FiveByEagle

Sh2-157, as designated in the Sharpless Catalog, is an emission nebula located in the constellation Cassiopeia approximately 8,000 light-years distant. The small open cluster of stars located in the upper right of the image is designated NGC 7510 and lies approximately 11,400 light-years away.  The small bright nebular object just below the "blue left pincher" is designated Sharpless 157a. It is a nebula surrounding the Wolf Raynet star WR-157.
The image above was compiled from narrow band filtered exposures to create a mapped color depiction of the nebula.  The standard Hubble pallet of Sulfur-II mapped to red, Hydrogen-Alpha mapped to green, and Oxygen-3 mapped to blue was utilized for the image.  Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop.
For this image, I traveled about 25 minutes from my house to a public park that has skies half the brightness of home, and imaged this for about 5.4 hours.
Gear:
QHY533M
CFW3
Antlia 4.5nm NB filters
Flat6AIII
GT81IV 
EQ6-R
NINA+Sharpcap+Pixinsight

These summer nights… 🤯 

First light with the QHY 533M and CFW. Was able to get a combined 4.8 hours of SHO data on this region in northern Cygnus. 

Filters are Antlia Edge 4.5nm. Absolutely impressed so far. 

QHY533M
CFW3
ZWO LRGB filters
Antlia 4.5nm NB filters
Flat6AIII
GT81IV 
EQ6-R
NINA+Sharpcap+Pixinsight
 

On 09/04/2022 at 12:42, ollypenrice said:

I have to join the chorus singing that the OAG is asking for trouble... but your call.

I wonder if this thread might be of any use to you?

It deals with camera sensor tilt adjustment but, off the top of my head, this simple jig might also be made to work for testing other parts of the train for tilt. It's a daytime test.

The other way to do daytime/cloudy night testing is to make an artificial star by gluing a ballbearing onto a black card and lighting it up with a flashlight. You then observe or image this from a good distance. It really does make a decent 'test star.'

Olly

 

I do have an AstroZap false star, but the issue is distance.

Its been heavy rain so there is not even the option of rolling the scopes outside, and I live in the city so I can MAYBE 30 feet of travel to use it. 

On 09/04/2022 at 12:42, ollypenrice said:

I have to join the chorus singing that the OAG is asking for trouble... but your call.

I wonder if this thread might be of any use to you?

It deals with camera sensor tilt adjustment but, off the top of my head, this simple jig might also be made to work for testing other parts of the train for tilt. It's a daytime test.

The other way to do daytime/cloudy night testing is to make an artificial star by gluing a ballbearing onto a black card and lighting it up with a flashlight. You then observe or image this from a good distance. It really does make a decent 'test star.'

Olly

 

OAG's are what I use. I do not prefer On-Axis, and its been 26 months since losing a sub to a guiding error. It works without flaw, and will never be removed.

Also. 2" EFW bolts directly to the 2600, which the OAG-L bolts directly to it.. there is no "removing" it that would not result in exactly where I am at now. The tilt plate would need to be re-located again... thus putting me right back to where I am now. This issue started with me relocating it once, and being unable to get it back to square. This would just be me doing that, with the added benefit of downgrading my guiding. No can do.

On 09/04/2022 at 07:56, mrflib said:

+1 for bench test. You can make sure that your *imaging train* is completely aligned to your sensor, regardless of whether your sensor is actually aligned itself.

Once this is done, if you still have tilt it's most likely in your focuser.

I had this issue and it's impossible to diagnose assembled. You need to break it down.

I am seeing these, however not sure how to jig up the entire setup for this.

It would have to be the entire OAG,EFW,2600 on this platform and getting it correctly built. 

4 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Is it the OAG ?

IIRC there are posts here and on other Forums to the effect that 2600's often have tilted sensors ?

Michael

It could be either. You have to remove the tilt plate from the 2600 and mount it to the OAG-L. 

OAG remains. Guidescopes are not my speed. 

What else? Has anyone use the tilt adjust on these?

29 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

I have the same telescope but don't use an OAG - have you tried guiding through a simple guidescope attached to the telescope?

In my view you don't really need an OAG for a telescope of this focal length.

No plans of going back to a guide-scope or adding/removing any components.

Hello all!

Got my GT81IV-Flat6AIII+OAG-L-EFW 2"-2600MC rig going, and so far it has been a nightmare.

Installing the OAG-L and moving the M48 tilt plate from the camera to the OAG, I have been almost completely unable to fix the tilt I am experiencing. Using ASTAP and Hocus Focus to try and diagnose the issues but with little to no progress.

Step one was to place the flattener as close to the "recommended spec" as possible - knowing that it could be way off.

When it was attached the stars in about 1/3rds of the image were OK (fairly round, within my own margin of "screw it") but 2/3rds were in lines pointing outward. Using my backfocus chart, I see this typically means I am too close to the flattener. Move it back 1.5mm and now only half of the stars were bad! Closer...

