Magnum

Well thats a new one on me, never seen this pair of objects before, will have to have a go it this at some point. Lee

Really like this, lovely and smooth. nice processing. Lee

Im a great fan of dithering and SDmask stacking, and have found is all I need with Sony chips, ive never taken darks or bias with my 314 or my new 460. Any hot and warm pixels stack out perfectly. Lee

Thanks Olly, I forgot to say for nebulas I only shoot in Bi Colour ha/oiii which is 75% of the time so colour correction not so important, only use LRGB for galaxies the other 25%. To complicate things even further, for really wide field I will need to use my 70mm F6 ED which will have to be swapped with one of the bigger scopes , as I dont think My poor old EQ6 will like 3 scopes on at the same time 😛 so many choices

Excellent job as always Olly, loverly detail and star colours plus nice smooth background. As you know I recently purchased both an Atik 460 and 383L so I have the same 2 sensors you are using though I dont have matching scopes, ive now tested both a produced images im very happy with. So I definitely want to capture with both at the same time wether they will combine well or not, it still makes sense to be capturing with both or I feel its a wasted opportunity. Maybe later I will end up with matching pair of scopes, but that won't be any time soon as im now skint LOL I have a Meade 127mm F7.5 with 950mm FL which I also have a 0.6 x reducer ( this provided flat field with previous 314 chip fine & may just cover the 460). and a Altair 102 F7 with 714mm FL, which I also have the dedicated matched 0.79x reducer flattener which brings it to 564mm FL and perfectly flat for the bigger 8300 chip. I have 2 matching 5 pos filter wheels with RGB+HaOiii in one and HaSiiOiii +CLS as Lum in the other Im currently thinking to put the 460 on the bigger scope at 950mm and the 383 on the smaller scope at 564mm, as I want to get as big a field as I can with the 8300 chip. as I can then image smaller targets in the big scope and wider ones in the other, but that will give a massive mismatch in FOV and pixel sampling so in that case id probably just grab separate data for each scope, and end up with 2 different FOV's of same target. The other alternative is to try the 0.6 reducer on the big scope which makes it 570mm so almost identical focal lengths for both scopes, though will still be smaller field of view due to the 460 having smaller sensor. with you r image do you just crop the wider data to match the smaller sensor? HHHEEELLLPPPP too many choices, but surely that can't be a bad thing 😛 Id really value your opinion on this Olly. Cheers, Lee

Well dome Dave

Captured enough Oiii data on the Crescent & Soap Bubble nebulas to complete a colour version with the previous Ha data I captured last Tuesday. Not really convinced ive processed this to my liking yet, but here it is anyway. 12 x 15 min in Oiii & 15 X 15 min in Ha with the Atik460EX mono CCD and 102mm Triplet at F5.5. Guided, captured aligned & stacked in MaximDL, DDP in APP. Processed in Photoshop as a natural Bi Colour image. Think im bored with the crescent now 🙂, as ive imaged it 4 times this year in 2 different scopes and 2 different cameras. I may get around to combining all the data into 1 image, but with vastly different focal lengths will be tricky.

I’m reading this 6 years later, the Tom How Maxim plugin is still the only option I can find. Lee

I could but I prefer Bi Colour narrowband, will just grab some equal length oiii data then make the colour version as that's my normal routine.

Ive now found there is a way to do it in Maxim, seems its been around since 2012, http://astro.neutral.org/software/multiple-camera-sync-maxim.html Tom How created a plugin that allows maxim on one machine ( Master ) to control another 2 maxims running on other machines ( slaves ) and can sync the exposures on the slaves to the exposures on the master and still dither as normal, and up to 3 cameras. Seems it does it exactly what i want. Ive just ordered a network switch for the observatory to network the 2 machines together, then hopefully get the trial version working asap. The trial is limited to 15 mins per session so that only 1 sub for me, so will have to do some shorter test subs.

Very nice, prefer the version with stars Lee

Its just trying to synchronize capture of 2 cams with the dithering, when they have different download times. I guide and capture in Maxim which i really prefer to any other capture and guide programs. It does allow connecting to 2 cams at the same time but one of those is the lodestar. Ive tried manually running another instance on a 2nd pc, but even though i thought id calculated the offsets for the longer download times, the 2nd cam quickly lost sync with the main one so some of the subs got ruined by the dither. Now im thinking about it i could probably run 2 instances of maxim on the 1 machine. Wonder if there is a plug in to slave one to the other and pause until the slower cam has finished. I think I've read people do this with 2 instances of SGP, but it will be a cold day in hell before i go back to guiding in PHD lol. 🔥🔥🔥

I seem to be accumulating kit at a manic pace lately, though I don’t have the weather and skies to make the best use of it 😭 And crazy thing is, it’s all mounted at the same time to my ancient belt modded black EQ6 yet still producing reasonably round stars in 15 min subs. Must be 18kg on it now 🤭

