rob_r

Hi, perhaps the last DSO imaging session for me until the late Summer. I had M104 or M3 in mind, M3 would have been the better choice on altitude alone and equipment but I didn't want to pass this target up if I managed to locate it within frame.
However, I did catch M104 in frame despite being unable to see it through the EP, it was a bit of click and hope at the highest ISO setting then a little re-centering. By far, the most distant object I captured so far.

The below consists of 147x light frames at 18s exposure (~44 minutes) at ISO800, along with 40x flats, 40x darks and 40x bias. All taken with an unmodified Canon 600D and Mak 127. I stacked it using Siril on a Mac with further levels, curves and saturation adjustments in Photoshop. Perhaps underexposed as it needed quite a bit of stretching so the stars have blown out. Cropped then reduced the final image by 50%. A noisy final result and star trailing is evident but at least I managed to catch a galaxy this Spring. Reasonably happy with it considering the target. I'll stick to the Moon in the interim until Jupiter and Saturn swing into the evening skies.

Thanks for looking.

Got the issue although I've never been to Skye but had booked a cottage on the Isle of Arran last summer which didn't happen for obvious reasons. I was looking forward to the Bortle 1 skies, hopefully another opportunity will present itself soon. Stein Inn has been noted for future reference also. Last time I took my scope up to Scotland it was persistently cloudy. 

2 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Looks very good! You also got Rima Hadley on top, Rima Ariadaeus and also the Triesnecker rilles below Hyginus, they look like an elongated letter K. Excellent result!

Thanks for pointing those out, I see them now. Seems I caught a few more too, Rima Bradley, Fresnel and Archimedes. I'll have to figure out the barlow issue to try and get a closer look at all these features.

Losing the darkness now and especially on a 'work' night, time is getting tighter so after some fruitless galaxy hunting, I switched back to the moon.

A close up of the Mare Vaporum area from the evening of the 21st Apr 2021 near Preston, Lancs. My target here was the Hyginus crater and Rima Hyginus. I wasn't wholly convinced I captured it until I processed the stack. Pretty happy I managed to get it, be it on a smaller scale and the image turned out quite well despite feeling pushed for time. Seeing seemed to be good too. I tried with 2x barlow but it produced a terrible glare across the sensor.

Equipment: SW127 SCT; ZWO ASI224MC; SW EQ5 GoTo mount. Captured via ASI Cap on Mac OS. Processed x4 three minute videos, stacked the best 15% in AS!3; wavelet sharpened in Registax 6; median stacked and level adjusted in Photoshop.

Thanks for looking.

Hi, I have the 600D and I cannot really fault it. The articulated screen is indeed a very useful feature and saves your back. It does have a digital zoom too for planetary but as ever it will be sacrificing detail. My pics are not a patch on those above but it has been a great beginner model for me as I have a ASI224MC now. But, I'll continue to use it for DSOs.

I have the same mount. Don't run the mount from internal AA batteries, it will perform far more reliably from an external rechargeable portable power tank such as this, https://www.firstlightoptics.com/batteries-powerpacks/skywatcher-powertank-7ah.html and comes with the correct connections and leads to get you going.

I have the 224MC although not had it long so only used a couple of times so far. I find the ASI Studio perfectly adequate for now.

My usual process is ASICap > AS!3 > Registax > WinJupos (Optional) > Photoshop.

In an additional bit of advice, ditch the USB cable that comes with it as it is a USB2/3 connection and go for one with a USB-C connection if your laptop has those ports available (or if you have a newish MacBook that is all you have available anyway). 

Thanks @vlaiv. This is exactly the understandable explanation I was looking for.

I was looking for the IR pass filter for lunar photography mostly as I believe it can make the images a little sharper. Have I got that thinking right? So for planetary, I'm only interested in visible light by utilising the IR cut.
I'll hold off on the LRGB filters for now in any case.

Thanks again.

Hi, I'm after some advice please. I recently got an ASI224MC and I've been using ASICap to so far, capture some videos of the Moon with some decent results.

