mftoet

The scope keeps amazing me. Fast optics make it a pleasure to deep on targets like these.

Captured during an exceptional clear week at @ollypenrice's Les Granges from 7 to 14 Octorber 2023. LDN 1089 and surroundings Integration time: 24 hours (288x 300" - part of 3x1 pane mosaic, exposed 8 hours per pane) | Optics: Takahashi ε-180ED f/2.8 | Camera: Nikon D810a (ISO 800) | Acquisition: ZWO ASIair Pro | Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO | SQM: 21.2 to 21.4 magnitude/arcsec² | Date: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 October 2023 Taurus Molecular Cloud (TMC-1) Integration time: 23 hours, 30 minutes (282x 300" - 3x1 pane mosaic, 2 panes exposed for 8 hours, 1 pane for 7.5 hours) | Optics: Takahashi ε-180ED f/2.8 | Camera: Nikon D810a (ISO 800) | Acquisition: ZWO ASIair Pro | Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO | SQM: 21.2 to 21.4 magnitude/arcsec² | Date: 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 October 2023 Crescent Moon with earthshine at dawn Exposure time: 1 second | Optics: Sigma 150 mm f/2.8 EX DG APO HSM @ f/5 | Camera: Nikon D810a (ISO 800) | Date: 13 October 2023

Thank you, Adrian. It has been 10 years since I acquired the Epsilon-180. Still one of my best purchases in this hobby!

Going deep on IC 1396, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. This is a two pane mosaic of image data captured during an exceptionally long clear spell in the Netherlands from the end of May to the midst of June. Data reduction and composing the image in SHO 'Hubble Palette' was performed in Astro Pixel Processor. BlurXTerminator was applied in PixInsight. PixInsight was also used to remove the magenta hue of the stars by inverting the SHO image and applying SCNR. Post-processing (StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, contrast and colour enhancement) was performed in Photoshop CC. Integration time: 52 hours, 10 minutes (234x 300" SII 4nm, 160x 300" Hα 3.5nm, 232x 300" OIII 4nm - 2x1 pane mosaic) | Optics: Takahashi ε-180ED f/2.8 | Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro (B 1x1, G 100, T -15 °C) | Acquisition: ZWO ASIair Pro | Filter: Baader Planetarium f/3 Ultra-Highspeed | Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO | Location: Zoetermeer, Netherlands | Date: 26, 27, 28 & 31 May and 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 & 16 June 2023

That’s a wonderful accomplishment! Orion never gets old.

I gave BXT a first try on M33 for combining recently acquired H-alpha data (captured from home) with RGB (OSC) data captured in Southern France (at Olly's Les Granges). It's excellent! As demonstrated by Adam Block in his recent video, it also helps fixing bad star shapes (reducing elongated stars), which is nice to tighten up the stars in the corners of full frame images captured with my Epsilon-180ED at f/2.8. Here's an animated GIF of the center of the galaxy (in H-alpha only) to show the capabilities of BXT.

Having owned an Epsilon-180ED (f/2.8) for about 10 years now and living in an agglomeration of large cities (SQM 18.5, Bortle 8/9) Olly asked me to chime in. By the way, excellent image, Olly! In my garden roll-off roof shed, I only use the Epsilon with Baader ‘Highspeed’ narrowband filters. The light pollution here is too severe for not using narrowband filters. I’ve owned an IDAS P2 light pollution filter in the past, but that resulted in rainbow circles/gradients that could not be dealt with using gradient removal software. Maybe those gradients were caused by a band shift issue. However, considering light pollution, my situation is probably out of the ordinary for typical city skies. I live in an area with a lot of agriculture for growing flowers and vegetables by using assimilation lights. People who don’t live here and visit the area for the first time have often mistaken the bright light domes above the greenhouses for a big fire in a city ahead. I don’t longer bother pursuing broadband deep sky photography from where I live. There isn’t much to enjoy, seeing just a hand full of stars. I sometimes compare broadband deep sky photography (or visual deep sky astronomy) from my home town with trying to coral dive in a mud puddle…

That's a good improvement!

A great composition on these interesting subject, Göran! Indeed, you've captured lots of reds. Hard to tell if the red in LDN 1219 is 'genuine' red or saturated brown (as far as brown is a colour (hint: dark orange), but that's another discussion). I happened to have my scope also pointed on this area in the sky recently to create an Ha-RGB composite. As suggested by Olly, here's an Ha channel only (auto DDP stretch in AstroPixelProcessor).

That’s a great field of view with interesting sea life. When seeing images like this I always think back 25 years ago, when I started astrophotography using an analogue Olympus OM-1 SLR. In those days we couldn’t imagine this would become in reach of amateur astronomers. Quite a few objects we photograph today with our low noise digital cameras weren’t known by amateurs back then. In fact, we now photograph and discover (for instance by Nicolas Outters and Marcel Drechsler) objects that weren’t even known by professionals.

