Zummerzet_Leveller

4 minutes ago, simmo39 said:

You got the image the hard way but v rewarding

Thanks Simmo.  Yep, guided and taking images with a proper cooled astro-cam makes capture and processing much easier.  However, it was actually quite fun to try something different and more akin to where we all start.  The AVX is certainly much easier to lug around when compared to the EQ6-R.

10 hours ago, Skipper Billy said:

the fact that it's an unguided image or you having 2 clear nights

Thanks Skip!

Such a rarity at the moment so I had two rigs running.  I need to get another guide camera I think to make the best of both.  The ASIAir makes life so simple, I should have re-centred the Spaghetti a few times during the session as I think the banding in the image is due to a bit of drift and it might have minimised the walking noise.

14 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Maybe a bit over saturated from my personal taste

Thanks Alan.  Totally agree on the saturation, I made it pop to distract from the walking noise.  I'd like to have another go at it with a guide camera next time so I can dither, but thought the clear skies were too good an opportunity to waste.

This is not going to win any awards but I thought it would be a fun experiment to make the most of the clear skies.  This was taken on my AVX unguided, hence trying to hide the walking noise.  I thought I had good polar alignment but I guess with 6hrs and 40mins of 60 second exposures over two nights, somethings going to give.  Taken with my modded 6D (the shutter count took a beating), the RedCat51 with the L-eXtreme and an ASIAir.  Definitely a bit of slack in the image train as stars were much bigger on one side of the image and also some nice banding to contend with, probably not enough bias frames.  Not convinced that the RedCat51 is too happy with a full frame sensor either.  

400 lights, 20 darks, 20 flats and 20 bias.  DSS, Siril, Starnet++, Topaz and GIMP.

3 minutes ago, Rustang said:

I just need to catch up on sleep as I'm shattered

I know the feeling.  I've been shooting some deep sky over the last few nights, two rigs running.  Both on ASIAir but not got my head down until 3am.  Now I'm processing...  Might save some for the cloudy nights.

That's a cracker.  Nicely planned, executed and processed. The clouds played ball too, don't you just love it when a plan comes together...

First light for my new 2nd hand EdgeHD 800.  A bit cobbled together as I wait for a focal reducer from Germany and a T-Adapter from China...

1 hour ago, Allinthehead said:

Dynamic range is definitely improved at gain 0, fwhm is lower and sub exposures are longer. I will continue with gain 0 for now. 

I guess having a fast scope helps too, although 180s exposures are not too long.  With the f3.3 would longer exposures give you star trouble?  I might give Gain 0 a go on a target, if the gales and rain move on.

Beautiful, blows mine out of the water.  Super impressive to get that quality with the moon about and no filter.  I see you are using Gain 0 on the 2600MC do you find it provides better dynamic range?

The trail effect gives it an art aesthetic. I bet it would look good in print too.

Nicely done, they look great. What software did you use for the star trails they have an interesting look.

Totally worth the 2 year wait!  Many congratulations.  Now to update your signature on here... 

2 hours ago, Luke Newbould said:

Nice job mate!! really creative use of the tools available, worked out well 🙂

Thanks Luke, still a bit grainy for my liking, more data and less moon would help I think.  The moon was at 71% and only 40 degrees away and the Siril background extraction struggled a bit.  I like to make life difficult for myself, one day I'll relent and buy Pixinsight but actually enjoy the challenge of jumping around in freeware (Topaz excluded).

Pretty sure I won't remember the steps I took to get to the above image, I must start writing this stuff down! 🧐

On 13/02/2022 at 09:57, Rustang said:

I'm going to have to start saying I did it on purpose 😁

If you take a look at the Photopills YouTube channel Rafael 'The Bard' Pons keeps mentioning 'acceptable focus' when talking about the hyperfocal distance, I would say you have 'acceptable focus' 😄.

Following on from my last image of Auriga which was a sea of red I thought I'd give @tomato 's advice a go and follow the @Luke Newbould Siril bi-colour approach.

