Freddie

Captured on the morning of 21st with my CPC at just under 5000mm FL. Captured using FireCapture with processing in AS3!, ImPPG and PS.

Just one more set from the 26th to process so we'll see what that produces though they were of a less interesting AR.

Captured on 20th April with the usual FireCapture, AS3!, ImPPG and PS

Now to make a start on the high res WL

Thanks for the comments guys, appreciated.

Have finally managed to start processing the various captures I managed to get of the recent ARs over the last week.

I started processing my low res stuff first as weather conditions were never perfect so I'm not holding out much hope for the high res stuff, but you never know. 

Captured on the 21st with my 9.25 using Firecapture and processed in AS3!, ImPPG and PS.

I think I'll have a look at the Ha next as that isn't too impacted by seeing compared to WL.

Looking good. Now layer the old image onto the new image and erase the umbra region to reveal the new detail and you have a winner. The other approach would be to pin the histo curve at the lower end when making adjustments to preserve the dark details in the umbra. Hope that helps.

Some nice detail there. I do like a mono WL.

Sure sign of wall to wall clouds for ages then!!!!!

Some nice detail there, though I think you may have possibly gone a touch too far on the black point and potentially lost detail in the umbra. Nice work though.

Nice series there Neil. Good to see your progress with Solar. Will be interesting to see what the 3.8ND gives

Nice first light with your new set up, though I think you are still some way off of it's full potential.

ImPPG is your friend when it comes to animations.

Nice.

How many of that lot are you stacking for the final image?

Any rotation during a video capture will not matter as each frame will be a fraction of a second (so no rotation) and the stacking process of the chosen files from the video will take care of any rotation during the video.

14 hours ago, Rodd said:

Yes. Free software is amazing. I have been using CDC since the beginning. Phd2 recently because maxim won’t guide my oag system.  But I can’t dither with phd2 so I should go back to maxim and a refractor

I can dither with PHD2 using Artemis (Atik capture software) so I'm sure various other capture software would also be able to do the same.

Trapezium A to I

Thought I would try something a bit different for this one, so had a go at resolving stars A to I in the Trapezium. They are all there but some harder to see than others!!!!!!!

Shot on 17th Dec with my CPC925 and ASI120mm and Baader RGB filters. I thought as I was using my planetary setup, I would try planetary capture/ processing techniques so captured an AVI with Firecapture and stacked 40 frames in AS!3 (after a bit of experimentation found that fewer fames and I couldn't pull out the nebula, more frames and I couldn't resolve the fainter stars due to poor seeing). I then combined R, G and B in PS and further processed the combined image.

New updated version just released 

https://sourceforge.net/projects/starnet/files/v2.0/

19 hours ago, vlaiv said:

I'd reconsider whole ordeal.

First, ASI1600 has 3.8µm pixel size and you plan on using Ha filter with it. For that combination ideal F/ratio is F/11.6. You'll be much closer to it without the barlow then with. With barlow you'll be very oversampled.

Second problem that I see is off axis aberrations. I don't really know how much coma SCT produces. I think I read somewhere that coma in SCT is comparable to same aperture F/8 newtonian (not sure about that - but let's go with it).

Coma in newtonian is function of distance from optical axis and diffraction limited field is given by h = F^3/90 where F is F/ratio and h is distance from optical axis in mm. F/8 newtonian will have diffraction limited field of 5.6888 = ~5.7mm. That will be radius of diffraction limited field.

Diameter will be about 11.4mm. Diagonal of ASI1600 is 21mm, this means that only inner 1/4 of the field will be diffraction limited and the rest will be distorted.

You can actually see this in SCT DSO images:

Center field stars with C9.25 and ASI1600:

Top right corner:

mind you - this is scaled down to about 1/4 to get meaningful resolution for DSO, true star shape will be:

(again - stars are very big due to long exposure and seeing effect - but you can see that coma extends several pixels from the center of the star).

In the end, here are the settings I'd recommend:

1. Use ROI of 1920×1680 px at 12 bit capture (16 bit SER)

2. Use 261 gain

3. Limit your exposure to 5-6ms regardless how faint image looks like and what histogram says

4. Do get 10000+ frames - that means 6-7 minute capture per panel (30fps at 1920x1680 at 16 bit)

5. You'll need more panels to cover whole lunar disk, but if you are not capturing full moon - you might need less than number that covers whole disc because there is no point in capturing beyond terminator - it will just be black like surrounding space

If you fix your exposure length - and one should, then shot noise is fixed by amount of signal one gets. Changing gain will not change SNR in that regard. Higher gain will just lower read noise so overall SNR per sub will be better.

How many of those 10,000+ frames would you propose are stacked?

He has been back on the site a number of times since the three of us went to the trouble of posting to try and help him out but I take your point that during the time he was on the site he may not have had enough time to check if there was an answer to his own last post. I am sorry that my disappointment was inappropriate and will be more considered in my future replies.

On 30/06/2021 at 00:58, assouptro said:

Hi sun worshipers!

I have been playing with solar imaging for a year or so and at this time of year it's often the only 'astro fix' i get due to my latitude

I have a quark, which belonged to a solarscout which I have adapted to fit other telescopes and my main imaging camera is a point grey blackfly which has a cs to 1.25 nosepiece but I would like to be able to use a 0.5 focal reducer however my nosepiece is too long to achieve a decent image.

I have been searching the internet to try and find a low profile cs to 1.25 adapter to move my focal reducer closer but I am struggling!

Can anyone suggest a solution?

Many thanks in advance for any help

Bryan

What is the point of asking a question and then not bothering to look at the answers or worst still seeing the answer and not acknowledging the three people who offered something up?

Nice and an interesting colour, obviously from the continuum and the colour cam.

Almost as good as the one you posted two minutes later!!!!

This?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-low-profile-125-nosepiece-to-fit-c-mount.html

2 hours ago, Chefgage said:

In my mind I was sort of thinking that data from a poor seeing (moon lit) night added to a good seeing night (no moon) would still improve the image (increase the SNR). So poor data is better than no extra data.  But that could of course be that I am sleepy after a big fish and chip tea!

Moon light does not affect seeing, turbulence in the atmosphere is what affects seeing. I think you have your terminology a bit mixed up.

11 hours ago, Kitsunegari said:

I think it would be nice to have a repository of all the best  captures you have accumulated.   (only your best please!)

 

Can you clarify what you are looking for? Your title says highest resolution, your post says best captures. The highest resolution could be not very good but your best capture will most likely be low resolution so which are you looking for? Thanks.

When you have the new images without the moon just do a quick test. A stack with the originals and a stack without. You can then decide for yourself. It's not as if you will waste any time as you already have the shots that will potentially be discarded.

Thanks for the kind comments guys. Much appreciated.

Astroscot2, this was with my CPC9.25 as per my signature and I also used a 2xbarlow.