Dan13

33 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

I've only been into this pastime for 3 years or so, but I still fully get that wow moment every time I look at Jupiter and Saturn. And they're not even close to full crispness yet being so low down to the horizon from the UK.

M

very surreal at times isnt it! and yes a joy to behold when there at the best! clear skies

39 minutes ago, Mariner74 said:

Bit late but fully relate to that 'wow' moment. Decades ago with a small three inch cheap refractor on Saturn for the first time, to the moon through binoviwer on a twelve inch dob' a few months ago and last night with Neowise on a simple pair of 8 x 40s, followed by Jupiter and Saturn with my new scope. 'Wow' moments never end. Cheers!

Excellent  such a good feeling and as you have shown, one that sticks forever!

2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

It should create less noise, or rather - noise should be better looking. It should not affect levels of noise - just "shape" of it.

You'll have to provide a bit more context. I have no idea when I said that, or what in relation to. Can you point me to exact sentence?

Hi Vlaiv,

3. I would just recommend you in the future to use Gain 120, to turn off AWB and check if offset has good value - and continue taking nice images 

this was your point, 

mmm i really not sure whats gone wrong last night but im really not happy with the frames for the cam i have, i used to achieve better with a dslr...

On 28/01/2020 at 09:52, vlaiv said:

Ok, here are my findings:

1. There is no light leak so you are ok with that.

What I suspect is going on with bayer pattern in the darks / bias subs is some sort of white balance in drivers. I'm not familiar with drivers of this particular camera, but if you turned on automatic white balance in drivers - you might want to turn that off.

I'm suspecting AWB because this camera is 14bit ADC camera - that means that all values in recorded raw sub should be divisible by 4 (16 bit total, 14 bit used - remaining two bits set to 0 - same as number being multiplied by 4). It is not case with your bias and dark files - there are odd values as well as even. This can happen only if values have been changed once they were read out of the camera - for example AWB process in drivers could explain that. AWB could also explain bayer patter. Since there is some offset to pixel value (pixels in bias are not 0, but rather positive value roughly equal for each pixel) - multiplying that with different factors for each color will create different values. Even values in bayer matrix show this could be so - since strongest is blue then red and green is the weakest. If you look at ASI294mc QE curves - it is other way around - green is strongest, red is second and blue is the weakest - which means that they have to be multiplied with certain factors to "even out" giving strengths of pixels in bias/dark that we see.

In any case - I would recommend turning off auto white balance in drivers. With that turned on, I can't judge if offset of 10 is good value because I can't see actual read out values of pixels but only WB corrected values.

Another thing - AWB should not mess up your calibration and everything should work fine.

2. Your subs indeed work fine. Here is comparison on one sub between proper calibration and raw sub without calibration:

This is the same sub - left has been calibrated by (ligth - avg_dark) / (avg_flat - avg_flat_dark) while right one is without calibration. Both subs were binned x8 to get enough SNR to show features of the image. As you can see - you get pretty decent sub with calibration - no vignetting and it looks clean in comparison to raw sub.

As you see - another confirmation that above is probably AWB, as that is not going to affect calibration, and indeed calibration works fine.

3. I would just recommend you in the future to use Gain 120, to turn off AWB and check if offset has good value - and continue taking nice images

HTH

Hi @vlaiv apologies to jump on an old post here and disturb you but you made some points that may help my issue. I imaged to Veil nebula last week that turned out ok considering integration time spent, with that i moved onto another target. This time using unity gain and offset as previous was at 0 my histogram was clipping in the black levels, i bumped it up to 30 and things seemed ok....

Ive come to process 4 hours of data and im really not happy with the noise levels at all...

!. can bumping the offset up cause extra unwanted noise

2.what do you mean by making sure the "gain value" is ok?

many thanks for any input, i also have a 294mc pro recently coming from a 600d

Dan

Hi, Last night out of the blue i encountered some huge dec backlash and unstable guiding. I think im due a strip down and re-grease soon anyway but when i opened up the cog chamber i found the Dec belt (rowan mod) a little too soft for my liking so i put some more tension on it.

Is there any program i can grab to test how the axis are behaving at all without having to lose imaging time? (HEQ5 Pro)

many thanks

44 minutes ago, FaB-Bo-Peep said:

I can relate. For me the WOW! moment was with a blue Skywatcher 130PM and the planet in question was Saturn which I purely stumbled on by chance. My wife was equally unimpressed about being woken up and dragged out into the garden in the dead of night 🙂

Haha brilliant! Such a feeling isn't it, a great hobby we endure for sure! Has its ups and downs but the rewards are fantastic. 

