Zummerzet_Leveller

2 hours ago, Roy Foreman said:

Nice capture. I'm in West Somerset and have had only 3 clear nights in the last 9 months. Diabolical as you rightly say.  I tried the same capture as your with my MN190 but it didn't stay clear enough for long enough to get a result as good as yours. Well done.

Thanks Roy.  I think I've only had 4 nights over the same timeframe, I don't bother hauling the rig out unless two clear nights are forecast in a row.  I had to dump nearly 4hrs of data from this set due to patchy cloud.  I think I need some faster scopes...  From the images I've seen on here the MN190 is a great scope for galaxies.

The diabolical cloud cover took a break for almost two nights last week here in Somerset.  So I managed to catch nearly 13.5hrs on M108 and M97 in HaLRGB. Ha = 57, L = 114, R = 92, G = 90 and B = 79 all 120s exposures.

ASI1600GT, ZWO filters, Esprit 120.  Processed in Siril, Gimp and Topaz.

It's been a long while since it was worth lugging the rigs out to catch some data.  Here in the South West the skies have just been miserable for what seems like a year!  Also work has been been particularly crazy so sleep has been a valuable commodity.  Therefore, astrophotography was firmly put on the back seat, with a greater focus on daytime photography.  With two clear nights forecast in a row earlier in January I thought it would be great to get the rigs running again, and finally get the chance to use my newly... (February 2023) acquired SW Esprit 120.  Was a challenge to remember all the processing tricks too, only enough room in the noggin for so much stuff so had to reacquaint myself with software and techniques so these may be a bit on the rusty side!

So firstly we have IC2169 - Dreyer's Nebula

Taken with the Esprit 120 and ASI1600GT on my Eq6-R mount.  A total of 5hrs integration in LRGB.  Processed in Siril, GIMP and TopazAI.

Next the SH2-240 the Spaghetti Nebula

Taken with my RedCat51 and the 2600MC-Pro with the L-eXtreme filter. A total of 10hrs 15mins of data again processed in Siril, Gimp and TopazAI.

Comments and critique are welcome.

On 14/03/2023 at 11:40, Astroscot2 said:

Regarding the spacecat, I only recently noticed that if you release the focus lock too much which I did due to using an EAF for autofocusing , the whole front lens assembly can wobble which can give dodgy stars, otherwise im quite happy.   Not sure the 55mm back focus needs to be that precise with a Petzval ?

Thanks Mark.  Yeah you would think that backfocus shouldn't be an issue with the Petzval design but my stars in the corners are not great, worse with a filter.  Could be that I have a duffer.  If the clouds ever clear again I'll play around to see if I can improve them.

Love to see these Southern Hemisphere targets.  So many intricate elements, especially in the first two images.  Keep 'em coming! 

2 hours ago, Clarkey said:

I had a crack at this galaxy a few nights ago. Unfortunately, too much moon ruined most of the subs so I got rid of the data - it was that bad! Yours has come out much, much better. It's a nice target so I might try again without the light pollution😀.

Thanks Clarkey.  It's a fairly dim galaxy and doesn't fair well under a bright moon, it's actually duller than M51.  I had a few subs in the green and blue that had to be excluded due to the moon washing out any detail.  Could you get some of the Ha, I certainly could have done with more time on the Ha?

Thanks @simmo39 & @Sarek.

1 hour ago, simmo39 said:

Wow, that is a great work. You seem to be banging them out at the moment. I gave up on the M81 M82 image, just couldnt get it right and to top it off I now have an LED street light ove my garden! but as they say no pain no gain.

Thanks for the comment Simmo.  That's not great news about the LED street light.  There are few threads on here about street lights and asking the council to shield them if the light is causing a nuisance, worth a scan through when you have time.  You may be able to get the council to reduce the impact. 

1 hour ago, Astroscot2 said:

Lovely image, I'm working on the same area myself. Same kit but slightly different framing to include M35.

Thank you for the comment, slightly bigger FOV with the 2400 which would work nicely to get M35 in, I think I would have struggled with the 2600.  How do you find the stars in the corners of your images with the SpaceCat and the full frame sensor on the 2400?  I've been struggling with a bit of coma at the native 55mm backfocus, I'm wondering if I need reduce the backfocus as I lengthened it in this image and got some strange stars in parts of the image.  Maybe a bit of tilt too.

A potential winter project planned, hoping to catch a few of the smaller galaxies in this FOV with the HD8.  Decided to have a go at this galaxy in widefield to see what's around and then went a little deeper.  Imaged here with the 2600mc and the Redcat51 with no filters.  10hrs 35mins, lots of fuzzies here including a couple of interacting galaxies.

All processing in Siril with Starnet, GIMP and Topaz.

At the same time I was pointing my reduced HD8 at the same galaxy with the 1600GT.  Taken in HaLRGB (ZWO 1.25 filters) with a total of 18hrs of data over three nights.  A bit of moon about so blues and lum taken after moonset.  Ha = 160mins, L = 230mins, R = 245mins, G = 205mins and B = 240mins.  All in 5min exposures, thinking I need to drop the exposure length as I wonder whether the EQ6R is up to it with the HD8 onboard.  Data binned 2x2 following processing.

Just 2hrs 45mins of 5min exposures.  2600MC, Lextreme, Redcat51 on the AVX.  Siril (with Starnet), Topaz and Gimp for processing.  Excuse the elongated stars, I've been trying to fix the stars in the corners when I have a filter in and seemed to have gone the wrong way with backfocus.

