powerlord

Apologies - this is cross posted to the galaxy comp thread, but comments not allowed there and I wanted some feedback, to cross posting here. I've been doing this just over 2 years now, and tried imaging Bode's Galaxies a few times. However I've never really been happy with the results. I think most of it comes down to impatience. If after a night of imaging I don't see something good that either looks complete or at least good enough to continue I tend to give up. And Bode's Galaxies are weird like that - they come out very bright - visible in even a single sub. But lacking in detail, very red/white and boring. I've never faced up the challenge of extracting detail from that bright core. But, it's galaxy season, and with my 'Iraqi Supergun' SW 300PDS I was looking for targets near Polaris so that movement would be minimised to help this beast stay guiding at a decent rate on my EQ6-R, and without bumping into either the sides of the new observatory. So started having another go at M82 - with my asi2600 and Ha/Oiii via the L-ultimate. In fact I posted my first (red/yellow) attempt on imaging/deep sky last week. Olly pointed out that it really shouldn't be that colour... and yeh that got me thinking I need a new approach here! Anyway, with terrible weather, it's taken me quite a while just to gather this much data so I think for now, this is it. In the end, mostly 3 minute subs for the RGB (totalling 7 hours), 10 minute subs for the Ha/Oiii (totalling 4 hours), and if I'm honest probably 6+ hours of doing, redoing, doing and redoing the image processing before I was half way happy with it! After the feedback from Olly, I went back to the beginning with my RGB data - and this time starting off by letting Siril photometrically colour correct it to get me in the right ballpark. And instead of getting to the end and then adding the Ha, after a lot of experimentation - I ended up using pixelmath in Siril to blend it in from the start, along with my Oiii data from the L-ultimate: I created R1 by creating a 0.4*R+0.6*Ha, then R2 as 0.4*R1+0.6*Ha. I then used R2 as red. For the green I just used green, and for the blue I used the stacked blue/green from my L-ultimate. The result immediately started to look good, and it was then into Affinity Photo for editing, also making use of Russell Croman's plugins (starXterminator and noiseXterminator). Like every astrophoto ever, it could do with more integration time, but I'm now unlikely to get it this season - so here it is. stu And one with more NoiseX and a bit less red flare... better ? worse ?

I took this data in September last year, but I'm only now getting around to editing it as I sort of forgot I had it. It's a 4 panel mosaic, shot with my SY135, asi2600 and L-ultimate filter. At the time, my asi2600 had quite a tilt, so I had to fart around with the stars quite a lot to get them to not look terrible - I think that was what made me put it aside originally. However, fresh eyes, etc - and had another go. I've went for HSO for a change. 6 hours of imaging in total, so not a lot really - over 2 nights originally. So pretty noisy, but there's limits to what even Mr Croman's NoiseX can do, and pushing the noise removal any higher was just destroying to detail in the faint bits - so it is what it is. Editing in Siril and Affinity Photo, with Russell's plugins of course. The full 90MP has been uploaded, so feel free to click on it and zoom in and wander about - find the bubble, the lobster claws, wizard, elephants trunk - it's all in there. stu

I havn't - but that would just ignore all the trees bit. I don't want that. It's no biggy - I just thought I'd ask. It's my own fault for trusting my 360 pano view on stellarium too much and thinking i could miss the trees! stu

thanks, but yeh I considered that - but most of the subs have trees in them tbh. probably 80%. I mean I pretty much consider it a lost cause, but thought I'd ask in case someone has a particular magic spell that works. It's one of those things that in some ways you'd think should be possible - each sub has areas which should be ignored, areas which shouldn't. add em all up - voila - no trees. But that'd probably need a neural net trained about what bits are trees and what bits arn't - obvious as it is to us, it's not so obvious to the stacker. thinking about it, one way would be to kinda cheat, and find a reference image, use it to make a mask representing the actual background, then deleting it from my data. Obviously I'd still have trees in the nebula data itself, but it'd be far less obvious... might try that and update thread.