27 minutes ago, barkingsteve said:

I have used a 2.5x barlow if 'seeing' allows. I use sharpcap to capture a .ser file, usually around 3,000 frames then stack in AS3 and sharpen in registax. I am by no means an expert, i am still experimenting with gain, exposure, etc.  Planets are low and an ADC ( atmospheric dispersion corrector ) will help, but i haven't had much success with mine, others have. Take a look at the planetary imaging section.

No thats great info. I did try my barlow and mono cam as its smaller but didn't really give me much joy. Might try the mc Pro tonight with the barlow in and see how I get in. 

Thank you Steve will do 

3 minutes ago, barkingsteve said:

I think we all had that 'wow' moment some time or other    I use my 294mc pro for imaging planets, you just need to use the region of interest to get rid of the vast nothingness and improve frame rate.

Excellent thank you, do you any other attachments or spacers at all steve? 

What acquisition software do you use for planetary ? 

I've always imaged the night sky from the early days but for some reason I've never viewed and appreciated with my own eyes the beauty up there.

This week I bought a 127 mak from an SGL  member (thanks dave for the pleasant transaction) and got out last nice to observe jupiter.

I looked up and see its position, looked through my finder scope and when it came into view.....WOW!! I was stunned! This was just my finder scope and I could see its moons already! With full excitement I ran in the house and woke the wife up ( wasnt overly happy at first 🤣) and dragged her outside to look.

I popped the 25mm eye piece in adjusted the focus and pretty much was gob smacked!! We both sat in awe for a good 15 mins just taking turns to look before popping a 2x barlow in for a little more grunt. 

What a fantastic experience and one I know I should have done a long time ago.

My eye pieces are basic but I have a hyperflex zoom on order ( thanks John SGL) for the recommendation. 

All in all I had a very special moment last night with the jight sky that I can't wait to share with my son when he's older and a memory I wont forget! 

Ill be viewing a lot more now and am eagerly awaiting oct for mars.

Questions...

I would like to grab some images of the planets, I have a 120 mms and a 294mc pro will either of these suffice? 

I had great trouble trying to line the planet up with stellarium as its always miles off and I just plate solve but due to a lack of stars around the planets how would one usually tune stellarium to the correct position ( use eq mod not hand controller) I have a HEQ5 Pro.

Many thanks and clear skies everyone 

What a magical hobby we have. 

Tbh Rodd, Your attitude towards @vlaiv earlier and now myself is uncalled for.

You dont want to take any advice or info on board , you sound like you know best so i would advise to continue as you were and do you.

Just now, Rodd said:

The stack sucks---I won't even process it.   The level of detail visible in the single sub is MUCH more than the stack.  details completely disappear in the stack!!!   1 30 min Ha channel is not enough to produce the type of images I like to produce at least not in my sky.  You keep saying 5 hours vs 10.  This is 1/2 hour.  Not the same.

Your missing my point, Maybe its my fault. I joined the topic to discuss the advantages/disadvantages of 10 hours integration or 5 hours. i think 10 is over kill and wont benefit any more...thats just my findings.

with regards to your issue, i dont believe the single frame is better when inspecting it differently, i think the stack is.

Try and re process, its the only option. Its near impossible for a single sub frame to be better then a final stack so maybe your processing was off.

then stack half the data (5 hours) and compare that to you ten hours. Id say you will save yourself 5 hours sleep after seeing the results.

Id go back over your stacking parameters and try again and see if you get the same result, maybe something was off.

Ive just separated your images and put one on each of my dual monitors, IMO i can tell which one is the 10 hour stack by doing this and now think the stack is better but marginally. This goes back to my previous post, i dont believe IMO 10 hours data on a single target is justified compared to say 5 hours.

In this case it still is strange because your single sub is very close to that of a stacked image, but then again with a 30 min sub i think your at the limit of getting the most detail you will from that target in any given shot. by taking 19 more your really only fine tuning the detail lines and not the whole nebula.

Stacked image is cleaner -less distorted/less noise-more detailed , not sure what else your after here....

great images.... Im so interested in this subject because i just cant see the advantage of a ten hour integration over a 5 hour. ive never seen enough detail change in my own final stack to continue shooting for ten hours when i can do two targets at 5 hours each. just my opinion. I tend to do 6 hours max over a few days if im doing HARGB. if its a single osc shot ill do 4 hours total.