I slightly varied it to remove the stars first and then denoise the Red and Green channels before combining again.  This is 5.5hrs of 180s exposures using the l-eXtreme on Thursday 10th of Feb.  The blue channel was toast due to the moon.  Taken on the EQ6R-Pro with my SW200P and the ASI2600MC-Pro with the l-eXtreme.

Stacked in DSS.  Initial Siril process for background and then stretch.  StarnetV2 for star removal, stars layer created in GIMP.  Siril again for channel separation of starless.  R & G channels denoised in Topaz, back to Gimp to convert back to greyscale then RGB composite in Siril as per Luke's processing tutorial.  Image then switched to GIMP to get to this one.

As always constructive comments and criticism are welcome.  I'd like to get more data on this target to reduce the amount of noise reduction needed but the weather is pants!

7 hours ago, FenlandPaul said:

Thank you once again for organising, Martin and co.

These winning images are stunning!! Especially pleased for @Zummerzet_Leveller who has always encouraged my work!! 🏆🏆🏆

Thanks Paul. Likewise, great to see your captures too, they encourage me to get out and about.

I'm chuffed to get this as the image was taken with pretty basic kit. From my garden.  Well done to all who took part, some incredible images.

9 minutes ago, tomato said:

Yes, I keep trying, but my head gets in the way. 
 

Maybe an inspection camera on the end of a FO cable?😉

Keep wondering about those strange silhouettes and why the mirrors go dark...

15 minutes ago, gorann said:

I actually have a SW Evostar 72ED sitting on top of one of the RASA8, but that is my guide scope (I used to have an ST80 but I decided to blame its flimsy focuser for bad guiding some nights). On the RASA next to it is right now a Samyang 135, but I do have a small TS71 quadruplet that I could put there. However, the problem would be to align it perfectly with the RASAs, not sure what I could use for that which would be stable enough. In any case, I do not mind the slightly soft stars produced by the RASAs and most of the time I strive to suppress the star field as much as possible to reveal more of the structure of the nebulosity, like in this recent post:

 

That's one heck of a binoviewer!  I'm not envious at all.... 😁

This is awesome chaps, amazing detail considering the scale!  Love these widefield dusty views.

Added another version to the original message, a bit bolder but better colour balanced.  Welcome thoughts.

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

very nice. added that to my todo list - didn't realise there was so much there!

I didn't quite realise there was that much either!

2 minutes ago, Rustang said:

flats

Do you use the aperture setting when making your flats?  Also a lower brightness flat panel.  I found that my initial flats with the modded 6D were too bright.  I also had issues as I tried using the live view for a softer shutter, turns out that causes some dodgy flare and light in my images.

Beautiful.  I need to move further north at this time of year, not much chance of seeing them here in Somerset unless they are super active.

Nicely done @Rustang, have you thought about processing these widefield images in something like Siril?  Had some great results using it on widefield images with the Samyang 135mm, just have to make sure the calibration files are good.  I still stack in DSS though as it is easier to use.

6 hours ago, tomato said:

That’s a stunning image, beautifully crafted. It’s not a criticism but if you get fed up with the red nebulosity dominating the image, you could try using @Luke Newbould’s tutorial to create a Hubblesque palette, it’s given me some pleasing results on Ha dominated targets. It uses Pixinsight but the method could be used in other processing packages.

Thank you for your comment.  I have just carried out a reprocess but still in a the standard red, I might share later.  I'll have a look at the false bicolour approach and see how the data responds, with Siril now having pixel math I might even have a go at making a false sulphur channel.

14 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

That is a truly WOW! photograph. I had no idea there was so much nebulosity in that region.  I have often viewed that area through bins but you photo encourages me to take some pics. 

Thank you.  This imaging lark is a bit addictive, it's a good job we have lots of cloud or I'd have more data than I know what to do with and would spend too much on file storage!