The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!

[rotatux]

Here's first output from my session of sept. 22. I got out nearly all night with my Alt-Az mount and a bunch of lenses to test. It's also first light since I tried to fix my mount by tightening hardly the altitude gear as advised by some page on the net; Hopefully on this one it managed 40s exposures with a high keep rate, which it had never achieved yet (whatever the focal).

This one is not really a test any more, as I now know what to get of this lens. I let it uncropped so you can appreciate the FoV given by this setup. Thanks for watching.

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

Details:
Gear: Olympus E-PL6 with OM-Zuiko 200mm/4 at F/5.4 and TS-Dydimium filter on Celestron NexStar SLT
Capture: 60 lights (/80% keep) x 40s x 3200 ISO, 13 darks
Sky: average (didn't get any SQM, was prb 18-19), 50km from Paris, France
Processing: Regim, Fotoxx

[happy-kat]

Well done that tracking looks good. I would add more data to that image it looks very promising

[Filroden]

3 hours ago, rotatux said:

This one is not really a test any more, as I now know what to get of this lens. I let it uncropped so you can appreciate the FoV given by this setup. Thanks for watching.

Nice round stars from edge to edge so I guess the tracking is good  You just need to tame the stars a little during processing to keep them smaller. Otherwise a great capture!

[SteveNickolls]

Yes, well done; nice round stars. Lots of keepers and at 40 seconds! Whatever you did with the mount is helping your images. I was sure you should be able to squeeze more seconds out of it. Ad Astra.

Cheers,
Steve

[rotatux]

Thanks for kind comments.

Yes I quite like the edge-to-edge consistency of this lens (no coma!), as much as I hate its color-diffraction pattern (BTW no tool for this yet under Linux, I tried generic deconvolution as a wild guess but I must still learn how to use it).

For reference, here's the page about tightening this mount: http://nexstarsite.com/Reviews/NexStar102SLT.htm#AltAxis (the last paragraph especially helped IMO).

[happy-kat]

What about splitting RGB in your image editor, then work on the blue channel and sort the bloat/shrink stars, then merge back.

StarTools comes in a Linux flavour and you could try this (off to get link)

The trial version you could screen grab (can't save).

link here

Edited October 3, 2017 by happy-kat

[happy-kat]

It's clear but I'm feeling rubbish so a rare clear sky and I'm missing it, argh.

Hopefully others are outside capturing.

[SteveNickolls]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

It's clear but I'm feeling rubbish so a rare clear sky and I'm missing it, argh.

Hopefully others are outside capturing.

So sorry to hear you are under the weather, get well soon to take advantage of the next clear precious night!

I am out capturing but (and I have to admit) it's using an EQ Star Adventurer mount. I still hold alt-Az imaging dear though.

Cheers,
Steve

[happy-kat]

Thank you, it's muscle strain so can't do the bending weird stuff to align the mount.

[Shaun_Astro]

I've wanted to take this wide field shot for a while.. Messier 37, 36 and 36 from the bottom, Elnath bottom right.

75mm lens on my star discovery @f4.5, 60x30", ISO 3200.

A fantastic set of open clusters that each fit perfectly in my 8" dob with a 37mm plossl's FOV.

[happy-kat]

There's a lot there nice framing. Great shapes too.

[rotatux]

While zooming you even get the start of a hint of the Flaming Star Nebula. I like this subject, already had a go at it with an old 135 last year, but being a smaller frame it was more on the center part and only catched the top cluster. Not sure I will have the night to retry it this year :-/

You say 75mm and F4.5... is it a prime or a zoom ?

Edited October 31, 2017 by rotatux

[Shaun_Astro]

15 minutes ago, rotatux said:

While zooming you even get the start of a hint of the Flaming Star Nebula. I like this subject, already had a go at it with an old 135 last year, but being a smaller frame it was more on the center part and only catched the top cluster. Not sure I will have the night to retry it this year :-/

You say 75mm and F4.5... is it a prime or a zoom ?