I like the colour palette a lot. Lee

Thanks Olly, I had a bit of a mad few days last week in buying not one but 2x used CCD cameras ( the 383 & 460 ), to replace me beloved 314. My current plan is to use the larger chipped 383 on my 102 triplet with the 0.79x reducer, and use the 460 on the127 Triplet at its native 950mm FL. But before that I want to try the same target again with the other camera, just for my own comparison of the Kodak chip vs the Sony, so far I can only see a difference in the individual subs but as soon as you stack a few the Kodak seems to clean up and catch up the Sony. Lee

Its a great camera, im really pleased with it. Will be interesting to compare to my Atik383, I got both last week 2nd hand, and they are both great. Lee

Thanks Carole,

Here is the first light image with my new Atik460EX mono CCD. captured 20 X 15 min subs but had to delete the first 5 due to camera tilt, so this is only 15 x 15 mins with Baader 7nm Hydrogen Alpha filter and my Altair wave F7 Triplet refractor + Planostar 0.79x focal reducer bringing it to F5.5. Guided, captured & stacked in MaximDL, DDP stretch in Astro Pixel Processor, final processing in Photoshop. No Darks or flats. pleased to have captured the exceedingly faint Soap Bubble planetary nebula near bottom centre, this object is so faint it wasn't discovered until 2008, the bubble is an almost perfect sphere of gas expelled by its progenitor red giant star in the centre. Really pleased with how clean the files are with this camera, the single subs are clean enough to post by themselves with no calibration. Also attached close up of the soap bubble

Maybe tone down the brightest part of the ring it’s lost it’s colour. star colour is good

Didn't mean to dismiss your advice, I try to comment too fast sometimes. :-p, I guess part of it depends on the particular scope and filters etc as to how flat the raw subs will be, I may just be lucky that both of my refractors seem pretty good in this regard, and I have the time to keep cleaning my filters and optics 😛 but gives me something to do when its cloudy. Lee

Yes Olly, I must agree about the Kaf sensors, I just bought an Atik 383L and posted the first light image here on SGL. The individual subs are Not as impressively clean as my Sony sensor, but as soon as I stacked the 18 subs I captured last night I was blown away by the smoothness of the data and the tight stars ( probably due to the greater well depth ) I was seriously thinking of getting a 1600 CMOS last week but then looked at Sara Wagers comparison of her QSI KAF 8300 data with her previous Sony version and my mind was made up. Lee

Thanks, ive never found I needed flats with my Atik314 as its a little sensor and I make sure I have no dust in my system. But yes I may need to use flats for LRGB with the larger sensor, though Ha is much more forgiving and I can't detect any vignetting or uneven illumination so far in the first light subs. in rare occasions that I have had issue in the past I find it simpler to correct with Maxims Flatten background tool, its like DBE in Pix insight. I know I will get flack for this , but as long as the images look good to me I m happy 😛 Lee

Amazingly it was clear last night until 1:30am so allowed me to get first light image with my new (2nd hand) Atik 383L CCD camera. Wasn't expecting it to be clear so had to rush out after dinner to set camera - reducer spacing and re balance the mount, had no image planned so decided to go for the Heart Nebula as I have several images with different cams and scopes to compare to. Unfortunately I hadn't realised when I started that the almost full moon was quite close as it was hiding behind the house DOH :-p and consequently lowered the contras of the data. The much larger chip allowed me to almost fit the whole heart in without needing to use a smaller scope. This is total of 4.5hrs of data comprised of 18 x 900 second exposures in Hydrogen Alpha, using my Altair Wave 102 Triplet & 0.8 reducer at f5.6. As normal for my CCD images I didn't use calibration frames at all, just dither guiding combined with sigma rejection stacking in MaximDL, processed in photoshop. Must say im rather happy with the camera so far. Using this camera with the KAF8300 sensor is a bit different than what im used to with the Sony sensor in my old 314L. With the Sony the individual subs are so clean you can almost get away with 1 sub and still look decent, but with the Kaf sensor the individual subs come in quite noisy looking, but when you start stacking them it cleans up remarkably fast, and actually id say the final result is a little smoother in the end. But its the larger field of view I bought it for and it doesn't disappoint. Lee

Well done Dave, cant wait to see the results, ive always fancied one myself. looks like I may be making a gun hoe purchase myself in the morning, unless my sensible side takes control again by then 😜 see you on Saturday Lee

My whole Astro processing workflow in PS, as based solely around combinations of Noels and Annies actions, As Olly said you can use them in infinite different combinations and degrees of subtleness, by applying them in layers. The bottom 3 actions in Noels actions make this very simple, you just run the actions you want, then run either As layer on top, as layer underneath, or per selection only ( or inverse the selection first then run it ), then selectively erase or paint through the layers. Annies Actions I tend to run the action, copy the result then jump back to the pre action step then manually paste it as a layer. I have yet to see any way of being this Subtle in Pixinsight, Ive heard people say its Pix is a more mathematically accurate way of processing, but for me processing is an artistic representation and to be artistic its vital to be able to see the changes in real time. Lee