Space Oddities

Enjoy! I love mine, it's so simple to use and intuitive. Makes astrophotography very enjoyable!

The new Astrodon 3nm Ha and OIII I just received

Here is a first HOO version, without any dark... By mistake I selected BIN3 when I created the darks, so I now I have to do them again... The color balance is a bit off and I think I was too aggressive on the curves, but let's see what version 2 brings

I have to admit I was thinking of "upgrading" to an ASI533MM... I like those newer and more sensitive sensors! But then I look at my pictures, and can't justify the switch. Good old 1600 indeed!

The venerable ASI1600MM! I shot some flats to get rid of the vignette, but I'm not sure if it's caused by the filters themselves or the step down ring I used to lower the aperture of the lens... so it's actually not really f/2, now that I think of it...

Those PlayerOne cameras look very neat indeed! And I read that some cooled ones are coming soon. I would have loved to get one, but since I'm using an ASIAIR, I'm stuck with ZWO - which is totally fine, I don't think there's much difference between all those astro cameras anyway. Although the cooled IMX571 from PlayerOne seems to have a clever tilt plate that allows you to adjust tilt from the back, unlike other manufacturers... that is smart! Sam was out again last night! I wanted to test my new NB filters, despite the Moon being close to most nebulae. Let's see what I can get out of the 7.5 hours worth of Ha and OIII!

They do look fantastic! I couldn't resist yesterday, despite the almost full Moon and all the cool nebulae located nearby, I thought it was a good way to see an extreme case. So I took out the Samyang 135mm to see how they behave at f/2 and close to the Moon. Ha looks promising! OIII, well, being OIII, isn't as grandiose, but there's always something to be done. Let's see what PI has to say!

Found these little guys! Can't wait to try them!

Thank you, that's very helpful! I'll keep that in mind next time Learning something new everyday!

So many clouds lately, I haven't been able to image anything since end of September... so I looked into my hard drive for something to work on, maybe reprocess one, and I found some subs of the Orion nebula that I never used. Data is from February 2022, I was testing the back focus of my small Omegon 72ED refactor, and the stars weren't great in the corners. Now that I'm not afraid of PixInsight anymore, I thought I'd give it a try and improve my processing technique at the same time. I didn't think I'd manage something good out of this data, but I'm quite pleased actually! You've got to love what modern sensors and software can do in 2022! This is what I started with, a stack of 20 x 5min subs, taken with the ZWO ASI2600MC and an Omegon 72ED f/5.5 APO doublet. I believe I used the Antlia ALP-T dual band filter. As you can see the back spacing needed some work... The process I used, as far as I can remember: Cropped the image to get rid of the most distorted stars Realigned the channels Removed the stars using StarsXTerminator... which ran for maybe 5 minutes! The new algorithm works really well, but damn, it is slow... The funny thing is that it left 1 star, the bright one in the Running Man... oh well, good enough! When autostretched the core is really blown out, so I used Bill Blanshan's stretch script, that worked well to keep the core from saturating Used a range mask to select the nebulosity and exclude the core, and used this mask to add some slight curves modifications to the rest of the nebula I wanted to sharpen the fine details of the nebula, so I used the Unsharp process to do this. It also added some noise of course... ... which I took care of with a first pass of NoiseXTerminator. As always, it did an amazing job! The colors needed some work, so I balanced it the best I could. Made the blue pop a bit more, the red as well, and of course removed some of the green that's always there. I kind of like the slight orange tint, which is there because I don't know how to remove it... so I thought I'd keep it! Before adding the stars back, I added some saturations to them, and put them back in the main image using Pixelmath. I like that part of the processing, it feels the final image is coming to life! I ran a bit of deconvolution to enhance the stars, but a side effect I didn't expect is that it also enhances the details in the nebulosity... So I tweaked the settings to find the right balance A last touch of noise reduction, a last touch of color balancing, another crop to center the nebula... and voilà! Let me know what you think or what I could improve! I still have so much to learn in Pixinsight, so every tip helps

What about one of those 115mm triplets? It has quite a good reputation, and a lower price due to the use of FPL51. Mark Carter has some very nice pics taken with this scope. All the major retailers have their own version I guess: Teleskop-Express: TS-Optics PHOTOLINE 115 mm f/7 Triplet Apo - 2.5" RAP focuser Altair Wave Series 115 F7 ED Triplet APO (altairastro.com) Astro-Tech AT115EDT f/7 ED Triplet Refractor OTA | Astronomics.com I've also seen some wonderful pictures taken with the Explore Scientific 127ED. It's an older scope, compared to other scopes mentioned above, but... the images speak for themselves. Check out Wissam Ayoub's Astrobin, he has a lot of pics taken with this scope. They're really stunning!