I shot 7822 wed night, but it was lower than I though, and the bottom half was in and out of trees. Not wanting to admit defeat, I integrated it anyway, and then in APP and SIril tried my best to scrub out as much of the banding as possible with background extraction. I can now at least see the bubble now, but no idea how to strip the remaining tree banding out or even if it's possible to be honest.. example sub: the best I can do so far with the stack:

dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum wooohooooooo naaa naanaaa.... etc <to those a certain age, I think they will be singing this*> *

Usually if you find a webpage that is longer than a few screens and has multiple fonts, it's a pretty sure bet you have found a conspiracy/nutter/mad man. However after a brief whiz through it, it mostly seems decent advice, so grab a coffee and have a read ? https://supercooper.jimdofree.com/choosing-telescopes-complete-essentials/ Stu

yes, if you enable that in asiair you can point it somewhere else, but it must still be setup exactly as above. It's just that then to polar align you could rotate it to point at something you can see - venus, etc. stu

Shot in a single night with Stellalira 90ED, asi2600 and L-ultimate. I originally planned to shoot a different target, but I was also shooting with my 300PDS iraqi supergun - which got in the way. So Hence, should really have stuck the reducer on - or at least the flattener. But still - this is the first time I've actually managed to capture the squid in a single night! 7 hours of 10 min subs, Bortle 6/7.

no, camera should be pointing at polaris in north. bar pointing at angle into ground to north . the azgti power port facing ground, same as bar. So basically the bit that rotates around the bar becomes your RA, and the bit that rotates around the base becomes the DEC. stu

yeh it does feel a bit precarious - but it's guiding in the 0.5" rms area so can't complain. Now I'm playing with it more, I'm learning when it makes a difference and when it's not worth the bother. With average seeing, it's fair to say it doesn't add a lot more than my 200pds. But when it IS good seeing, it really does show its colours (sic) stu

right - you know that way you get focused on bringing out the details, composition and totally forget the colour balance.. so - this needs starting again. rather than delete post, I've just deleted the image for now. I'll update tomorrow when re-edited.

Hmm. it didn't on the calibrated monitor. But yeh I agree. the channels are balanced and the background is neutral though. No filters other than inbuilt. I'll have a look - maybe chuck it through Siril's photometric calibration. stay tuned...

The cigar galaxy ! - see what I did there... 😚 Shot with SW 300PDS, Baader mk3 CC and asi2600 over the only 2 clear nights in the last month! So at the moment, 7 hours of 10 min subs. The plan is to next add a night of Ha, and if the weather gods are kind, maybe another 2 nights or so of RGB and enter it into the comp. But for now, I'll share what I have so far. It's already better than any M82 I've shot before - so hopefully can get even better. At this scale, guiding is king - At the end of the day I've got a massive telescope (and with a foot of dew shield on the end, it's around 12+ feet high on the mount), guided by an EQ6-r, with 20kg hanging off the balance bar*. So it takes a bit of balancing, and a fair bit of tweaking to keep the guiding RMS well under 1". And since I'm at about 0.52" per pixel I need very good seeing AND guiding RMS <0.6" to get good subs. Luckily that EQ-r has always been the best of the two, and I only had to throw away a handful of subs. And unlike last month's data of M101 - which just wasn't good enough seeing for most of it to be worth integrating, these 2 sessions have been worth it. Anyway, without further ado, here's what I've got so far. It's starting to get filled with lots of faint wee galaxies everywhere too, which is nice. stu original: re-edit after Olly rightly pointed out I'd somewhat lost the plot with the colours: Obviously I'm really missing the Ha - and it's a target that demands it - so here's hoping for some clear skies! *I can see me being found one day having been dead a week under this thing and the police report working out - "we assume he must have been trying to single handedly lift up the 25kg 6 feet tall telescope by himself and trying to balance on this here step ladder on one foot while holding it over his head to attach to this mount thingy, lost his balance and been smacked in the head by the telescope on landing. Luckily we found his dog before it starved to death...

