Budgie1

See if there's anything here which will help: https://download.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/manual/

It could just be that demand has dropped and FLO aren't stocking them any more? 

The Widescreen Centre have a good selection, as do RVO. 

5.40um by the way, if you still need it.  

I had another go at processing mine last night and I think I made a few improvements, especially on the background.

One little addition to the Obsy in the last month; Although I live in Lochaber, it does occasionally get warm, and so does the inside of the obsy as I found out while building it last year. So, to assist with removing the heat and creating an airflow all year round, I fitted a pair of solar powered fans to the roof section of the shed.

I actually got them back in October but only got around to fitting them in the last month.

The fan kit I got from Amazon and I also fitted a bug screen and rain cover on the outside of the shed, just to give it a bit of protection. I fitted it to the East side of the roof, so it'll be shaded from the Sun and the solar panel even powers the fans when it's cloudy,  as well as in full Sun!

I need to tidy the wires but it's working well.

Yes, it was captured with a OSC camera and the L-eNhance filter, so sort of a HOO rendition.

I've now got a mono setup as well but my FOV with the mono isn't quite enough to get the whole nebula in one shot. So I'd have to do a mosaic to capture this shot in SHO. 

I had a bit of a play with your image and managed to get more of the dust to show by using a Luminance Mask. To create this is clicked on the button under "View" marked "Extract CIE L* component" and then use HistogramTransformation to highlight the parts I wanted to exclude. Then I used a blur mask to come up with this mask:

This was then inverted, so I could work on the background and increase the RGB/K in Curves and this is the result:

11 hours ago, Maged said:

Hello,

My cameras are ASI533MC Pro or ASI2600MC Pro. I think both can go with 2" filters right?

 

The ASI533MC Pro will be fine with either the 1.25" or 2" filter.

The ASI2600MC Pro, on the other hand, has a sensor diagonal of 28.3mm, so will need a 2" filter.

It may be handy to know which camera you have, because the sensor on my ASI294MC Pro was just the right size for a 1.25" filter placed inside the 11mm extension on the front of the camera.

I did end up going with the filter draw & 2" filters, but only so I didn't have to removed the camera from the image train to change the filter. If you're not bothered about this then a 1.25" filter my do the job for you and it'll be cheaper.

I decided to reprocess this one and the main change in the workflow was to use NoiseXT on the Ha, Oiii & Sii images before combination, instead of at the end of the processing.

I've also changed when I used Curves and I also didn't use colour masks on this second rendition. 

It's still got that mottled effect to the background from the noise reduction, but it's not as pronounced and I like this one better than the first one;.

I'm not sure if it's the correct method but use the mid-point between FWHMx & FWHMy.

So in the example above I would use 3.60, and it seems to work okay.

3 hours ago, MartinB said:

This is one I've never tried before.  Well worth the effort, I particularly likethe colour.  It does betray signs of noise reduction.  No tool is going to fix significant noise but NoiseXterminator is the best I've come across and can sometimes deliver the seemingly impossible

NoiseX did it's best on this one but I think more data & less Moon is the answer to this one, Martin.

It's worth a go at this target, it's actually quite an interesting one, especially with the FOV the 428EX coupled to the SkyWatcher ED80 DS Pro gives.

I last tried this target in April 2021 and wasn't very successful with it. That was using the ASI294MC Pro with no filters.

I wondered if I could do better with the Atik 428EX using SHO. It has much more detail than the OSC version but suffers from quite a lot of noise, which I think is down to either imaging over the Full Moon or it just needs more data. I've had a couple of goes at processing in PI and this is the best to date. 

This is a total of 7 hours 20 minutes of data: Ha = 3h10m, Oiii = 2h05m & Sii = 2h 05m

44 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

In the process of getting to grips with GHS at the moment. 

GHS is a handy tool and I used it on your image to see if it would benefit from it's use. It can be a bit fiddley, so I don't always use it when an EZ Soft Stretch or HistogramTransformation looks okay. Sometimes I clone the image and stretch with all three to see what is best and use that.  

I managed to get some more detail out of the data, but it was a struggle.

I take it you were using your Stellamira 90mm Triplet with a 0.8 reducer on it to give you the 430mm focal length?

I ended up removing the stars then working on the background using a magenta then green colour masks, then created another mask for M101 using the Extract Lum tool and using histrogramtransformation to bring out just M101 & the other galaxies, then added a blur to the image mask to allow me to work on just the galaxies. 

Adding HRDMultiScaleTransformation using 5 layers brought out more of the dust lanes in M101.