Hi Roland, I've been using this adapter from TS Optics: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5417_TS-Optics-Screw-Adapter-for-Baader-MPCC-and-TS-GPU-Coma-Corrector-to-Skywatcher.html I had the Baader MPCC, but they say that the GPU will fit too. Since then I've been using this other adapter, which I find more convenient to rotate the camera: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p4018_TS-Optics-2--Adapter-with-Compression-Ring-for-Skywatcher-Newtonians.html

Many people use CCD Inspector for this, perhaps you can give it a try? I haven't used yet it but it seems very handy to resolve tilt issues https://ccdware.com/ccdinspector_overview/

Good point! I'm not sure whether I like spikes or not. I guess it depends on targets... I'm a bit reluctant to photograph the Pleiades with this scope, I'm a bit afraid of the huge spikes, but I'll give it a try! The only think I dislike is the focuser, and there seems to be no alternative Apart from that very expensive Moonlite one...

Couldn't agree more! The more I use it and the less I can justify the purchase of a big refractor. I paid about £160 for mine! I'd live a triplet refractor, but it would be, say, 10x the price of the 130PDS? And surely not 10x times better optically... Although, to be fair, I might have spent 2x the price of the scope on accessories 😅 I realize I never posted the processed mosaic I've been working on. I managed to stitch the 2 panels in PI, and the result really amazed me! I can't see any artifact from the combination of the 2 panels. I captured SII Data as well, but bad weather arrived just after, and then our friend the Moon... so I'm waiting for a chance to capture some OIII, hopefully soon, so I can create an SHO image. At least with nights getting longer, so is the integration time!

My first mosaic turned out great I am once amazed at the simplicity of the ASIAIR, creating mosaics is so easy that I wonder why I haven't done it before. It gave me the idea to image the whole Orion constellation this winter. I need to figure out how to properly make a mosaic in PixInsight, without that ugly gradient in the middle. Perhaps flats will help there! I'll make some tonight and see it that helps. Here's a work in progress version, I'm very happy with how it turned out! ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro, 2 panels of 48x300s each (8 hours in total), 139 gain, -10°C, Baader 7nm Ha

Oh! Then thank you for making and sharing it, it fits like a glove

It's been a long time since I've used my 130P-DS, and since then I have made quite a few adjustments, so I thought I could share them here! I added a long Arca-Swiss plate on top, to attach accessories and act as a handle ; ordered a 3D Printed light shield for the rear ; got some knobs to ease collimation ; and like I shared a few weeks ago, added some felt inside the tube to improve the darkness (still no idea if that was worth it, but it was fun!). I also switched to the Maxfield 0.95x flattener, hopefully I'll get better stars than with the Baader MPCC. Finally I got a long Losmandy plate, which allows me to put the tune on the table to collimate it. I couldn't do that with the green vixen dovetail, which was very annoying. Here are some pictures! I control everything from my "astro box", a plastic box that I cut to allow cables to run from my kitchen. The box contains a 15V power supply for the mount, and a 12V one for the rest of the rig. There's a mini PC (when I'm not using the ASIAIR), a travel WiFi router that connects the rig to my network via Ethernet (and ports for a second rig one day), and it also provides me with a fast WiFi outside, which makes setting up the ASIAIR very quick. I also added a TP Link surveillance camera. All of that so I can control and watch my scope lazily from the comfort of my bed ; I'll probably thank myself when winter comes! Tonight I will do some test pictures, I want to check my collimation and see how stars behave in the corners. If all goes well, I'll do some imaging. I'm planning to photograph the soul nebula in a 2x1 mosaic. I have never tried this feature on the ASIAIR, but it seems rather straightforward! Finger crossed!

