Imaging with the 130pds

[lnlarxg]

7 hours ago, RolandKol said:

And my third test target from yesterday
also only 6x300s SHO  

 

Which cam do you use Roland? Wonderful photos already 

[RolandKol]

Thanks @lnlarxg

It is ASI1600MM-Pro with Baader 7/8/8.5 NM filter set, all on 130PDS with Skywatchers Coma Corrector which works as 0.9 Focal reducer, so I am imaging at F4.5

P.S.

I was also quite surprised I have managed to get quite a descent amount of nebulosity with such a small amount of subs. 

I have started quite recently and still testing the options. Currently all my images are at Unity gain and 300s ...

I think of increasing the Gain and shortening exposures accordingly as I have a very limited view from my back garden,

Edited October 30, 2018 by RolandKol

[RolandKol]

      delete

Edited October 30, 2018 by RolandKol

[Uranium235]

There ya go, that looks a bit better now Ive taken some calibration frames:

Needs more data though I reckon, its just 90min per panel (x2)

[Davey-T]

7 minutes ago, Uranium235 said:

There ya go, that looks a bit better now Ive taken some calibration frames:

Looking good Rob, can't see the hot column 

Cloud just cleared here sky looks good but it's too late to start now as I have to be up early.

Dave

[Uranium235]

2 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Looking good Rob, can't see the hot column 

Cloud just cleared here sky looks good but it's too late to start now as I have to be up early.

Dave

Did what you said mate and did some bad pixel mapping, ive saved it off as well so I can apply it every time. It cleared up about 8pm here, but im just too knackered to set up tonight I'll leave it for another time.

[matt_baker]

I'm aiming for Andromeda galaxy on Thursday night and I was wondering if there's any tips on photographing this as I have never done before.

I've very recently got brand new second hand equipment, 130PDS + HEQ5 Pro

I've heard that Andromeda is a very HDR target and try not to overexpose the core and get the faint dust lanes.

I was thinking maybe doing 20 ish 5 minute exposures but should I do a few shorter ones to not blow out the core?

I was also wondering how I should go about stacking with different exposure times as I don't have PixInsight and can't do HDR Composition. Can this be achieved by having different groups in DSS?

 

[alacant]

6 hours ago, matt_baker said:

any tips on photographing this

Hi. Have the camera oriented at 90º to the focuser. This way the galaxy fits across the diagonal.

Don't know what camera you have but at 650mm, even an aps-c dslr can't fit in the whole galaxy. If you have the sw 0.9cc, things are a little better.

HTH and good luck

[matt_baker]

Took this last night and processed it this afternoon.

130PDS

HEQ5 Pro

Nikon D3200

120MC with 50mm Guide Scope

Badder mk.iii coma corrector

24x300s Lights with 7x120s and 5x60s for the core all at ISO 800

5 Darks for each

25 Bias and 25 Flats

PHD 2 and EQMod for controlling and guiding

Stacked in DSS

Processed in Photoshop CC 2015

This is the first time I've ever attempted Andromeda and I'm very pleased with the result

I might possibly grab a couple hours of more data in the future due to the noise which I tried my best to minimize in PS using Astronomy tools action set

 

Edited November 2, 2018 by matt_baker

[sagramore]

3 minutes ago, matt_baker said:

Took this last night and processed it this afternoon.

130PDS

HEQ5 Pro

Nikon D3200

120MC with 50mm Guide Scope

Badder mk.iii coma corrector

24x300s Lights with 7x120s and 5x60s for the core

5 Darks for each

25 Bias and 25 Flats

PHD 2 and EQMod for controlling and guiding

Stacked in DSS

Processed in Photoshop CC 2015

This is the first time I've ever attempted Andromeda and I'm very pleased with the result

I might possibly grab a couple hours of more data in the future due to the noise which I tried my best to minimize in PS using Astronomy tools action set

 

*ANDROMEDA*

Very nice!! A really nice shot that one, I think you've done it justice.

I just saw your post from Wednesday and I was about to post my attempts from the same evening but I was plagued by clouds, a failed meridian flip, and then dew so I only managed 1 hr of exposures. I also think my processing is bad so I will hold off posting my poor attempt for now as it is way worse than yours  We have really similar equipment by the looks of it.

I am hoping to grab a couple more hours on it tonight if the weather holds out though, so watch this space!

EDIT: Can I ask what your stacking parameters in DSS are for this? I am shooting the same length subs with a Canon 550D (T2i) and I think my stacking isn't optimal either. Any advice is appreciated.

Edited November 2, 2018 by sagramore

[matt_baker]

1 minute ago, sagramore said:

Very nice!! A really nice shot that one, I think you've done it justice.

I just saw your post from Wednesday and I was about to post my attempts from the same evening but I was plagued by clouds, a failed meridian flip, and then dew so I only managed 1 hr of exposures. I also think my processing is bad so I will hold off posting my poor attempt for now as it is way worse than yours  We have really similar equipment by the looks of it.

I am hoping to grab a couple more hours on it tonight if the weather holds out though, so watch this space!

I did actually waste about 30-40 minutes after realising the guiding was failing and trails were everywhere near the time of the meridian flip. Once I had sent a slew command on EQMod, I then had to take time re-centering as best as I could in the frame before continuing. I guess we can't have everything. I would've spent the extra time gathering a few more darks to lower the noise further

[sagramore]

4 minutes ago, matt_baker said:

I did actually waste about 30-40 minutes after realising the guiding was failing and trails were everywhere near the time of the meridian flip. Once I had sent a slew command on EQMod, I then had to take time re-centering as best as I could in the frame before continuing. I guess we can't have everything. I would've spent the extra time gathering a few more darks to lower the noise further

Yeah, I basically did similar. Everything was set up and working perfectly and the clouds finally went away. I left it to do it's thing thinking it would auto-meridian flip, I came back after 1hr to find it was just stuck at the maximum of the meridian and hadn't flipped, so I lost bout 1 hr of acquisition!