Realized the bad half was coma shaped so I assumed tilt from the OAG. Frankly everything else is hard bolted together so I can not imagine tilt from the EFW region. The 3 tilt adjustment screws are in odd places imo to adjust the 4 corners of the sensor. I tried my very best but it is still wildly out. In fact, now all my stars are kinda wonky so I obviously made it worse. However there is zero documentation for this gear, so what am I supposed to do? Not wing it?

I usually average about 3 clear nights a month, and so far have spent 6 trying to solve this and have not captured an image since last December. Really losing my patience trial and erroring without any sense of progress.

Question 1 - Are there any great resources online on fixing tilt with the OAG-L's tilt plate? Or adjusting tilt in general? Not sure how my changes are making no difference. I am not buying anything else to make this work. Zero AP purchases until 2023, so we are making it work with the gear I own. (which is all the correct stuff anyway, its just misaligned)

Question 2 - I am located in Indiana. I am willing to pay someone to come and fix it, perfect it, lock it down and guarantee it. If anyone has a lead here, let me know. Sadly our local astronomy group in Fort Wayne is worse than useless for anything of a modern or technically oriented nature.

Question 3: Is there anything that can be done for this issue during the day? Wasting clear sky time is seriously heartbreaking.

There have been a total of 9 clear nights in Fort Wayne since Jan 1 2022. 8 of them have produced zero images due to this ONE issue, and that one was a 2 hour SHO trial (that worked and came out gorgeous) but it is still not worthwhile until I get back to a 50% K/D here.

6 hours ago, adyj1 said:

Did you notice anything obvious (dust, etc) on the sensor?

Dust but that was it. Scopes are stored outside and I use a filter drawer, so there is an occasional opening to the air.

Just now, Same old newbie alert said:

That's really strange as everything suggests that you shouldn't get any vignette

Yep lol Bought everything specifically to avoid it actually...

I removed the camera to clean the sensor window, and that is when I saw that the edges of my focuser are not black but a reflective metal material. Might get a wax pen or something and cover that.

3 hours ago, Same old newbie alert said:

Strange, as the spec says you can use a APS-C sized sensor

So what sized filters are you using?

The Astro-Tech AT130EDT triplet refractor allows imaging with a DSLR or CCD using an APS-C or equivalent sensor (29mm diagonal) with no vignetting. Adding the dedicated reducer/field flattener, #ATREDT30, will allow imaging with a full frame DSLR (43mm diagonal sensor) with only minor vignetting at the corners of the image.

Filters are all 2" - M42 OAG and M42 filter drawer.

10 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

You get a ring like this when you move the camera between taking your lights and flats whether intentional or not.

Solutions to that problem: dont touch the camera before taking flats or fix the mechanical issue causing the movement. The mechanical issue i would assume to be in the focuser. I am not familiar with your scope but just looking at it online i see that the focuser looks pretty good so maybe not. Could also be some other adapter/thread or mechanical issue somewhere else in the scope. Basically your flats will only work if the entire optical train is exactly the same in your lights and flats, and if not you get these artifacts.

100% I do believe that was my issue on an old rig, but on this new one flats are taken after PA but before the sequence, so focus should be identical.

I started doing this because of exactly what you said.

3 hours ago, Same old newbie alert said:

What camera are you using? 

Hello! 2600MC - 

52 minutes ago, Budgie1 said:

That's called Vignetting.

That is what I called it in my post though? 

29 minutes ago, Ian McCallum said:

Looks like the dreaded 'dust bunnies'!🤔

Not those - the one BIG ring.

Hello!

Was finally able to complete the replacement of the primary cell of my AT130EDT and all of my chromatic aberrations have disappeared, but now its time to tackle issue #2.

I get wild vignettes in my integrations regardless of filter and I can not seem to source them. 

Initially I had thought it was caused by bad filters, so I exchanged filters and reversed them too. No real change there, and in my filter-less star tests since getting the new primary have really showed me that the filter/corrector is not the cause.

I am at a bit of a loss as to what is causing these and would LOVE to have some help on this. 

Could it be light spill? I noticed it is dark and light on the sides.. could this be tilt too? 

I have attached a few images -  the first is the single sub. second is the raw stack, third is after DBE, and then there is the master flat and final for inspection too.

Thank you!

Hi y'all - happy snow day.
 
With the announcement of the 533MM Pro, I have made the decision to flop back to Monochrome imaging. I had the 183MC, then the 183MM and then the 533MC, and now the 2600MC.
 
My past experience with monochrome imaging was nightmare-ish. Went to the 533 and 2600 and have been really happy! The cameras themselves have been excellent, however the 2600 has revealed some large rings in my setup not previously seen on an smaller-than-APSC sensors. It is minor, but there is usually a nearly FOV sized ring in my images that does not go away in flats. Must be a reflection, no idea.
 
Anyway - my thought of the new system are this.
 
ZWO ASI533MM Pro
31mm Astronomik's SHO 6nm
31mm CLS CCD filter for Luminance (I know this isn't technically correct, but my EDT is not perfectly color corrected and this compensates enough for me to not notice)
31mm Deep-Sky RGB Filters
ZWO 8-pos 31mm EFW
 
I already have an OAG, and spacers so I think I am good there.
 