Thank you very much @Xiga. Yes, the D810a keeps surprising me and, indeed, is a great match for the Epsilon. I believe even @ollypenrice is convinced by the power of one-shot CMOS cameras in combination with fast optics, since he hosts Paul Kummer’s 8” RASA with ASI2600MC. The thing I like most about a (high-end) DSLRs is their versatility. I also use it for daylight (macro) photography, nightscapes and timelapse photography.

Thanks, Pieter. Yes, soon we’ll test if the cart is suitable for an off road track somewhere in Southern France 😉 Feel free to use it.

Thank you, Kon. Yes, it gets dark over there and the countryside is splendid.

Last weekend I stayed in Grandpré (northern France) with friends of 'Sterrenwacht Rijswijk' (public astronomical observatory / astronomy club). Since 10 years it has become a tradition to visit this dark site twice a year: in spring and late summer or early autumn. SQM-meters typically reach values between 21.3 tot 21.6 (Bortle class 3). Several years ago the owners of the gîte have created an observing plateau on a hill belonging to their property. There's an electrified fence around it to protect the horses in the field from wild amateur astronomers... 😉 Drone photo (courtesy of E. Hoorn) of the location. Before heading off to Grandpré, I acquired a collapsible handcart to get my (heavy) equipment to the observing plateau. I should have acquired one earlier! When the weather is nice, the first thing we do after the 4.5 hour drive from our astronomy club is setting up the equipment. During daytime we observed the sun either with a Quark Chromosphere behind a 6 cm apo or with a Herschil prism behind an 18 cm apo. Of course a proper meal before a night of astronomy cannot be neglected. (G)astronomy! Who's the first to spot Polaris and align his mount? After focusing on a bright star, a serie of flat frames is acquired. And next for the real thing: acquiring the subs. I use an ASIair Pro which I control and monitor on a tablet. When it (temporarily) gets overcast, a typical kitchen ritual unfolds... The result I would like to share, is an HαRGB image, using my ZWO ASI294MM mono camera with an Hα filter at F=500mm f/2.8 and my Nikon D810a at F=770mm f/4.3 for RGB (actually one-shot colour). The Hα data, acquired at home, and RGB data, acquired in Grandpré, were combined in Astro Pixel Processor. Post-processing was performed in Adobe Photoshop. The bright red veils are remnants of supernova G 110.3+11.3. VdB (Van den Bergh) 152 is the blue reflection nebula on the 'head' of the brown Bok globule B (Barnard) 175. The small red feature just right of VdB 152 is HH (Herbig Haro) 450, being a jet emitted from a newly forming star. The isolated bright red 'shell' is DeHt (Dengel-Hartl) 5, a dense part of the interstellar medium ionised by a hot white dwarf star. Detail of VdB 152 with HH 45. Detail of supernova G 110.3+11.3. Detail of DeHt 5. Exposure time: 19 hours, 15 minutes (136x 300" Hα, 95x 30" OSC | Optics: Takahashi ε-180ED f/2.8 & f/4.3 | Cameras: ZWO ASI294MM Pro (B 2x2, G 120, T 0 °C & -15 °C) at f/2.8 & Nikon D810a (ISO 800) at f/4.3 | Acquisition: ZWO ASIair Pro | Filter: Baader Planetarium Ultra-Highspeed | Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO | Location: Zoetermeer, Netherlands (Hα), Grandpré, France (OSC) | Date: 18 & 20 August 2022 (Hα), 26, 27 & 28 August 2022 (OSC)

Nice one, Olly. As you know, I’m fond of those dark, dusty structures. Sometimes (well, actually most often) difficult to DBE, though.

Thank you for all the wows! @tooth_dr: for this final image I saved two DDP stretched images to start with. One with a mild stretch (to preserve the stars) and one with a more intense stretch (for the nebulae). I subtracted the stars from the mildly stretched images and added them as a separate layer to more intensively stretched image. StarXTerminstor works like a charm for this procedure.