I started this project back in mid-January with 50 minutes of Ha data. I've been adding more data to it recently and I'm now up to 4h05m in total, consisting of:

• Ha = 1h40m
• Oiii = 1h25m
• Sii = 60m

I've processed what I have to date and have a couple of copies, the first is an HOO version with 2h40m integration and the second is SHO version using the Ha as Luminance for the combination.

Kit:

• SkyWatcher Evostar ED80 DS Pro with 0.85 FF/FR
• Atik 428EX Mono
• Atik EFW2
• HEQ5 with Rowan Belt conversion
• Baader 7nm Ha
• Baader 8.5nm Oiii
• Astronomik 12nm Sii

I want to add more Sii data on the next clear night, but here's what I've got so far:

1 hour ago, scarp15 said:

If intent on stargazing, midge season starts to become a problem from around the second half of May and could last into October. Prior to that is still good optimum time for stargazing, by the time the midges become a significant nuisance, its beginning, at that latitude to become a bit too light anyway.  

They're not normally a problem in May, although they were earlier last year. It's later in the year that they really become a pain. I normally start imaging again from mid-August and this is when it'll be nice to have an obsy this year. I was building mine during late Summer last year and the midges drove me inside on a few evenings when I should have been building the Obsy.  

Late May to mid-August is when it's really too light to do any imaging but visual can make the season a bit longer up here. December is great, you can start imaging at about 5pm at that time of year!

All four of the Small Isles could have Dark Sky Island Status. Eigg already has an observatory, which was donated to the island a couple of years ago.

You also get fewer midges on the Small Isles, as most of them get blown over to the mainland.  

The ferry isn't that bad. It's normally cancelled whenever a blow is forecast, so there's a chance your stay on the island could last longer then you planned.

31 minutes ago, VNA said:

Hello, thank you for sharing these gorgeous phenomena--I am way too far South to see anything like that, besides we are having a lot of rain and clouds and even snow on the local hills! Can't wait for summer!  ;- )

There was another good show this evening. But sadly it clouded over at about 7pm for me, so nothing seen tonight.

21 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

What sort of exposures/ISO were you using?

Ian

For my latitude, last night's aurora was quite bright. I started with ISO 800 and 10 second exposure, ISO 1600 was too much, even with just 5 seconds exposure. I did take some with ISO 400 but generally stuck with ISO 800 and exposures between 10 & 20 seconds. Any more than that, on a fixed tripod, and the stars start to elongate and you loose the auroral filament detail and they just merge into one bright green curtain.  

I was wondering if you had captured anything last night, David.

It was strong here and I know you've got a better Northern aspect that I do. 

8 minutes ago, Gfamily said:

It's being reported that Aurorae are being seen as far south as Oxford - and maybe more. 

It's cloudy where we are, so if you get images, do share... 

Here you go, although I'm a bit further North:

There I was, trying to image M81 & M82 when this lot came along & lit up the sky!

Best show of the Aurora we've seen since leaving the Western Isles. Nice vertical streaks and the red was visible with the naked eye, something I've only ever seen once before.

Here's a selection from around the obsy:

Thanks Carol, I think my focus could have been a little better but this is only the fourth image I've taken the 428EX and with a mono camera, so I'm still getting used to it. I do like the results with it though, and the smaller sensor on 428EX gives a different FOV than my ASI294MC.

Finally, some clear nights and it's the weekend!

I decided on IC410 because I've imaged this target in the past with my ASI294MC Pro but I haven't really been that pleased with the results. This time I decided to use the Atik 428EX and do some SHO to try and bring out the tadpoles better, which it has done nicely. Also, it seemed an apt target because we had the first spawn in our pod this week.

Anyway, this is a total of 9 hours & 15 minutes over the 24th & 25th Feb, consisting of:

• Baader 7nm Ha - 44 x 300s
• Baader 8.5nm Oiii - 34 x 300s
• Astronomik 12nm Sii - 33 x 300s

Kit used: Atik 428EX with Atik EFW2 on a SkyWatcher Evostar ED80DS Pro with 0.85 FR/FF and HEQ5 mount.

Captured with APT & PHD2, stacked & processed in PI.

C's & C's welcomed.

2 hours ago, fortytwo said:

Thanks for that information. Is there any relevence to adding the word Computerised to the EQ6 R Pro do you know?

Cheers,

Jeff

I think it depends where you look whether the word "Computerised" is use in the description. On some sites anything with the SynScan handset has it in the title, where as other sites don't mention it at all.

I found one site where "Computerised" was used to describe the AZ-GTi, EQ3, EQM-35, EQ5, HEQ5, AZ-EQ5, AZ-EQ6, EQ6 & EQ6-R, EQ8-R & CQ350.