figure since it looked a bit anemic with just the RASA data.

Thanks... this is such a lovely area, maybe you can add a couple of hours of true colour for the stars and reflection nebula..  How are you getting on with the 6200 camera?

Dave

Very nice Goran and quite amazing for only 2.7 hrs, intrigued that you've caught the blue reflection nebula in the Flaming Star through an Ha/Oiii filter..  Working on my own version of this... its going to take much longer than yours!

Dave

Very nice Adam..  probably, but not necessarily the JTD moving as  it just demonstrates that there’s  relative movement.. if you have it I’d check the individual subs for each system in Pixinsight Blink or equivalent ..  this will show whether there’s any movement ..  dithers will show up but in between  the stars shouldn’t move if they do then that system is moving relative to the guide scope ..  I had it with my GT71 on a JTD saddle until I tightened it all up with a wrench 

Nice one..  Goran has started a trend it seems!  

In Starlight Vision click on Image File tab then select Save..  this should show you where they’ve been put...  in a Starlight sub folder in your Documents folder is the default I think

hth

Dave

Sidereal rate in the handset is correct for tracking the planets, it sounds to me as if your polar alignment is off,  your mount will also have periodic error which will cause the planet to oscillate back and forward along the East West axis but only by about 3-4 Mars diameters each way and not really a problem for visual

Very nice, good detail from the Redcat and lovely colours 

I believe that is correct ..  you’ll soon find out 

If I remember correctly and your machine is Windows 10

control panel..  hardware and sound ..  power options..  edit plan settings..  change advanced power settings .. usb settings..  then disable usb selective suspend ..  if it already is then that would rule it out as an issue 

Also check the  USB ports on your laptop  aren’t being powered off .. I had this happen with similar consequences 

Very nice Rodd, great colours and detail ..  good to see you back 

Dave