This is a little more than 29 hours of integration time through the new Baader Planetarium CMOS optimised Ultra-Highspeed SII (4nm), Hα (3.5nm) and OIII (4nm) filters mapped in Hubble palette. Pre-processing was done in Astro Pixel Processor. Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop. For post-processing the stars where separated from the nebulas with Russell Croman's excellent new 'StarXTerminator' plug-in. Exposure time: 29h10' (93x 300" SII, 121x 300" Hα, 136x 300" OIII) | Optics: Takahashi ε-180ED f/2.8 | Camera: ZWO ASI294MM Pro (B 2x2, G 120, T -15 °C) | Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO | Capturing and guiding: ZWO ASIair Pro (plan mode) + ZWO ASI120MM mini | Location: Zoetermeer, Netherlands (Bortle 8, SQM ~ 18.5 magn/arcsec²) | Date: 20, 22 September, 7, 8 & 9 October 2021

I started this project on August 23rd and September 2nd with imaging through an Hα filter. On another image of this area captured by Nico Carver (nebulaphotos.com), I noticed part of supernova remnant G 82.2+5.3 was in the field of view. Therefore I completed the project with adding OIII data gathered on September 8th and 9th. Data reduction (pre-processing) was done in Astro Pixel Processor. Post-processing was done in Adobe Photoshop CS. The bicolour image (Hα-OIII-OIII) was created using techniques based on a method described by Steve Cannistra (starrywonders.com). : Takahashi ε-180ED f/2.8 : Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO : ZWO ASI294MM Pro (B 2x2; G 120) : ZWO ASIair Pro : Baader Planetarium Ultra-Highspeed : 20h15’ (88x 300” Hα, 155x 300” OIII) : Zoetermeer, Netherlands (Bortle 8 ) : 23 August, 2, 7 & 8 September 2021

Imaging with a Takahashi ε-180ED since 2013.

A friend of mine owns a 180EDT. An instrument that dates from the time before Astro-Physics became a renowned brand. On the public observatory in Rijswijk (Netherlands), where I’m a volunteer, we have a Starfire 130EDT that’s excellent for visual observing the Moon and planets. I consider myself lucky to own a Mach1 mount. Acquired directly from Astro-Physics in 2009. In 12 years of use this mount never let my down. I’m on the waiting list for a Starfire 130GTX since 2016, but don’t know if I’ll order one if I get a notification. You can order one directly at several retailers in Europe (Baader, Optique et Vision, Unitron Italian), but the price is high: about 10k Euros.

Thank you for your nice comments.

Since about 6 months now, I've finally got the pleasure of a back garden observatory. In the area of the Netherlands where I live, sky conditions are terrible for regular, broad band deep sky photography (the SQM-value varies about 18 magn./arcsec). That why I like to visit dark sites like @ollypenrice's Les Granges every once in while. One of the great benefits of a personal observatory is that you don't have to setup and brake down your equipment for every imaging or observing session. To be able to do deep sky imaging from my back garden with narrowband filters, I decided to go down the ZWO route with an ASI294MM Pro (mono) CMOS camera and their ASIAIR device to operate the equipment and sequence an imaging session from a mobile phone or tablet. Apart from some inconsistencies and unpredictable behaviour in the guiding interface, I'm impressed what the ASIAIR is capable of. Especially autofocusing works like a charm. Because of the low f-ratio of the Epsilon-180ED (f/2.8), I use Baader Highspeed narrowband which are specially designed to use with fast optics. The OIII filter produces halos around bright stars. Apart from that, I'm very content with the performance of the filters. The last two weeks we had a surprisingly large amount of clear skies in The Netherlands. I decided to go narrowband all the way on the Rosette nebula, and captured data though Ha, OIII and SII filters. Processing a multi-colour narrowband image is quite different from a regular RGB/one shot colour image. My mind wants to make a natural looking image, but that's nonsense when your actually creating a false colour image. Pure SHO colour mapping didn't give satisfying results, so I ended up mixing the colours over the three channels which resulted in this pastel-shaded Rosette. Total integration time is 14.5 hours: 18x 600s SII, 46x 600s Ha, 23x 600s OIII. Ha only was used for luminance. Hope you like it. Higher resolution of the full field of view can be seen on my website.

Thank you, Pieter. The observatory is great. The weather in current and recent winters is awful though.

My first serious tricolour image in Hubble Palette (SHO) with a recently acquired ZWO ASI294MM Pro astro camera. Captured from my back garden observatory in the Netherlands. Exposure time: 3 hours (6x 600s Hα, 3x 600s OIII & 3x 600s SII) Optics: Takahashi Epsilon-180ED f/2.8 Filters: Baader-Planetarium Highspeed Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO Date: January 8, 2021 https://www.mauricetoet.nl/DeepSky/i-8j5wxHd/A

I have a lot of images showing brown(ish) dark nebula. I don’t specifically try to bring out this colour or hue, it’s simply there. I always try to white balance my images on a the background sky (which can be hard to find when there’s lots of nebulosity in the frame. Furthermore I often increase the vibrance of the colours in my images by 20 to 30 in the Photoshop RAW converter. The last example is a rather interesting one: apart from what might be a gradient in the lower left corner, different hues can be distinguished in the molecular clouds: ‘50 shades of ...’?