18 hours ago, John said:

I use one of these zooms quite frequently for lunar, planetary and double star observing. Not the widest field of view at the long end but image quality is good. I use a 2.25x barlow with it but my refractors are shorter focal length than your 127mm mak-cassegrain is so on it's own the zoom gives you 70x - 208x:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/hyperflex-72mm-215mm-eyepiece.html

A touch over your budget but a lot of flexibility !

 

All ordered John thanks for your help

15 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

Hi Dan,

I use gain 11 & offset 132, which is the optimum for my ccd camera. I can reduce the stars using various techniques. I was just pointing out that the more imaging time you spend on certain subjects tends to increase the star population.

Thanks anyway

Steve

Gotcha Steve  

I would create a star mask with star net++ on a 3 hour integration and then apply that to the final image. clear skies

17 minutes ago, Geoff Barnes said:

I'm particularly looking forward to viewing Mars when it comes into my view in December at 45 degrees elevation. As it is one object that seems to take whatever magnification one can throw at it I will attack it with my new Vixen SLV 2.5mm and at 600x I will expect to see at least a few Martians going about their business! 😁

(No dust storms pleeeez!).

haha brilliant Geoff, ive ordered the zoom lens but as we no with this hobby oct-dec is a while away yet and new gear can be bought   

23 hours ago, sloz1664 said:

Here is the image of NGC6992 calibrated, stacked and DBE only. Lots of stars....

Steve

what gain did you use Steve? also find a slight curve transformation will help lower the stars a little.

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Yes I think so. It would give x187 which would work pretty well for all three. Saturn and Mars can take more under good conditions, perhaps up to x220 for Saturn and x250 for Mars but the 8mm would be a good start.

One issue is that with planets low currently even x187 may be too much on occasion so the Zoom would give you the range of magnification options.

Thats a good point thank you Stu, Im kind of gearing up now ready for mars in OCT, always been a dream to view that target and looking forward to it. I think i may go with Johns suggestion as it seems very versatile

7 minutes ago, DeathWarpedUp said:

What do you use to find targets with AP?

stellarium/EQmod/Nina

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I would forget the barlow, no need for it with a 1500mm focal length; you can get to x250 with a 6mm eyepiece so the barlow is pretty much redundant, especially if it is questionable quality.

John’s suggestion is a good one, and would give you plenty of flexibility. I guess the alternative would be something like a BST Starguider or two 😉. The 8mm would give you a very useable x187, good for planets or the Moon.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces.html

Thabk you, yes I like the look of the one John posted it seems to be a multi tool if I'm reading right. Would an 8mm be enough for mars saturn and Jupiter without a barlow? 

2 hours ago, DeathWarpedUp said:

Just out of interest, if you have  got mostly 9 to 25s. Won't you need something wider to help with your general star  hopping?

I'm really not sure tbh I'm not very knowledgeable with observing and these are the only ones in the tool kit atm

11 hours ago, John said:

I use one of these zooms quite frequently for lunar, planetary and double star observing. Not the widest field of view at the long end but image quality is good. I use a 2.25x barlow with it but my refractors are shorter focal length than your 127mm mak-cassegrain is so on it's own the zoom gives you 70x - 208x:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/hyperflex-72mm-215mm-eyepiece.html

A touch over your budget but a lot of flexibility !

 

Thank you , happy to pay a little over if its on good merit from somone such as yourself. 

So this is in theory 3 eye pieces in one? Am I reading that right? 

1 minute ago, John said:

Congratulations on the scope.

What barlow do you have ?

Just don't want it to be the "weak link" !

 

Thanks John , ah ok! Well I'm guessing it will be then as it was only £20 I think! 

Maybe I need a half decent Barlow and a eyepiece...rabbit hole continues 🤣

Hi, Im due to acquire a 127 mak from a member here on Friday. Strangely I started my astro journey with astrophotography from the start and never really obsevered. 

I absolutely love this hobby and am fully committed to it now.

Question is ...I have some standard 9mm ,25mm eye pieces that I've acquired through scopes along the way, I also have a 2x barlow.

I'm looking for a nice eye piece to complement the Barlow for some good planetary and Luna viewing, looking to spend up to £70 as t this moment.

Many thanks ( apologize for spelling it's not my greatest strength)

Clear skies

3 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

Dan, did you use Starnet++ to reduce the stars in your image?

Steve

Hi Steve, i didnt personally in this image, i used it as a mask to get my colouring right on the nebula and the stars them selves. i really like the stars around this target so they dont bother me at all tbh.

Side note, i forgot to add i used a L-enhance with this for the first time and was shocked at how well it picked up the surrounding nebulosity, thats why i kept a lot of it in the image