Here's 6hrs 15mins of data (300s subs) on the Seagull nebula.  Quite low at my latitudes and doesn't rise too far above my neighbours roof.

Taken with the 2600mc, L-eXtreme, Redcat51 all on my AVX mount.  Processing in Siril 1.2.0 with inbuilt Starnet++ capability, GIMP and Topaz. C & C welcome.

On 22/02/2023 at 12:43, maw lod qan said:

Incredible!

On 22/02/2023 at 12:56, mackiedlm said:

thats an excellent image. ncely done.

Thanks both.

@simmo39 just re-processed this data with the newly updated Siril tools that now incorporate StarnetV2 and some great hyperbolic curve controls.  Gone for a slightly more colourful version this time.  The recomposition tool that brings the starless and stars back together in Siril really helps manage them better.

1 hour ago, simmo39 said:

V nice m8. I happen to me working on this target but cant seem to get the star colour to shine like yours.

Thanks Simmo.  I only added the luminance layer once the image was starless and then only in GIMP (luminance setting) with a low opacity (about 1/3).  I found the luminance washed out all of the colour.  So the stars in my image are only RGB.  It's just a shame they are so bloaty.  Even before a stretch in a linear state the most prominent stars were big.  I think in future I'll do shorter RGB subs for the stars.  It's all a learning curve but with the miserable skies we've been having we have to take what we can get!

Hi all.  This is my first HaLRGB (actually the first broadband image I've taken with the 1600GT), taken last week over the 12/13th of Feb.  This was a real chore to process and I couldn't get the stars smaller without losing lots of background stars that I felt added to the image.  I think I may have used too long exposures for my LRGB subs for my Bortle 3/4 location, I'd welcome thoughts on this.

Taken with the Edge HD8 and the x0.7 reducer, ASI1600GT, all ZWO 1.25 filters all on the EQ6-R.

All 300s subs - L = 3hr 15min, R = 2hr 40min, G = 2hr 20min, B = 2hr 25min and Ha = 1hr 35min.

Data processed in Siril (lots of playing with Pixelmath to get the Ha in), GIMP, StarnetV2 and a smidge of Topaz.  Data taken at full resolution but binned 2x2 in post processing.  All views welcome.

That's a beaut!

Lovely, such an interesting object.  Great result.

Hey all.  I've been trying to access the Siril website for the last couple of days and it seems to be down.  Anyone else picked up on this?

siril.org  @lock042

On 07/02/2023 at 01:52, Mr Spock said:

Nice looking image 👍

On 07/02/2023 at 08:30, simmo39 said:

V nice, one of the clearer images of M1 that I have seen.

20 hours ago, Maximidius said:

19 hours well spent because that's a cracking M1!

Thanks for the comments all.  If the seeing were better I'm sure I could have managed more definition.  Was quite keen not to blow out the core to try and see some of the details in the back of the nebula structure.  Such a shame that when we had the clear nights in January the Jetstream was firmly planted over the South West.

On 06/02/2023 at 15:34, jacko61 said:

I'll have to figure out how to blend more convincingly in GIMP as I don't have photoshop. I'm sure it should be possible but at the minute all I've got to grips with is adding a star layer over the results from STARNET++ and I'm not finding the results very convincing.

 

Hi Graeme.  I'm GIMP user and so far the only way I've found to make it work well is to create your stars layer from a much milder stretch so the stars don't bloat.  I then do a 2nd image heavier stretch and star removal on your base image for the background and bring the two together.  I use Siril and run an Arcsinh stretch for the star layer to get some colour but minimise the bloat etc.  When I merge the layers I use Screen or Addition (both work well but give slightly different results.  The downside of this process is that you may need to clean up the background layer a bit depending on the success of the star removal process.

Just over 19hrs on this target with narrowband filters.  Taken with the ASI1600GT on the EdgeHD8 with the x0.7 reducer.  ZWO 7nm Ha/OIII & Baader 8nm SII.  Was battling with seeing on this one so not as great as I would have hoped, as I had to dump a lot of OIII and SII files.  Taken earlier in January but not had a chance to process the data.  Processing in Siril, Gimp, StarnetV2 and Topaz.

Data was taken with no binning but binned X2 and then upscaled in postprocessing.  Colour palette was taken from the coldest nights and pulled together using Pixelmath.

Ha - 103 x 300s (8hrs 35mins) + OIII - 65 x 300s (5hrs 25mins) + SII - 61 x 300s (5hrs 05mins)

Nicely done Graham.  Love the OIII signal.  Some great subtle Ha in the background too.

On 01/02/2023 at 21:37, Neil_104 said:

Excellent images! I love the way the ion tail splits those two galaxies

Thanks Neil.  All down to chance and picking the middle frame to stack against.

11 hours ago, Chris-h said:

Stunning! Best one I have seen so far

Thank you Chris, I think I've decided to print the final image now. A good toilet wall momento and talking piece.

Nicely done. Always admire those who have been taking on the extra challenge of shooting in mono with rgb filters. It adds a whole extra layer of complexity.

1 minute ago, orion25 said:

Magnificent work! You really captured the awesomeness of C/2022 E3 ZTF!

Thanks. Comet fever is now upon me... 🤓

12 hours ago, geeklee said:

That's excellent Jody.  Great framing in that huge FOV!

Thanks Lee. I'm sure with an even wider FOV I could have seen the ion tail stretch even further.

Thanks @Space Cowboy.