But, I'm a little puzzled as to what the difference is between the two options of capturing data, RAW8 and RAW16, other than the type of file it is saving. I notice that depending on the option selected it will save the video as either an AVI or SER files. SER is the preferred option as it cuts out having to convert the AVI (using Siril) into SER anyway so I can use AS!3 to stack the captures. In the ASICap manual, it states:

Quote

Raw Data: When the displayed image is a color image and you want to save the original (black and white) image, please check this box. If it is not checked, it will save the color image. This can be set only for color cameras and when the data format is set as Raw8. The black and white camera or when Raw16 format is selected, it can only save the original data.

So my question is say I want the black and white image, is it a true monochrome image that would allow me to use filters to capture separate RGB channels if so desired? Is one RAW option better quality (i.e. more data captured) than the other? What is meant by 'original data'? And so leads me to my next question about filters. I have a manual filter wheel and since the camera is colour, do I need a set of RGB filters or would I be better off just capturing in colour? Would an ADC help? I have my eye on the Baader LRGB set of filters along with a Baader IR 685nm pass filter as I know that the 224MC is particular sensitive to IR.

Apologies for so many questions, feels like I'm going down a rabbit hole. So, thanks for any pointers.

Hi and welcome from over the river in Penwortham.

Hi, a string of clear nights from the latter half of last week was a welcome sight and the favourable conditions seem set to continue for the next couple of days at least. Coupled with a favourable libration of the recent full Moon, the western/southwestern limb was showing a little more of the farside particularly the massive Mare Orientale. So, below are a few images of Mare Orientale (Eastern Sea) be it incredibly foreshortened, Bailly (along with Schickard & Schiller) and Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). All taken with a SW SkyMax 127, ZWO ASI224MC plus extender tube (perhaps a little over the usual 1500mm focal length) with no filters on a EQ5 mount. Attempted to use a Celestron 2x barlow but this showed a terrible reflection or glare across the camera but happy enough with this set nonetheless. Next on the shopping list is a IR pass filter to increase the sharpness a little more hopefully and a better quality 2.5x barlow perhaps.

Each image acquired via/consisted of:
Exposure 5ms, 60 gain via ASICap
5 x 3000 frame AVIs, best 25% stacked in AS!3
Wavelet sharpening RegiStax 6
Final stack in Siril
Final level and curve adjustments in Photoshop.

Thanks for looking!

That does seem to happen quite often. That said, there is a favourable libration for Mare Orientale so I'll be pointing my scope at that. Glorious clear skies here at the moment!

Replacing the USB flat cable was one of the first things I did with my ASI224MC, mostly due to having a Mac Pro with the smaller USB-C ports only. I tried using the supplied flat cable via a USB2 to USB-C hub first time round and the camera kept disconnecting despite having no issues with any other external device using the hub. Getting the USB-C cable simply cut out the middle man and could connect the camera directly into the Mac Pro, plus I guess there would be an speed increase of data transfer. No issues since. I am not sure what was the fault with the disconnecting, whether it was the hub, the cable or a combination of the two.

I just got myself this camera too so I will also try these settings in future and I have tried the same advice from The London Astronomer too. I wonder about filters as I am considering getting a LRGB set for the gas giants later in the year as surely these would affect exposures timings and settings even further?

12 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

The light was perfect to make the small craters really show in Mare Humorum.

Very nice images.

Thanks guys. It was the featured highlight for the Moon this month for the 24th and 25th in the BBC Sky at Night magazine and proved a good target practice for me using the new planetary camera.

A couple of close ups of Mare Humorum and the Gassendi crater. These were the first from my new ASI224MC.
The first of Mare Humorum with the camera attached to my SW Mak 127 with an extender tube mounted on a EQ5. The close up of the crater was the same again, only with a Celestron 2x barlow added to the train. Considering getting a better quality barlow, I thought about a 5x but after reading some informative threads here that would be pointless. So a better quality 2x or 2.5x might be a future purchase and open to recommendations on this.

Each are the result of the best 30% frames of 10x 3,000 total frame videos processed via AS!3. Slight wavelet sharpening in Registax 6 then the both median stacked in Photoshop. Siril was throwing off the alignment due to too much movement between the frames. From there, slight level adjustments and sharpening in Photoshop v20. 
Taken on the 24th Jan and yes, it was quite cold (-4C) which eventually defeated me after 90 minutes, frost formed on the dew shield and dew quickly become apparent. But in all, I consider it a successful first attempt using the ASI224MC as it has captured some decent detail. The close up of Gassendi seems to show a slight shift in the blue channel I think, not sure what caused this unless it is a bad registration on the final stack.