Yeah I wondered what that was.

Just the camera lens: Canon 75-300mm lens @75mm f4.5

[scitmon]

While I was waiting for the moon the rise tonight I thought I would pick something out at random and just capture something.  This is the Ring Nebula, far too small for my SW 80ED but still worth sharing I think.  Taken with a Canon 700D, 19 lights x 5 seconds. No darks or bias.

 

Edited November 5, 2017 by scitmon

[happy-kat]

It's there and is discernable. :-)

[Stub Mandrel]

14 hours ago, scitmon said:

This is the Ring Nebula, far too small for my SW 80ED but still worth sharing I think.

Nice to see it in the context of the two stars at the bottom of lyra.

[Shaun_Astro]

M35 and NGC 2158:

iso 3200, 150 x 20" sub, 30 dark, 40 bias, 40 flat.

Did this when I started last winter, this is an improvement I think, still would have liked more subs!

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by Shaun_Astro

[The Admiral]

That's nice Shaun. I like the star colours and sharp stars. What equipment did you use for this please?

Ian

[Shaun_Astro]

Thanks Ian. Just that listed in my signature: 130pds, Star Discovery Mount, 1300d, DSS, Lightroom, Photoshop.

Had to crop it pretty hard again because of bad flats & amp glow.

[The Admiral]

Ah, in your signature, just realised that 

Ian

[Filroden]

17 minutes ago, Shaun_Astro said:

Had to crop it pretty hard again because of bad flats & amp glow.

Even still, it looks beautiful.

[maxchess]

Just starting out in imaging. The Peiades. Heartened by the results people are getting. Have an EQ mount but use the AZ-GTi for portability. This is my first image using Az-GTi Mount + Aquilla 90cm fl 500 unmodified Canon 1100d.  30  x 20 sec lights, 10 Darks. DSS then Startools. Any constructive suggestions most welcome.

Max

Edited December 2, 2017 by maxchess

[Filroden]

35 minutes ago, maxchess said:

Just starting out in imaging.

A good start. You’ve just started to capture the nebula. Did you take flats? If not, they will help. You should also make sure to crop any stacking artefacts before processing. I can see a little has been left at the bottom and that can make it harder to remove gradients, etc. But welcome to the wonderful world of imaging

[SteveNickolls]

20 hours ago, maxchess said:

Just starting out in imaging. The Peiades. Heartened by the results people are getting. Have an EQ mount but use the AZ-GTi for portability. This is my first image using Az-GTi Mount + Aquilla 90cm fl 500 unmodified Canon 

Well done. As you get experience across all the aspects of Alt-Az imaging, that's getting to know your equipment, the stacking requirements and processing software techniques your images will come on in leaps and bounds. There's capability in StarTools to make stars rounder and separate nebulosity from the starry background, treat both and recompose together.

Intrigued what exposure lengths you might be able to wring from the AZ GTi :-)

Do keep posting.

Good luck and clear, dark skies.

Best Regards,
Steve

P.S. Have taken your image and in StarTools used the REPAIR module to make the stars rounder, the HEAL and LAYER modules to separate the nebulosity and stars, process the nebulosity and re-combine and used the FILTER module ('fringe killer' filter technique) to remove the blue haloes. If you have the StarTools Unofficial Manual these processes can be found on p127-8, p83-90 and p98-9 respectively. The resulting image is below.

I think longer/more exposures will help bring out more nebulosity and blue colour.

Edited December 3, 2017 by SteveNickolls
To add processed image and details used.

[maxchess]

Steve, that’s really helpful. Will try and replicate and also add flats as suggested above. 

I think 20 secs is pretty much the limit on the AZ-Gti. You can see that my raw stars are slightly elliptical, just starting to trail. But I will try more exposures next time.

Max

Edited December 3, 2017 by maxchess