With the hens teeth like rareness of clear nights recently, I set the azgti up again last night, so imaging with 3 setups all at same time. This time with redcat and 6d. Shot 7822 all night.well..and some trees as pretty low. Wee azgti did a good job, rms under 1". The biggest pita with it is the rubbish ioptron wedge I have..takes ages to pa everytime. But then it run like clockwork. My tips for guiding are: -Don't calibrate above 60° or so, pick something lower. -don't be afraid to up the aggressiveness to 80-90. -have your max guide pulses in the 8000 range. -guide interval around 2 or even 3 secs.

An actual clear night forecast here - so 3 mounts and 3 asiairs all pressed into action !

yup. with NB - well it'll be even narrower this summer with my 3nm L-ultimates, it still seems possible to get decent images. plus there's planets of course, and the moon. stu

I dunno, I've always managed to get 2-3 hours nb through the summer. Down south anyway.

It has been rubbish. I look at this time last year, and I think I'd had something like 30 sessions so far in the year. This year, I've had about 6 or 7. weather absolute pants.

I dug out the wee az last night. Prob first time I've used in over a year. I had the 2 mounts in the obsy busy, I wanted to try some cheap vintage lenses,so set it up, updated fireware, and added asiair, 6d, guide am, etc. I was trying a old sigma 200mm. It turned out pretty good,at least in the centre, but what surprised me most was the guiding rms I got..this was on heart and soul..I will say, I tried moving to iris, and even after recalibration it was abysmal..so went back to heart and soul.. But it just goes to show, as Lee says, what the wee thing can be capable of.

Here's last night's effort - first time I've setup the big boy (300pds) in the new Observatory. Shot with my asi2600 - having managed to get the tilt out of it. Seeing was not wonderful, and it was raining till 11pm, and then cloudy in the morning, so just under 3 hours of 5 min subs in the end. I stacked in APP, and processed in Siril and Affinity Photo with Russell Croman's tools. There's a few other wee galaxies in there, but it would really need better seeing and longer integration I think to bring them out. {cross posted to galaxy competition too}

Here's last night's effort - first time I've setup the big boy (300pds) in the new Observatory. Shot with my asi2600 - having managed to get the tilt out of it. Seeing was not wonderful, and it was raining till 11pm, and then cloudy in the morning, so just under 3 hours of 5 min subs in the end. I stacked in APP, and processed in Siril and Affinity Photo with Russell Croman's tools. There's a few other wee galaxies in there, but it would really need better seeing and longer integration I think to bring them out.

well, I took a punt and ordered one of the Seestar S50 jobbies. For 320 quid direct, seemed a no brainer to give it a go. specs wise it seems miles ahead of the dwarf ii, and zwo has never created a product so far that is a dud - so that's good enough for me to give it a punt. Says delivery in July. At that price, even if with the duty/vat it'll be no more than the 470 being charge by uk dealers, and maybe I get more toward front of queue. I think it would be a great wee travel thing - holiday, or maybe save me carrying all my bigger portable stuff away in motorhome, while still giving me a bit of a play. And at the end of the day, I imagine could find I can sell it in July or August for same price as I bought it if I don't like it. Dunno why FLO's not selling them? re: pi chip - I've never understood the manufacturing issues there - I have no problems ever getting esp32s or arm32s, etc - but for some reason Pis have pretty much always been produced in silly little batches that sell out in days then you have to wait 6 months till the next set. makes no sense whatsoever. It's a mystery how ZWO seem to have a constant supply. if the chips.

It cleared up!!

Just to finish - I checked the weather again just after this and it had changed to apparently raining any second... roof back on.. and sure enough it started raining and it's being raining ever since (2 hours later). I suppose I should be grateful I checked the forecast or I'd probably not have realised it had started raining! humph! so the big guns will just have to wait for now.