I'm over the river in Penwortham.

Here is my small 127 Mak on a EQ5 mount. 

Thanks for the pointers, @Adreneline. I think I left 3x drizzle checked by mistake which initially led to me wondering why my Mac was running low on RAM. I'm still finding my way around DSS. Siril was giving me some weird patterns in the final stacks I tried that. In any case, I still have the RAWs so I reprocessed it last night and this led to a much cleaner image and did a little better with the core. I'm not guiding yet and it is something I'm working towards but I want to get the tracking pinned down first as the mount should be capable of stable exposures longer than half a minute. Thanks for the article, it made a lot of sense.

My latest effort taken over two nights, Christmas Eve and New Years Day.

Took 70x25s (24/12/2020) and 70x10s (01/01/2021) exposures with a Canon 600D (plus 20 darks and 20 bias for each stack, ISO800) in an effort not to blow out the core by stacking and merging the different exposures in Photoshop. Safe to say, I failed in that respect. With a focal length of 1500mm, getting most of the main nebula structure in frame was always going to be near impossible. Still, a significant improvement on my first shot of this target two years ago which is somewhere on this forum perhaps. I'm not sure what the object to the centre left either. Hopefully, another opportunity to get longer exposures will come by, I think I can push it to 40s before trailing becomes an issue. Still, trying to fathom accurate polar alignment on the EQ5.

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker, 3x drizzle applied. Further processing in Photoshop, levels, curves, saturation, setting black and white points plus noise reduction.

The moon from Christmas Eve at about 76% full, a waxing gibbous.

40x exposures at 1/200 seconds at ISO800. Taken with a Canon 600D and SkyMax 127mm near Preston, Lancs UK.

A stack of 40 frames stacked in AS!3. Then sharpened, colour balanced and reduced noise in Photoshop v21. A first attempt at saturating the image to show the mineral compositions of various regions. Duplicated the layer and set blending mode to luminosity, increased saturation on the lower layer than flattened the image. Didn't want to oversaturate but perhaps could have gone for a little more saturation.

Hi, last weekend offered up a clear night so starting imaging M33. Still got quite a few more frames to collect at the moment and very much a work in progress.
So far, this is at 70x 30s lights, 20x darks and 20x bias all with an unmodded Canon 600D at ISO800 which seems to be the sweet spot setting for ISO for this camera. Nothing else in between the camera and my 127mm Mak. This is first time using a Bahtinov mask and gained focus on nearby Mars before switching upwards towards Triangulum. All stacked in DSS but had to drop the star detection threshold quite low as the light frames only have a few stars visible. Essentially, I'm flying blind with this one as I cannot see it through the eyepiece or on live view. But, next time I know to look out for the triangle of stars towards the top left of the image. The image is a quick edit and still quite noisy but some details are beginning to show through. Hopefully, more frames will reveal more details. Any advice on progressing this further would be appreciated.

An early Christmas present to myself, an ZWO ASI224MC and a Bahtinov mask. Seemed to take an age for the camera to be back in stock, been waiting for a couple of months at least.

Really looking forward to using these although I know it is guaranteed to be cloudy now for the foreseeable.

Absolutely, the seemingly persistent cloud cover for me. Then when it is a clear(ish) night, it's either a full moon or a work day the morning after. 

An unexpected short session on Sunday evening with a brief respite in cloud cover. I liked the dramatic scene of the Copernicus crater shrouded by the terminus so I took a few movies of it. The amount of detail was unexpected and quite a pleasing result for me. Seeing conditions appeared to be good with some high thin rolling clouds. The moon was approximately 69% illuminated, a waxing gibbous.

The below image was acquired from 5 movies approximately 100 seconds long, shot at 25FPS with the DLSR's built in digital zoom at about 3x. The scope was the SkyMax 127 SCT and the DSLR is a Canon 600D, movies were shot at around 8.30pm GMT. I was eventually clouded out about an hour later. All movies converted to SER using Siril then stacked the best 33% frames in AS!3, I could according to AS!3 perhaps have pushed the percentage at around 50%. Denoise filter set to 7, sharpened by 50%. The resulting stacks I took into Registax and sharpened up more (perhaps overdone it) with Wavelets. The final stacking process was via Siril. Then a little levels and hue/saturation adjustments plus a final crop via Photoshop.