Anyone on the outside looking in, have opinions or comments on something I should consider?

Budget is 2500 OTD - with a contingency for $300 more.
 

Had a string of moonless clear nights in Fort Wayne, which has only happened 1 other time since starting AP -

New location on the patio put about a 5 hour window on the Rosette and I made use of almost every minute! Full 10 hours.

ASI2600MC

IDAS NBZ 2" filter

Processing - 

Early Steps

AstroPixelProcessor for stacking + drizzling data

StarAlignment in Pix

DBE on Oiii

Luminance Pixinsight Processing:

Duplicated master Ha to use as the Luminance

DeCon - Get PSF from EZ

LinearStarnet

Save STF+HistogramTransformation Process

John’s Rista’s Denoise

HistogramTransformation

ExponentialTransformation

Pixinsight Color Layer Processing

Separate Ha and Oiii linear masters - create Star Images

LinearStarNet script

STF to HistogramTransformation

MMT using the MMT process from earlier + Lum mask

Combine using ChannelCombination

R- Ha

G- Oiii

B - Oiii

HistogramTransformation to level background

Star Map Processing

PixelMath R=Hastars G=Hastars*.5+Oiiistars*.5 B=Oiiistars

ArcSinStretch to bring in colors a bit

HistogramTransformation to bring them the rest of the way to tasteful levels

Photoshop Processing

Combine the 3 Layers in Luminance, Color and Screen for stars

Curves adj. on color layer to even out shades to match Luminance data

Camera RAW on Lum+Color data to clean up and apply NR to dark areas

Selective Masking on Luminance to make areas punch through the color layer

Flatten (not star layer)

Saturation

Selective Color

Saturation on Star layer

UnsharpMask to make stars a bit pointier

Export to 75% JPG

https://www.astrobin.com/7roy3n/

Hello all!
 
The ASI2600MC finally arrived, got it on the AT130EDT with my IDAS NBZ filter and ASIAIR Pro - was able to get 45x600s exposures while I snoozed last night. Drizzled 2x, and then resampled back down to keep file size manageable but stars round.

Overall, I am SO HAPPY with this new camera. I can't believe how much data came out of this thing in only 7+ hours.
 
Bortle 7, Fort Wayne Indiana.

https://astrob.in/x2rp52/B/

Thank you!!

The magenta was by choice haha, I usually go for either "true"-ish HaRGB, or Faux-SHO so this extra punchy magenta/blue is actually a new experiment!

Hello all!

After wrestling an astrograph-newt for the last 3 months and finally throwing in the towel on that venture - I just needed a win.

Broke out the trusty William Optics GT81IV, (new)Idas NBZ, and the ASIAIR and aimed for a random patch in Cygnus. Well, not super random as I did check it out in DSS to make sure it was not too poorly framed, but its not near any big named nebula in the Swan.

Its only a little over 4 hours with 300s subs at Gain 100, cooled to 0. The 533 just cant get to -10 in the summer. Darks and flats and dark flats, stacked in APP, processed in Pixinsight and finished in Photoshop.

Higher Res on Astrobin! 

https://astrob.in/6tht4x/0/

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think, good or bad - I need to learn!

On 22/05/2021 at 05:43, david_taurus83 said:

The thing with a newtonian is you only want light that is reflected from the primary to the secondary to shoot up the drawtube. If you put the light source for flats on top of the tube you risk light bypassing the mirror route and entering the focuser directly which will give you uneven illumination. Can you place the light source a bit further away from the OTA and aim at it? 

Oh my goodness - this might be it.

Will try to get it above the scope... ideas?

6 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

Are you sure the light source is even right to the edge? A4 isn't sufficiently large to give even light over the aperture of our GSO 8" of which AFAIK the ts is a re-badged version.

A3 works fine though. Until you can test, maybe just use simple t-shirt flat frames. 

HTH

That is a typo. I have both A4 and A3 panels - A4 for the refractors and A3 for the SCT and Newt - 

Hey everyone.

Recently picked up a TS Photon8 - got a new focuser installed, cameras, OAG - everything is running nice and smooth!!! First time where there are no digital failures out of the gate and that was so exciting.

However - always a BUT lol. But my flats just do not come out. I use an A3 tracing pad (used on all my telescopes - never let me down yet!!!)and the contrast and vignetting does not match the light frames. The dark corners are not the same, and the flats do not appear to match the pattern on the lights. Unfortunately because of this, I have two full nights of data I can not process or do anything with, which is too bad. My M106 data was SHARP...

Is there something different I need to be doing? Extra diffusion? - I have always just placed the pad onto the opening of the scope and that was all that was needed for perfect quick flats.

There was a massive amount of light leaking from the back, so I covered that up with the Astrozap Shower Cap and some gaff tape internally, and that totally eliminated the problem and I have taking good flats - "correct looking" without banding or gross leaks and streaks.

(I was able to take a 30s dark frame and there is only small leakage even in the middle of the day. So we are fairly well sealed up)

My new flats and dark flats show zero signs of light leakage - they just don't match... and I can't seem to get it to work despite the last few weeks of work