Kon

Thanks. I am pleased to have got the southern DSOs as we were discussing on my other post last week. You have no excuse with darkness around 830 😜.

@CraigT82and @neil phillips thanks both. Interesting to see a similar approach to processing. You both went for the softer approach than trying to 'squeeze' more details. I wonder if I went a bit too heavy handed in registax and topaz. @ONIKKINENthanks as well for your excellent effort and explanation. It feels where I would like to have it with a bit more punch. I will probably need to settle for less is better. I will update this post once I give it another try.

I had two sessions over the weekend with excellent transparency. Milky Way very bright with structure and loads of stars. On Saturday I wanted to observe some of the late summer DSOs on my southern horizon before they are gone. I started low as the horizon was disappearing in the thick atmosphere and the farm woods across my garden. First was the M8 and M20 mostly with the OIII filter. M8 was showing nebulosity but not much features. On the other hand M20 showed the darker nebula. Without the filter it was harder to see the darker lanes. With the filter off I looked at the 'countless' open clusters in the area; M20, NGC6553, M38, M23, NGC6605, M25, M28, M24, IC1276, M22. I observed with my 24, 145 and 8.8mm EPs. Some of the clusters allowed to resolve individual stars. Several were showing bright yellow stars. My personal favourite was M25 with its bright central yellow/orange star. I then moved to M17 (easily found on the finder scope; it shows quality of transparency). Immediately it popped on the 24mm EP as a little swan 'swimming' in the star field. The OIII made it pop more against the dark sky but I prefer it without it. Then the M16; faint nebulosity around the stars that looked a lot better with the OIII. That was the end of the first excellent seeing. Night 2 and my focus was on more DSOs. Transparency was even better than the night before. M31 was visible with naked eye. With my 24mm EP I was amazed on the structure it revealed. I could see dust lanes extending far out, almost like ripples. I think that was the best seeing I had off it. M32 and M110 bright as well; just fuzzy blobs. I then moved up to Blue Snowball nebula. I had not seen this target before. As the name suggests it had a wonderful blue hue to it. That was an wow moment to see something new. Going up with the magnification did not reveal much structure. Next was M33. OMG! That was the brightest I have seen it and some spiral structure was evident; not well defined but fuzzy. I then looked at my favourite double Persei cluster with its hundreds of stars with different colours. It is really a crowd pleaser. The nearby NGC957 looked less dramatic. With my OIII I looked at IC1805 but very faint glimpses of nebulosity could be made; i could just about differentiate from the darker background. Since the seeing was so good, I revisited the NAN and Veil. NAN was feeling my FOV on my 24 EP (I need to invest to a lower mag wide field view EP). The Gulf of Mexico was showing some nice structure at the edges. Last but not least the Veil. Both East and West Veil were showing excellent structure with long thin filaments. Pickering's triangle was also extended down to thin narrow structure. I could follow from one side of the Veil to the other by moving the Dob around (point #2 I need a low mag wide FOV EP!). I also squeezed the planets but my favourites are always the nebulas. It was an excellent weekend with several old favourites. I am looking forward to more nebulas and probably start planning for winter to see new ones.

Thanks everybody; we seem to have a consensus of something in between 🙃. Very useful. I will give it a try once i have some time.

Thanks. Yes frustrating when the weather doesn't play ball especially with new kit.

This time i did not up the saturation, maybe i should have desaturated a bit. This is the stacked tiff if you want to have a go. Jupiter_021057_pipp_lapl8_ap60.tif

Thanks. I will try these settings. I used the low light AI but i left the default settings. I will have a play later.

Thanks Peter. I agree that it has a more natural feeling to it; I was probably drawn to the Topaz one as it seemed sharper but more artificial looking (posterised).

I went through my Jupiter capture from yesterday and I applied Topaz Denoise. In my eyes it looks pretty good and hard to see any artefacts. Your thoughts? First image is the Topaz Denoise with the Low Light option and the second the original I posted yesterday. I have tried it before but with awful results but this time it seems to clean it nicely. Thoughts?

Thanks. I am still learning but I am finding that if the seeing is good, then it is easier to pull these details. Worth giving it a try.

Thanks Neil. Yes the 19th seems to have been the best weather for me this year for planetary, even the Jupiter I posted yesterday was my best so far. Mars is getting bigger and better to get details, I am quite pleased on the several features captured.

Mars from this morning with excellent seeing. Some nice features are coming. If I am correct this is Mare Sirenum and a nice cloud in the polar cap. 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, 2.5x TV powermate. 1.5x drizzle.

Nice session and report. Likewise, I was disappointed with the Crescent last year when I first observed it. The blinking is worth retrying. Don't use a filter as you can have it come and go with averted vision; with your OIII it's directly visible.

It was one of the best seeing I had for a long time last night. Jupiter was so easy to process. 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, UV/IR cut filter, 2.5x TV powermate.

That sounds awful with the LED. I hope it does not ruin your Jupiter/Mars views as well. Thanks, that was the easiest Saturn to process.

Another stunning transparent night for DSOs. Andromeda and M33 (probably one of the best i have seen) both showing nice structure. A first, Blue Snowball. Followed by the old favourite double persei, and many more. I need to catch up on full reports.

Great report and nice targets!

Thanks a lot. Yes very pleased with my Dob. I am coming to the realisation that unless the weather cooperates it's hard to pull these details.

I feel I should give up trying to capture Saturn. I think this may be my last one for the season unless we have a night of excellent seeing. My usual capture details with a manual 8" Dob.

As part of the SGL competition on mobile imaging, I tried M17, M27 and M57. It is by coincidence they all end with a 7 🤣! I thought I would put them here for the record. 8" Dob, manual, ES 24mm, NexYZ mobile holder, Pixel 4a controlled by Procam X. I took 15-20 images. Stacked in Siril; 1s exposures, iso 7200 (it is the max in the app; less than that there was nothing visible).

Thanks for the feedback. I just relooked at my images and I agree they are too bright; i processed them in a room with sunlight this afternoon (I usually avoid it). I dropped the levels and I think it is much better now.

I had an excellent session last night looking at fuzzies at my southern horizon; Milky Way was very prominent. M17, M24, M25, M8, M20, M23, NGC6539, IC1276, M22, M28 and many more clusters. It is a shame that anything below the M8 is becoming hard to see due to atmosphere and the woods in the nearby farm. I will try write a full report tomorrow.

I think this might be one of my better captures of Jupiter. Seeing was stable but transparency not so. 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, UV/IR cut filter, 2.5x TV powermate. It did not need much editing to pull out the detials. I tried two slightly different processing. I think i prefer the first one, it looks more natural.

M17 or Swan nebula. Pretty much how it looked at the eyepiece. 8" Dob, manual, ES 24mm, NexYZ mobile holder, Pixel 4a controlled by Procam X. I took 20 images. Stacked in Siril; 1s exposures, iso 7200.

Nice images, I like your Saturn.