First guided image - Gamma-Cygni

[rocketandroll]

Hi folks

Ok, well, Murphy's law I image the same thing as Steve last night, and his has WAY better star colour than mine... but hey ho :-)

So... finally, a clear night after two weeks of cloud.

Having got pulse guiding working for one test sub two weeks ago... this was the first time to actually put my guiding to the test and try and seriously image something.

As it's such a stunning area, and is rapidly sinking for the winter, I decided to hit Gamma Cygni and the lovely nebula around it.

Seeing was pretty poor and the humidity was horrible... I got everything working (after having had to drive home to fetch the field flattener which I left on the table of the living room) about 7:30pm, got two good subs, then lost six to dew on the lens. Finally noticed, cleaned it, whacked the dew heaters up to full power and managed to then get a total of 19 good subs before the dew killed the laptop (ASCOM and PHD suddenly just froze and it was as much as I could do to get the dripping computer to actually shut down).

So... anyway, I must say, I am verry happy with guided imaging :-) I was getting very good 6 minute subs out of the Eos500D with just 1 minute cool down between subs and no sign of any amp glow.

I wanted three hours on this but, in the end, got just under two of useable subs... even so, I am happy with this (apart from the horrible halo around Sadr, though I'm glad to see from Steve's version that wasn't me and was just due to the haze and humifity :-)

So... this is 19 X 6 minute subs at ISO800 imaged through the Megrez72 with a FF2 flattener/reducer at f4.8 on a HEQ5-Pro guided with PHD/EQmod via a SX Lodestar and ST80.

Stacked in DSS and edited in Photoshop.

It was actually necessary to 'un-stretch' the image afterwards as it was hard to keep it from looking like it had already been over-stretched :-) The wonders of guiding and longer subs I guess :-)

Star colours aren't as good as I wanted but will have to see if I can fix that later with a seperate star layer. This is fairly quickly processed and I want to spend more time on it at the weekend, but it's a start.

Cheers all for looking, comments appreciated!

Ben

Full size version on my Flickr page here: Gamma-cyg-directsave01-mod03 copy4-crop-modagain-copy2 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[rocketandroll]

Hi all

Ok, had a bit of a re-process, think I've got the colours a bit better now... the whole thing is very orange, but that just seems to be the colour the nebula comes out.... so i'm not going to fight it and introduce any false colour...

Here it is again...

[BigBlueOne]

Hi Ben,

A cracking image, If I came in and processed that I would have

woke my neighbours as well as my wife to take a look.

BigBlueOne.

[SkyJamie]

Congrats on your first guided image Ben it looks great, i like the rusty colour of it and the guiding looks spot on

Jamie

[rocketandroll]

Cheers both.... yep, guiding was working pretty well, apart from a couple of points early on where the Dec axis went mental for a couple of subs.

I've re-processed it again, but better not put up too many versions :-)

Ben

[carastro]

Well done Ben, after your ordeals.

Looks good Ben, nice round stars with the guiding. I am not familiar with this target so can't comment on that.

When I go to camp and "sit out in the open" which is what I think you are doing I put my laptop inside a plastic box which has two half flaps for a lid which are attached. Once I have got the imaging running, I close the flaps and this gives the laptop a fair bit of protection. (N.B, small holes have been cut out to allow for cables to pass through the plastic box).

Small image attached of my box, hopefully you can find a better colour

Carole

[Psychobilly]

Glad you up and running Ben..

Gamma Cyg is a good place to start a good selection of guidestars and Gam Cyg there if it's needed.. and one of my favourite pieces of sky...

Now your guidinng the Wonders of the Universe await...

Peter...

[rocketandroll]

Cheers Peter

Yeah, I had to have a play at the start of the guiding run as it was flailing wildly in the Dec axis for some reason, but lowered the rate in Dec and it seemed ok after that (until the dew killed it).

Gamma Cyg was in the fov of the guidescope but to be honest was a bit too bright :-)

Picked a smaller star and it was fine... damn I love that Lodestar :-)

Anyway, couldn't resist... last play with it for now... might have a re-process with it later again... but this'll do.

It'd be interesting to know what colour it 'should' be... all my pics of this area come out with the nebulosity looking quite orange, more orange and less red than the NAN at least... I can only assume, much like the flame neb, that's just the sort of colour it is?

Ben

[foundaplanet]

Great stuff Ben. Really pleased for you, its a grand image and I wish you many clear skies through the winter months..

Col

[Shibby]

Congratulations on achieving 6 minute subs! And you have a nice image to show for it.

You seriously had to "unstretch"??

You might want to try separating the stars into a new layer to boost the saturation - I can see that the colours are certainly present.

[Fay]

A very nice start, Ben, well done!

Fay

[rocketandroll]

Cheers all

@Lewis.... I did actually do a seperate star layer and boost the saturation... to 100%... three times!!! :-)

Unfortunately when I outputted the image from DSS I could only push the saturation to 20%, above that it came out with a garrish purple sky and the nebula was burnt out in bright red! To get the star colours I usually need to push it to 80% when saving the file in the first place.

I'm gonna have another go at stacking it and outputting it in different ways, see if I can get more out of it... but I think this is as much as I can squeeze out of this version :-)

Ben