Stuf1978

7 minutes ago, Elp said:

If it's on one side it's more like tilt, a tilt adjuster may fix it, or try relieving some of the weight off, either on the lens or camera as a test to see if it goes away. Is there any flex between the two when they're connected together?

Yeah I did suspect that too as the lens is pretty heavy, maybe I can try placing something between the lens foot and the dovetail to ease some of the weight. There doesn't appear to be any real lateral flex but I'm guessing it doesn't take much to impact star shape. 

I've never seen this one before, absolutely stunning. Great work as always

I've just bought an Altair Astro dslr converter so I can use my ZWO ASI 294MC Pro with a number of camera lens' that I already own. I tested this out for the first time at the weekend using my Sigma 150mm F2.8 and the results weren't the best as the star shapes were pretty poor. Now this lens has always shown slight comma (but manageable) when I'd previously used it on a APSC dslr but the field of view was always pretty flat. This is the image I took at the weekend, ignore the vignetting and amp glow as it's uncalibrated and largely unprocessed and I also think focus is slightly out. However, the stars are elongated on one side of the image and relatively OK on the other side. I've also included a picture of the camera/lens set up to show how it's all connected. 

There is some rotational slop in the bayonet fitting for the lens (maybe a 1mm or so) so I'm wondering if this could be the cause of the issue? If so is there anything I can do to improve the situation? Maybe shim it out slightly or add a spacer to take up the slop? Is there anything commercially available that will help or am I going to have to improvise?

Thanks,

Stu

2 minutes ago, Phillyo said:

This is really nice. I love the detail you've captured and the processing too. I'm trying to gather a LOT of ha data for this to bring out the nebula that can be seen around it but it's turning out to be very hard, especially with the UK weather. 

Thanks. Tell me about it, I've literally only had about three imaging sessions since the beginning of August due to what seems like persistent cloud. Hopefully you manage to get the data you need 🤞

17 minutes ago, Vic&Al said:

Nice capture, and really nice processing very natural looking clouds well done!

Thanks, appreciated 👍 

Nicely done, love it  

You have to shoot this every year don't you?

105 x 3 minute subs from my bortle 7/8 garden. WO Redcat, ZWO ASI 294MC Pro, UV/IR Cut,  SW HEQ5 Pro, stacked and processed in Siril and Photoshop.

Critique welcome  

Beautiful image, great work 👍

I'd use the 70-200 F2.8 (assuming it's the canon version, which is a very nice lens) @200mm at F4. you should be able to frame it up nicely at that focal length and F4 is still quite fast. The other lenses the target will be just too small and the longer lens is pretty slow.  I'm not really familiar with the mount but just experiment with how long you can expose for before trailing becomes apparent. The Canon 80d is ISO invariant so there is no penalty with regards to noise if you brighten the image in post production rather than increasing your ISO in camera. I used to use an 80d and always shot at ISO 400. 

2 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

It certainly is ghostly, wonderful image!

Thank you, I feel there is a lot more to see in this area but I reckon you'd need a significant amount of integration time or much darker skies to reveal it. 

The Ghost of Cassiopeia. 11.5 hours of 300 second L-eXtreme subs plus 15 mins of unfiltered rgb subs for the stars. SW 130PDS, HEQ5 Pro, ZWO ASI294MC PRO. Stacked in Siril and processed in Photoshop 👻

Critique welcome 😃

The Ghost of Cassiopeia. 11.5 hours of 300 second L-eXtreme subs plus 15 mins of unfiltered rgb subs for the stars. SW 130PDS, HEQ5 Pro, ZWO ASI294MC PRO. Stacked in Siril and processed in Photoshop 👻

Taken on Thursday and Friday night. 

IC63 with the 130PDS. Shot with a ZWO ASI294MC Pro, 11.5 hours of 5 minute subs with an Optolong L-eXtreme plus 15 minutes of unfiltered subs for rgb stars

Very nicely done. Mine looks garish in comparison, may need to take another look at it 😂

23 hours ago, MartinB said:

Excellent dramatic image.  Nice colours, a tad over saturated for me but that is purely personal.  The bubble and is just starting to burn out which is a bit of a shame.  Isn't it wonderful what NB can do under our dreadful skies.

Thanks, yeah I had trouble stopping the bubble and ngc 7538 particularly burning out as they really are rather bright. Toning them down left the remainder of the image lacking a bit punch. May have to go back to it and do some selective masking to try and tone those two areas down a tad. Completely agree about the power of narrowband 😃

3 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

I'm currently writing a review that directly compares the L-eXtreme with the L-Ultimate and the Askar Colour Magic 6nm. It should be ready in a week or so.

Nice one, look forward to reading it 👍

5 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

I've been testing this filter extensively. In practical use there are no halos; but if you really stress test it with a bright star (e.g. Vega) then you will see halos. 

Sounds promising, may have to upgrade 👍

Looks great, do you still get star halos with the ultimate? That's one thing that bugs me with my L-eXtreme 

This was taken over Friday and Monday night and was a result of a total of 9.5 hours of narrowband data and 15 minutes of broadband data for the stars. All data was stacked and preprocessed in Siril and finished of in Photoshop. Taken from my bortle class 8 back garden 😀

115x300 second lights (narrowband)
27 x 30 second lights (broadband)
William Optics Redcat V1.5 
ZWO ASI294MC PRO @ unity gain, -10°C 
Optolong L-eXtreme 
Astro Essentials UV/IR cut 
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro 
Skywatcher 50ED guidescope 
ZWOASI120MM guide camera 

One more. The lobster and the bubble

115x300 second narrowband data, 27 x 30 second broadband data, Redcat, ZWO ASI294MC Pro, Optolong L-eXtreme, HEQ5 Pro. Taken last friday and monday

53 minutes ago, sagramore said:

Love this! I have been having a go at it myself with my new ASI294MM - I wasted a lot of my limited clear skies trying to shoot the iris nebula in narrowband (lesson learned, reflection nebulae are not NB targets....) but then managed about 2h each of Ha and OIII on this. I feel like you've either done better with the data or you are just better with focus/collimation/etc than me as yours looks really nice. Do you mind sharing what your camera and filters etc were for this? I'll try and remember to post my attempt when I get home later...

Thanks. I used a ZWO ASI294MC PRO and Optolong L-eXtreme with a total of 55 x 5 minute subs, calibrated with darks, flats and dark flats. Im in a bortle 8 area if it's of any relevance. The subs were stacked and pre processed in Siril and Photoshop. I still think it needs at least double the integration time as I had to use quite a bit of noise suppression.  

Some outstanding images in this thread. Here's my effort from last Friday 

55x5 minute subs

SW 130PDS

ZWO ASI294MC PRO 

OPTOLONG L-EXTREME 

SW HEQ5 Pro 

Another one for the 130PDS, my HEQ5 Pro really doesn't like hauling this scope about and has issues slewing in declination..... not the scopes fault though. Anyway this was just over 4.5 hours of 5 minute subs 😀

Both are very nice, personally I prefer the first as I feel it's brighter and has a bit more punch to it.  Having said that, it's always a fine line between having a nicely balanced image and pushing the data slightly too far. You certainly haven't pushed the data too far in this instance, admiral work  

Wow, that's one of the best I've seen of this target, outstanding work