It's always a difficult choice, with tradeoffs on both side! Have you considered the ASI294MC Pro as well? I don't own these models, but for what it's worth, here's my 2 cents. I have the bigger brother, the ASI2600MC, and it's basically the same sensor technology and specs as the 533, just in a bigger size. This sensor is truly excellent and produces very clean FITS files. If I were in your position, I think I would go for the 533. The main advantages I see: Newer and better sensor technology Bigger pixels Higher full well capacity 14 bits vs 12 bits The resolution is lower than the 183MC, but it's a bit misleading: the 183MC has 3672 pixels in height, the 533MC has 3000. Not a huge difference. The real difference comes from the fact that the sensor on the 533 is square, so most of the lost megapixels are the sides A square sensor is indeed uncommon, but I wouldn't see this as a deal breaker. After all, most DSO fit well in a square. If they don't (M31?), you can always do a mosaic: 2 panels with 20% overlap will give you a 14 megapixels image in a very wide ~2:1 format If you want to do mosaics, having more resolution could be a disadvantage, due to the larger file size and the additional processing power. It might be overkill as well to have that many pixels... but I agree, it is very cool to zoom in and see lots of details! The 183 is indeed cheaper, easier to find 2nd hand, has more resolution and could be better for planetary or lunar. My advice: put both sensor and your scopes in Stellarium, and see what kind of FOV you would get on the main DSO out there. I think that's the best way to see if the format is a deal breaker or not. As for the resolution... Well, here's a 6 megapixels image I've taken with my RedCat and ASI178MM. I think that's enough to take a decent picture!

Thanks, I'll try this out! I think I have a fine collection of step down rings in a drawer...

Haven't used the Samyang for a while now. I figured it was time for some widefield with the travel rig! I've never properly photographed the Sadr region, so that's my target for tonight. ASI2600MC-Pro and Antlia ALP-T is a nice combo, but I haven't tried it with the Samyang, so let's see! I think my back spacing needs some tweaking... I'll analyse the corners tomorrow. Also my stars aren't as tight as I hoped, but that's probably because I'm imaging at f/2. I've run the AF twice now but the stars are stil 2.11 on average. I guess I won't do better at f/2. What aperture are you guys using? Step up rings or the built in diaphragm?

Thanks Olly! I'm also surprised such a small integration time is sufficient. The NoiseXTerminator plugin really helped here! What surprised me is that halos are also visible on some not so bright stars. I even took apart my EFW to check if they were mounted correctly... I do have the StarX plugin, it usually works very well but in this case the result wasn't very good. Some parts of the image have too many stars, and the biggest ones are always difficult to process for star extraction plugins... So I processed with the stars, and you're right, it's not so bad actually! No picture is perfect anyway, and I'll improve my processing skills with time. Pixel peeping and impatience simply don't rhyme with astrophotography. Right now my priority is to produce a decent picture out of PixInsight (processing has never been my strong suit), and I have to say I'm starting to get better! I never really liked the user experience, but I'm getting used to it now and I have some kind of workflow that I can build on now.

Yesterday was moonless for a few hours, so I thought I'd do some LRGB for once. I always liked the true colors of the North America nebula and I was wondering if my light polluted skies would allow a nice LRGB image. Turns out, it works great This is only 1 hour and 15 minutes worth of data. As always the NoiseXterminator plugin in Pixinsight did wonders! Sadly I'm having very bad halos. I noticed these on my narrowband filters earlier (except the OIII one!! How about that...), and the LRGB seem to suffer from this as well. I'm very disappointed, I thought the Baader filters would be halo free... Acquisition details: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro, L: 10x180, R: 5x180, G: 5x180, B: 5x180, gain 139, -10°C William Optics RedCat 51 RainbowAstro RST-135 Acquired with the ASIAIR Pro Processed with DSS and PixInsight From Nantes, France (Bortle 7)

Thank you everyone for the helpful recommendations! Finding the right eyepiece isn't easy when getting started, it's really a whole new world for me. I feel like starting the hobby all over again! I just bought a Baader 8-24 zoom, it has great reviews and I think the convenience of the zoom will be helpful in the beginning. Can't wait to receive it Cheers

Thanks Pixies. I'm short-sighted only, no astigmatism (so far!). The mount I'm using is a RainbowAstro RST-135, with Go-To. I'll probably keep my ASIAIR and guide scope connected, to polar align the mount and use the plate solving functionality. So finding objects shouldn't be a problem!