Zummerzet_Leveller

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

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

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

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

I was really chuffed with this. Certainly keen to try for it again when we have clear skies and a little less moon.

Looks like you managed to suss out the process. I found that dropping the high sigma helped with the minimisation of the stars. I kept the start and finish selections just to the head of the comet.

Thanks both. I might have the bug for comet catching now!

I wonder if we'll see that change in the coming days if the clouds dissipate here in the UK anyway. It's been great looking at the images as it changes over time. I'd certainly like to try imaging it again with an even wider FOV as I think that tail could be picked up over some distance given the right imaging set up, maybe the Samyang 135mm. Shame we have a moon to contend with now.

Thank you very much. Just added the raw stack from Siril too. Hopefully to show that I haven't exaggerated the tail. Don't want too much artistic licence. 🙂

Here's my attempt and my first proper comet stack... We had a few hours of clear skies this evening in Somerset so I thought I'd have a go at C2022 E3. Couldn't resist trying to process it this evening too. 1hr 40mins of 60s exposures with the Redcat51 and the 2600mc unfiltered. Comet and star stacking all carried out in Siril. Images brought together and refined in GIMP. Added the comet stack from Siril too.

Thanks James. I too had some annoying gradients. Just integration time to get the data and the pretty good gradient tool in Siril. Isn't 10hrs with a OSC equivalent to 2hrs with a Mono... 😉

Here's 10hrs 50mins of data on the Witch Head Nebula, taken over 3 nights after it pops above my neighbours house and then before it drops below 20 degrees. I was looking towards my local town so there was a fair gradient. Taken in 300s exposures with the 2600MC and the Baader Moon & Skyglow filter. I used the Redcat51 on my slightly tweaked AVX mount. All processed in Siril, Gimp, StarnetV2 and Topaz. I've flipped the image to give the classic Witches face.

Here's 10hrs 50mins of data on the Witch Head Nebula, taken over 3 nights after it pops above my neighbours house and then before it drops below 20 degrees. I was looking towards my local town so there was a fair gradient. Taken in 300s exposures with the 2600MC and the Baader Moon & Skyglow filter. I used the Redcat51 on my slightly tweaked AVX mount. I've flipped the image to give the classic Witches face. I think my backspacing with the Baader filter is off as stars seem to have some fringing that I've tried to control (or I need a better broadband LP Filter). All processed in Siril, Gimp, StarnetV2 and Topaz. C&C welcome.

Very brave of you. I could dart back into the house and sit by the log burner. It was a lovely sight to behold, yet as @Paul M states a reminder that the skies will soon be washed out again... Hopefully it will be cloudy then!

As I was setting the Redcat rig up this evening I spotted a pleasing view of the Moon, Venus and Saturn. A single shot with the Canon 6D, Sigma 150-600 (@195mm), f/5.6, 4seconds at ISO1600.

Thanks Steve. According to the online light pollution map I'm Bortle 4 (SQM 21.3). More than happy to go through my process, drop me a PM.

I've had two rigs running as much as possible over the past week or so. This is my first capture of the session and was taken when there was still a bit of moon about. Redcat51, 2600MC, L-eXtreme on my AVX mount. The image is made up of 172 two minute subs (I took around 370... Junked a lot as the seeing seemed to be quite bad at times) so 5hrs 44mins in total. Processed in Siril, GIMP, StarnetV2 and Topaz. C&C welcome.

Took this data last November but had been struggling to process it. Don't look closely at the corners, some horrid tilt/backspacing issues. Just over 7hrs with the ASI2600MC, Baader moon and skyglow filter and the Samyang 135mm. Processed in Siril, GIMP, Starnetv2 and TopazAI.

Lovely Peter. Fantastic background too, great details in the little galaxies.

Added a new version to the original post. Amazing how a few new processing tricks can totally transform an image.

Thanks, @simmo39 @MartinB @MKHACHFE. Really pleased with the outcome. Well worth revisiting good data.

Approaching a year ago I imaged the flaming star and tadpoles in Auriga with my Redcat51 and 2600MC. As I seem to be under a permanent cloud blanket here in the South West I thought I'd revisit the data with hopefully improved processing techniques, learning a few new tricks in Siril. All still done in free software (except TopazAI) - Siril, GIMP, Starnet2 and Topaz. Original post:

Thanks all. Certainly recommend more time spent on each of the channels. Lots more detail available given clear skies. Certainly one I will come back to. With all the Russ Croman tools I think I'm going to have to relent and get Pixinsight. Probably get much better result with these tools.

Thanks Lee. The core seems to be quite strong in O3 and S2 which is where the details came from. Had to control the highlights a lot in that region as it's very bright and blew out easily. This is the S2 in the core: And here's the O3: Ha: