Crackabarrel

Cheers thanks, was very happy with how it turned out.

Cheers guys, appreciate it.

The Milky Way over the 60 Degrees Installation at Lough Boora, Offaly, Ireland Finally got out to do some astro at Lough Boora after having previously scouted it during the day time several months ago, the has many interesting art installations dotted about which make for great foreground elements, however the amount of mosquitos made for a very uncomfortable few hours before the temps fell. Foreground shot at blue hour, focus stacked. Milky Way : 22 x 30sec @ f2 ISO1250 Stacked in Sequator, processed in Pixinsight, blending and finishing touches in Photoshop. Thanks for looking.

Two images from the night of 12/08, taken from Bective Abbey, Navan, Ireland. I had originally set out to get tracked shots of Cassiopeia hoping for a few Perseids to cross the frame, however clouds rolled in and limited exposure time to roughly 15mins, of which approx 10min were used for the stack. Initially i did not think I had caught any, but getting back to the computer it seemed I did, after all, get a fairly decent one and a few smaller ones in some of the frames. Images with meteors were stacked separately from those without in Sequator and combined and processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop. As the clouds began to roll in I noticed that there was a glow on the horizon with aurora structures visible to the naked eye, switching to this resulted in a timelapse and this shot from inside the Abbey, which is a composite, an aurora frame from straight outside the window and another shot from inside with the window lit by warm white fairly lights. All images taken with Nikon Z7ii and 50mm F1.8z Cassiopeia - 25 x 20sec @ f2.2 ISO1600 (Tracked) Thanks for looking.

Orion Rising over Classiebawn Castle in Co. Sligo, Ireland, Benbulben can be seen looming in the background. Night of March 7th Nikon Z7ii + Z50mm f1.8 Sky: 24x30sec @iso800 @f2.2 Tracked Foreground: 2x1min, 2x2min, 2x4min, 1x8min @f5.6, HDR Merge Calibration and Stacking in Pixinsight Foreground HDR Merge in Lightroom Sky & Foreground Merge and finishing touches in Photoshop

Thanks guys, pretty happy with them but still room for improvement on the second.

Cheers thank you, I am much happier with the first than the second to be fair, I feel it was executed much better. While the sky up at glendalough is quite dark the transition is a little more abrupt than I'd like, and the star trails on the lake are jsut a result of not having the time at the computer to properly blend in a reflection of the MW, on the upside this leaves me a good excuse to come back and make a stab at improving it in the future. Thanks for the constructive criticism, looking forward to getting back out a bit more this autumn/winter.

And the next... Glendalough Upper Lake Nikon z7ii w/24-70 f4 Foreground 1x240sec, 1x180sec, 1x120sec @iso400 Sky 47x60sec @iso400 Stacked in Sequator, blended and processed in Photoshop

Been a long time since I've posted, not been able to get out much this past while but things seem to be improving. So with that in mind I have 2 images to share of the Milky Way in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains. Lough Tay Nikon z7ii w/24-70 f4 Foregound: 3x30sec @ ISO400 Sky: 47x60sec @ ISO200 Stacked in Sequator, blended and Processed in Photoshop. This was just after the Perseids Peak.

Topaz Denoise is good, however I tend to only run it on starless images then recombine.

Thank you, much appreciated, I was surprised to see the amount of dust picked up, initially I thought there may have been an issue with the lens given the central concentration, I had to go look at similar widefield images to confirm. Very interesting to see the motion of the dust cloud past the Pleiades, lends a nice sense of movement. Thank you, they both came out better than expected I feel. I was very happy to see the Witch Head popping up during the stretching process, did not think just over an hour would be enough to reveal it, but goes to show how nicely fast optics and dark skies pair. All these shots were tracked with a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. The skies in that part of the world are indeed something to remember, unfortunately we were only on holidays for a week in Jordan, 3 nights of which were spent in Wadi Rum, coming from Ireland I am very envious of the consistency of the clear sky over there.

Thank you, initially I stacked them in DSS and thought the data was worthless, Pix really came to the rescue however. They were very nice yeh and won't be forgotten anytime soon, some of the darkest I've been under, being constantly cloud free during our stay was also a nice change of pace.

A few widefield images taken from a recent trip to Wadi Rum in Jordan Milky Way: 30 x 60sec The Orion Nebula: 74 x 60sec (Stacking in Sequator, Processing in Photoshop) Pleiades and California Nebula: 129 x 60sec (Stacking and Initial processing in Pixinsight, finishing touches in Photoshop) All shot with Nikon D5300 + Sigma 18-35 f1.8 , ISO400 (Stacking and Initial processing in Pixinsight, finishing touches in Photoshop) I could get used to imaging at F2.0 in Bortle 2/3, any suggestions or criticisms let me know, probably went a bit hard on the processing. Thanks for looking.

Nice image, the ASI2600 and Redcat is a good pairing alright. Try using Stellarium and toggle "Hierarchical Progressive Surveys", you can also toggle which object catalogues that are displayed (NGC, M, IC, SH2 etc) That would be the aptly named "Lobster Claw" Nebula. Hope that helps.

I think it has something to do with the refractive properties of the glass in the filter, although don't take my word for it.

Hi, The thickness of the filter does indeed matter, typically you should add 1/3 the filter thickness to your flattener's stated backfocus. So in this case it will (1.85/3)+11.4 = 12.05mm (L-Enhance thickness = 1.85mm) You just screw out the flattener until it reaches 12mm and then you should be fairly close to having a corrected field.

About 30mins of exposure owing to clouds over the Poolbeg Lighthouse in Dublin. Constantly looked like it was going to clear up all night but never totally did. Nikon D5300 w/ Sigma 18-35 f1.8 @5.6, 59x30sec, ISO200 Thanks for looking.

Ah my apologies, maybe check out some of the TS Optics Photoline scopes so.

William Optics ZS73 is around the same price and spec, will require a flattener though. Been using mine for over 2 years now and can't really complain, fit and finish are good, colour correction is nice.

The 1 second delay is fine, my card is quick enough but yeh I should have charged the battery after the days shooting and confirmed how it all worked. Cheers thank you, the light pollution from the city was good for something for once.

I think you are right, I had the interval down as 1sec where I should have put it to 31sec if i had wanted a 1sec delay between shots. I had forgotten that the interval is, as you say, from start of shot to start of next. Cheers.

Thank you. Thought I could get away with the on board as the exposures were limited to 30sec by light pollution, lesson learned I suppose, the rest of the clear nights that week were marred by high winds preventing me reshooting it any time soon.

Hi All, Star Trails taken over the Papal Cross in Dublin's Phoenix Park, pretty happy with it but a poor time to discover the D5300's internal intervalometer will only run for 20 or so minutes at a time. Roughly 1hr of exposure before the battery died. Thanks for looking.

If you go the Sky and Viewing options on the right hand side of the interface you can move the sliders for "labels and hints", this will increase the amount of DSO labels you see. You can also change the Sky Survey displayed from the default DSS Coloured one shown here, this will generally show you more nebulosity than the default. In the DSO tab of the same window you can specify for which object catalogues to display hints for, if I remember right that particular object should be found under the Sh2 catalogue. That object is very faint and you will most likely need narrowband and long integration time from Bortle 7 skies. Hope thats some help.

Hi All, Two of my recent images, the Rosette Nebula and the Bubble and Lobster Claw Nebula. 3hrs on the Rosette with the ZS73, ASI2600mc and Antlia 5nm Dual band filter, from Bortle 5. 2hrs on the Bubble and Lobster Claw with the same equipment, from Bortle 8. Apologies for the fat stars on the Rosette, a litany of technical issues that night led me to trust the autofocuser more than I should have in my frustration. Weather and technical issues have been the bane of my imaging from some time now it seems, I think after the last session on the Rosette I will be moving from APT to NINA. Processed in Pixinsight with final adjustments in Photoshop. Thanks for looking, any feedback or criticism is appreciated.