Magnum

Well that was quite unexpected 19 years after the first  RCX ACF's were introduced then shortly later the regular LX200s changed to ACF as well. The lack of dedicated reducer was one of the reason s I never bought an ACF even though the AstroPhysics 0.67x was found to work well with them.

Lee

Just found this small amount of data that I hadn't processed from 27 Feb 2022 of the Moneky Head Nebula NGC 2174

Exposure: 15 x 5 mins

Camera: ZWO ASI533MC @ Gain100 -15C

Filter: Altair Triband.

Scope: Meade Series 5000 127mm F7.5 Triplet Apo.

Mount: EQ8Pro.

Guided, Captured, Stacked, DDP stretch, Flatten Backgrond in MaximDL 5, Starnett++, Photoshop 2023, Graxpert Ai, Topaz NR

No Darks or Flats.

Location: Kent, UK.

Bortle 6

I have been slowly but surely adding data to my IC410 Tadpole Nebula image when the weather allowed, this 6 hours of data taken over 5 nights from the last 2 weeks.
Exposure: 120 x 3 mins
Camera: Player One Uranus C Pro @ Gain 210 & -15C
Filter: Optolong L Enhance dual narrowband.
Scope: Meade Series 5000 127mm F7.5 Triplet Apo.
Mount: EQ8Pro.
Guided, Captured, Stacked, DDP stretch, Flatten Backgrond in MaximDL 5, Starnett++, Photoshop 2023.
No Darks or Flats.
Location: Kent, UK.
Bortle 6

34 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I think the reds are lovely and the blues are great so far as they go, but it's the blues which take the time at the capture stage. I'd be very surprised if anyone managed to get more out of your data than this.

The Meade 127 is rather a forgotten scope but I had one and liked it. I reviewed it for Astronomy Now and only sold it because an irresistible TEC140 turned up on the used market.

Olly

Thanks Olly, I really need to grab some more data next summer on this, its always so low for me and the way I have my scopes mounted side by side I can only get after its crossed the meridian as then Meade is then higher than the other scopes, even then I can only get 1 hour before next doors shed starts cutting the aperture 😞

Also being so low really blurs the detail and bloats the stars, so had to use all my tricks to get something useable, Blur Exterminator would probably do it easier but I dont use Pix insight .

Yes the Meade is a great scope, wonderfully sharp and great for the money on the used market, like your TEC 140 it has a tiny bit of CA fringing, but 1 click of Noels remove purple fringing cures that. If I ever upgraded it would be for something with around 1200mm FL but that would be huge in comparison. I see Sharpstar have recently released the Askar 185 app with 1295mm FL, looks a bit of a beast but at 5 grand it would pay for 5 of my scopes 😛 

Lee

super image Olly, I see what you mean about the colour, at first glance maybe a little too much but its subjective.  I just had similar thoughts about the M20 im about to post, each time I go back to it I keep thinking it needs more saturation, but now im thinking maybe I have gone too far.

At first glance 

47 minutes ago, cfinn said:

Here we are @Magnum. I adjusted the black point just a small amount to darken the background further but keeping it just below the point where it starts black clipping. I think it is a good improvement. Thank you for the suggestion!

yes I like that, or if you want to leave the background lighter you could just do a local adjustment to the dark rift in the middle.

Didnt mean to criticise it, its a lovely image, 

Lee

That's different, not seen a Pacman image with the surrounding dust before, very nice.

For me it would be even better if the black point was moved over a bit or selectively darken the rift within the Pacman a bit to give it more contrast.

Lee

I like it

nice detail and colours

or about 11cm on this 43" monitor 😛 

Managed to get 2nd light with my new camera last night unfortiunatly only got 1 hour of data before the clouds returned, should have started earlier. IC410 Tadpole nebula, the smaller pixels of my new camera allowed me to get my highest resolution image of the tadpoles to date, very impressed with this camera, hopefully I can add a few hours more data to this target to improve it further.

Exposure: 20 x 3 mins

Camera: Player One Uranus C Pro @ Gain 100 & -15C

Filter: Optolong L Enhance dual narrowband.

Scope: Meade Series 5000 127mm F7.5 Triplet Apo.

Mount: EQ8Pro.

Guided, Captured, Stacked, DDP stretch, Flatten Backgrond in MaximDL 5, Starnett++, Photoshop 2023.

No Darks or Flats.

Location: Kent, UK.

Bortle 6

First light for my new camera on Thursday night achieved 2 sets of data this was the 2nd The Heart and Soul IC1805 and IC1848.

Exposure: 72 X 90 secs

Camera: Player One Uranus C Pro @ Gain 210

Lens: Samyang 135mm F2 working at F2.4

Filter: Optolong L Enhance stacked with Baader UV/IR.

Mount: EQ8 Pro.

Guided, Captured, Stacked, DDP stretch, Flatten Backgrond in MaximDL 5, Starnett++, Noise Xterminator, Photoshop 2023.

No Darks or Flats.