I sorted it out, did like you said - reframed as best I could without taking ages over it (I am still awful at framing, something to improve on) - and then after another few subs my secondary fogged up.....

I would say I don't know why we put ourselves through it, but I was still quite happy with what I got out of 60 mins of data.... I will share it actually, but hopefully so I can show the improvements later tonight!

EDIT TO ADD: I think my colour balance is totally off, and I think this comes from my stacking settings. So that's something I need to work out. I either end up with something that's got a strong hue across the whole image, or I get something with a lack of any colour at all (like this one above). More practice I guess!

Edited November 2, 2018 by sagramore

[matt_baker]

3 minutes ago, sagramore said:

Yeah, I basically did similar. Everything was set up and working perfectly and the clouds finally went away. I left it to do it's thing thinking it would auto-meridian flip, I came back after 1hr to find it was just stuck at the maximum of the meridian and hadn't flipped, so I lost bout 1 hr of acquisition!

I sorted it out, did like you said - reframed as best I could without taking ages over it (I am still awful at framing, something to improve on) - and then after another few subs my secondary fogged up.....

I would say I don't know why we put ourselves through it, but I was still quite happy with what I got out of 60 mins of data.... I will share it actually, but hopefully so I can show the improvements later tonight!

 

For 60 minutes that seems like a great result. If it helps I used this tutorial to process mine

http://www.myastronomyjournal.com/DSLR-AIP/C002-M31-Walkthrough/

[sagramore]

Just now, matt_baker said:

For 60 minutes that seems like a great result. If it helps I used this tutorial to process mine

http://www.myastronomyjournal.com/DSLR-AIP/C002-M31-Walkthrough/

Thanks, I will take a look!

I did a test with this data actually - one stack with darks from my darks library, and one without darks. I actually found little to no difference, and possibly even lower noise (very slightly) in the stack without darks. I do dither quite hard after every second sub though, so that's probably why. I am starting to lean away from worrying much about darks at ISO800, although perhaps they're more important at higher ISOs?

[matt_baker]

1 minute ago, sagramore said:

Thanks, I will take a look!

I did a test with this data actually - one stack with darks from my darks library, and one without darks. I actually found little to no difference, and possibly even lower noise (very slightly) in the stack without darks. I do dither quite hard after every second sub though, so that's probably why. I am starting to lean away from worrying much about darks at ISO800, although perhaps they're more important at higher ISOs?

I would imagine so as it would amplify the noise to a greater extent. Right now I can't use APT as my Nikon isn't supported but as soon as I get my hands on a Canon 450D modified, I'll be sure to dither every couple of subs and I currently haven't built up a dark library so I'm relying on doing them after the subs

[matt_baker]

Went into lightroom and managed to eliminate quite a bit of the colour noise and increased clarity + saturation

[sagramore]

Amazing results!

Also, I just watched that tutorial/walkthrough and have immediately bought Noel Carboni's PS actions (can't believe I didn't have them before!) and once I have (hopefully) more data from tonight, I will be giving my data a full reprocessing using the help there.

Thanks again!

[matt_baker]

7 hours ago, sagramore said:

Amazing results!

Also, I just watched that tutorial/walkthrough and have immediately bought Noel Carboni's PS actions (can't believe I didn't have them before!) and once I have (hopefully) more data from tonight, I will be giving my data a full reprocessing using the help there.

Thanks again!

No problem, I look forward to seeing what you've come up with

[sagramore]

Well, I had another try.

It seems that my poor framing and high level clouds caused me problems when processing again. I will have to keep persevering.

What I will say is that I have at least improved upon the first try! This is now a total of 120 minutes (30 from previously, and 90 from tonight) and the tutorial & tools helped a lot. I think I might've overdone it a bit to try and get more dust though....

 

 

I also tried with just 90 minutes from tonight and I think I really overprocessed this one but there is more detail in the extremities.

 

These are both stacked without darks, so I might try again with the darks sometime this weekend and see if it helps or not.

Edited November 3, 2018 by sagramore

[matt_baker]

If you have lightroom, it's very good at removing leftover colour noise that's harder to get rid of in PS. I've done a quick edit on your first one here

If you look closely especially on M110, you can notice the difference

[matt_baker]

Update 2:

Went in lightroom again to boost contrast and saturation and improve details

 

[Susaron]

Pacman Nebula from La Mancha (Spain)

36x180s subs + darks + bias + flats.
QHY168C (G=10;O =30, T=-10ºC). + Optolong L-Pro + SW130PDS+AZEQ5+Baader MPCC+APT.
Not very happy with the light traces coming from Alpha Cas. Also my main mirror seems to suffer from astigmatism.
Postprocessed with Pix following Keller´s book.
Cheers.

[RolandKol]

Another test image
The Flaming Star > 12x300s SHO (each channel)
(UFO left it's track... like always...)

 

[Uranium235]

12 minutes ago, RolandKol said:

Another test image
The Flaming Star > 12x300s SHO (each channel)
(UFO left it's track... like always...)

 

Nice, but probably not best to use the "U" word here, as it gets flagged for approval  

[RolandKol]

12 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

Nice, but probably not best to use the "U" word here, as it gets flagged for approval  

I hope the notification about "U" word has not woken the admin up
 

P.S.

why is it censored?

P.P.S.

I need a much larger screen at home... as I have not noticed such an amount of Noise on my notebook... what shame!