It was clear last night, at last

[lensman57]

Hi To All,

When I got home last night after a 14 hour shift at work, I found the sky clear, though tired and achy from a long shift I decided to get the scope out. I did not even bother to polar align properly as it was already past 11.45 pm. I aimed the scope to IC434 and set the 428 ex to take 18 subs of 600s each. Four of the subs were useless as there were some really thin, fast moving low clouds around. The result is a stack of 14 subs, DSS, PI and PS. my processing skills with PI is really poor so the result is not exactly brilliant and it is very noisy for reason but atleast I managed to get something . HEQ5 pro, Ascension 80 mm Apo Triplet @ F5.8 and Atik 428 EX  with IDAS P2. This is really not in the same league as Olly or Peter Shah's captures but here it goes anyway.

[Quatermass]

Very Nice, with a bit of careful processing that could be even better but it was good to finally get a break from the clouds at last and who could resist the horsehead nebula  have you got the stacked tiff ito have a go at from dropbox?

[andyo]

Nice capture looks like you have captured some good detail but agree with quatermass about the processing

[lensman57]

Hi To All,

When I got home last night after a 14 hour shift at work, I found the sky clear, though tired and achy from a long shift I decided to get the scope out. I did not even bother to polar align properly as it was already past 11.45 pm. I aimed the scope to IC434 and set the 428 ex to take 18 subs of 600s each. Four of the subs were useless as there were some really thin, fast moving low clouds around. The result is a stack of 14 subs, DSS, PI and PS. my processing skills with PI is really poor so the result is not exactly brilliant and it is very noisy for reason but atleast I managed to get something . HEQ5 pro, Ascension 80 mm Apo Triplet @ F5.8 and Atik 428 EX  with IDAS P2. This is really not in the same league as Olly or Peter Shah's captures but here it goes anyway.

Hi,

Thanks for your kind words, I am going to reprocess the data once this  weekend of work is over, perhaps on Monday, meanwhile here is a link to the data.

https://www.dropbox.com/home#!/home/IC%20434

Regards,

A.G

[lensman57]

Hi,

Here is the reprocess but this time in StarTools and PS.

Regards,

A.G

[Quatermass]

Much better great job :-)

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[symesie04]

Quick polar alignment and 10 mins subs?? And here i was thinking patience was the key to accurate polar alignment, seems i need to learn this quick method  Nice image.

[andyo]

That reprocess is a lot better well done

[lensman57]

Quick polar alignment and 10 mins subs?? And here i was thinking patience was the key to accurate polar alignment, seems i need to learn this quick method  Nice image.

You are all too kind, I conveneintly forgot to mention a few shots of the 12 year old Glenlivet that I had to have, always helps.

Regards and clear skies to you all,

A.G

[LeeWilky]

Beautiful mate

Still waiting on clear skies here.  Not one clear night since i bought my new scope over a week ago.

My mrs is very interested in the Horsehead Nebula as she is obcessed with horses lol.  Ill show this to her when she i home from work.

Wishing you more clear skies.

Lee

[sologuitarist61]

Stunning!

[lensman57]

Thank you lee and Richard,

Hope we all get some clear skies.

Regards,

A.G

[StuartJPP]

Agree with above, 2nd attempt at processing is much better.

[lensman57]

Agree with above, 2nd attempt at processing is much better.

Thanks Stuart,

I just can't get on with PI processing. I find the noise reduction and sharpening routines very over complicated and cumbersome or I may just be showing my age now.

Regards,

A.G