Location: Kent, UK.

Bortle 6

I really like that Emil, I normally find the California a boring object but the high resolution has picked up so much detail. 

Mono still has the edge in terms of smoothness and final detail .

Lee

2 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

Which is the Askar 180…?? I don’t see a refractor that big in the image…🤔🤔

The askar 180 is a very small lens / scope, 180 is the focal lenght not the aperture, its only 40mm aperure.

they cant seam to decide if its a lens or scooe in the marketing

though i took that photo above before i mounted it, thats why you cant see it lol

it just fits in one of the finder brackets

1 hour ago, Priesters said:

Very nice. I bet you could barely see the Askar on top of an EQ8 😂

Well it had company on the mount 🤪

19 minutes ago, Snoani said:

These are a great start with your new scope.  I bought the Askar 180 earlier this year having ordered the original version and was lucky enough to be sent the pro version as it was being released. I am so happy with it.  It is a brilliant little scope in my opinion, and I am sure that you produce many great images with it.  

Its not mine actually, i was testing it for my friend as he always sends his new purchases to me to test first to make sure they are ok.

i had the original Askar 180 when it first came oit but returned it as it had poor colour correction and star shapes. This new pro version is dramatically better.

11 hours ago, Roy Foreman said:

Very nice rendition.

Thankyou, I only had the scope for 2 nights so cant add any more data unfortunately.

Lee

Thanks,  

I prefer long exposures for many reasons.

cheers

I took this image a couple of nights ago with a new Askar 180 Pro f4.5 Astrograph Lens/scope. It worked very well nice tight stars, As my aim was to mainly test the star performance I only used a Lum filter instead of my normal narrowband for this target and shooting over the motorway lights so not a lot of signal to work with so had to go aggressive with the noise reduction which has made it a bit blotchy, needed more time really.

Exposure 50 x 3 mins @ Gain 100.

Scope: Askar 180 Pro f4.5 sextuplet Astrograph.

Camera: ZWO ASI533MC pro

Filter: Baader UV/IR

Mount EQ8

Guided, captured, stacked, DDP, Gradient removal in MaximDL.

Processed in Photoshop 2023, Starnett++2 for M1 Mac, RC Astro Noise Exterminator.

Location: Kent, Uk Bortle 6.

Processed my 2nd test image of an Askar 180 Pro f4.5 Astrograph Lens/scope of M42 the Orion Nebula. This was just over 2 hours of data.

Exposure: 28 X 5 mins @ Gain 100

Scope: Askar 180 Pro f4.5 sextuplet refractor.

Camera: ZWO ASI533MC pro

Filter: Optolong L Enhance

Mount: EQ8 Pro.

Guided, captured, stacked, DDP, Gradient removal in MaximDL.

Processed in Photoshop 2023, Starnett++2 for M1 Mac, RC Astro Noise Exterminator.

M45 Work in Progress. Not sure which direction to go next with processing this, Although M45 and M42 are the brightest deep sky objects I always find they are also the most tricky objects to process due to their huge dynamic range. Im quite happy with the starless version but the stars over power all the faint stuff and if I keep the stars too small then it no longer looks like a bright star cluster. Anyway this is what I have so far.

Camera: ZWO ASI533MC pro + Baader Lum filter.

Telescope: TS80 Photoline Triplet + TSRED279 reducer @ f4.9.

Mount: EQ8 pro

Guided, Captured, Stacked, DDP stretch, Flatten Backgrond in MaximDL 5, Starnett++,Topaz DeNoise, Photoshop 2023.

No Darks or Flats.

Location: Kent, UK.

Bortle 6

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

Interesting. I was wondering whether doing some initial stretch to the whole image followed by star separation might have provided a better approach.

I had to look up DDP as I have not come across it. It is available in Pixinsight, but seems to be considered obsolete compared with other methods. That’s not to say it is in the applications you’re using of course, and anyway seems to work for you. 

LOL the Whole of maxim dl5 was supposedly obsolete a decade ago yet I prefer it for the pre photoshop processing steps.

Thanks.

I have my own workflow that’s probably different to most , I make 2 different DDP stretches of the image in MaximDl, one is a mild stretch for the stars then a strong stretch for the nebula . Then I run them both through starnett++ . I take the starless of the big stretch and process that in photoshop until it looks like the final starless image above, then I add the stars from the mild stretch back in as the very last step. 
 

lee

Caldwell 34 the Western Veil Nebula and Pickering's triangle captured tonight.

30 X 5 min subs

Camera: Player One Ares C Pro, Gain 125.

Telescope: Sharpstar 61EDPHII f4.5 triplet

Filter: Optolong L Enhance dual narrowband.

Mount: EQ8 Pro.

Guided, Captured, Stacked, DDP stretch, Flatten Backgrond in MaximDL 5, Graxpert Ai model, Starnett++ Mac M1, Noise Xterminator, Photoshop 2023.

No Darks or Flats.

Location: Kent, UK.

Bortle 6