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The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!


JGM1971

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Well, after a pretty turbulent afternoon weather-wise, the skies eventually cleared and everything settled down, so out with the 'scope and set up. Slew to my first target and took a test frame to check on alignment.

_DSF6458_1.jpg

Pretty much centred, but what's that orange nebulosity?

It's a tree! B****r.

Ian

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Ah not a good start, did the tree move out the way or was it in the line of travel,  

I had a got at the Leo trio last night, got 70 subs before dew started to be an issue,  I think one of the dew heaters is needed. Next project, 

Nige.

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16 hours ago, Trade007 said:

I've just got what you mean now but cutting 1/4 inch of tube I thought it was the silver tube I realise you mean of the black tube going in the scope lol it's lot easier when the scopes in front of me .Send me a pm when your about to arrange this cheers for this as well 

Adapter made and waiting for t ring ☺

Nige

20160501_170623.jpg20160501_123958.jpg

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Neat.

Though I'm confused that looks thicker then what my t mount and t ring neck is? Going to look at pictures again.

Looks like my t mount is not as big as yours. Mine adds 2.5mm of thickness to the t ring as the rest is absorbed inside the t ring.

Edited by happy-kat
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I am NOT an astro imager but i do respect what you people do. Ive been looking through this thread for about 10 mins and all i can say is the statement "you need an EQ to image" could not be further from the truth.

 

 

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Now for another image, taken last night, dew started to build up after 60 frames time was 1.40 am so called it a day. 

Leo trio 68x30s @ 1600 iso 25 dark 16 flat 50 bias with 150p . Needs more subs again, might add to it tonight if it's clear.

Nige.

PSX_20160501_183306.jpg

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9 hours ago, Nigel G said:

Ah not a good start, did the tree move out the way or was it in the line of travel,  

I had a got at the Leo trio last night, got 70 subs before dew started to be an issue,  I think one of the dew heaters is needed. Next project, 

Nige.

No Nige, the tree didn't oblige, and unfortunately the object was about to disappear behind it! I ended up doing M88 and M5.

And a very nice image you made of the Leo Triplet too, despite the dew. I didn't have any problem with dew last night, though it seemed a bit 'damper' after midnight.

Ian

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1 hour ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

I am NOT an astro imager but i do respect what you people do. Ive been looking through this thread for about 10 mins and all i can say is the statement "you need an EQ to image" could not be further from the truth.

Thanks for those comments Paul :hello2:

Ian

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Well, here are my best attempts so far from Saturday night/Sunday morning.

The first is M5, using 52 subs of 30s, ISO1600. I stacked the best 18 frames in DSS and processed in ST. I had to reject a fair proportion affected by movement, and a surprising number of satellites and aircraft trails.

M5 Autosave ST1 LR1-1.jpg

The star at 7 o'clock is the mag5 star: 5 Ser-HIP74975.

Here's a single frame of the more interesting rejects, primarily for the trail though it would have been rejected for movement as well.

_DSF6640.jpg

 

The second was M88. I took 148 subs of 30s, ISO1600, and stacked 79 in DSS, processed in ST.

M88 Autosave ST2 LR2-1.jpg

 

M88 is in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, so there's plenty of other DSOs visible in the frame, including M91 top left and NGC4459 bottom right. NGC4459 is at the top of Makarian's Chain.

All imaged using Altair Wave 102mm f7 SuperED APO, Fuji X-T1, Nexstar 6/8SE Alt-Az mount. Flats, darks and bias frames (~50 each) used.

Ian

Edited by The Admiral
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2 very good images Ian,  M88 does have a bunch of interesting objects, and M5 another fantastic cluster image,  well done,  

With images like those, are you sure your using a alt az mount ☺☺☺☺ keep it up Ian , great stuff. 

I posted a couple of images on FB and one of my fellow astronomy friends who has an eq goto mount  said " those are to good to be yours" my reply was " that the best complement you could give" 

Nige.

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1 hour ago, The Admiral said:

 I had to reject a fair proportion affected by movement, and a surprising number of satellites and aircraft trails.

Here's a single frame of the more interesting rejects, primarily for the trail though it would have been rejected for movement as well.

_DSF6640.jpg

I was told that DSS will remove satellite meteors and airplane trails so I leave them in now and it does ☺

I tried stacking rotation of stars around Polaris with my roof in the shot as a reference,  3 hours of continuous 30 second shots, camera on fixed tripod, DSS result was a fine image of Polaris and my chimney, no other stars at all in the image  so DSS removed everything that was not bolted down ☺☺

I did get the image I was after using another photo stacking program. 

Nige.

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Thank you very much Nige. Most definitely Alt-Az :headbang:. And it certainly has its limitations, but surmounting those is part of the challenge for me, and getting images that are as good as those using an EQ mount, within limitations, is what I'm aiming for. You seem to be mastering the art as well! Slowly getting there.

Ian

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3 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

I was told that DSS will remove satellite meteors and airplane trails so I leave them in now and it does ☺

I tried stacking rotation of stars around Polaris with my roof in the shot as a reference,  3 hours of continuous 30 second shots, camera on fixed tripod, DSS result was a fine image of Polaris and my chimney, no other stars at all in the image  so DSS removed everything that was not bolted down ☺☺

I did get the image I was after using another photo stacking program. 

Nige.

Thanks for that. I usually weed out the worst ones, then separately register using DSS, and select the highest scoring ones for stacking. I'm going to see what happens if I throw it all into DSS and let it munch its way through to the end.

Ian

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I did that, and I don't think that there is a lot of difference to be honest. They are not quite the same of course, I never can process to give the same look with ST, but if anything I think the stars are slightly sharper when I'm being more selective, rather than letting DSS decide. No sign of trails though.

Ian

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Just out of interest I thought I'd re-do my M88 image, but cropping down early in ST and not binning. Finished in Lightroom. Not bad, considering, but it does show my out-of-round stars :icon_biggrin:.

Ian

M88 Autosave crop ST3 LR1.jpg

 

Edited by The Admiral
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Nice Ian, stars look good considering the cropping, hardly noticeable  can you not heal the stars in ST, 

This is another one to add to the list, I like the amount of dso's possible to capture ☺

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At the end of April I took 40 second ISO 1600 exposures of three objects in the Cephus/Cassiopeia region. The equipment used was my SkyWatcher Startravel 102mm f/4.9 refractor, Synscan Alt-Az mount and Canon 600D DSLR. The first is a two for one image of the Fireworks Galaxy NGC 6946 and nearby open cluster NGC 6939, x98 light frames, x50 dark frames, x50 flat frames and x50 bias frames. Stacking in DSS and subsequent processing in StarTools.

NGC 6939 NGC 6946.jpg

And a close up of the galaxy with better colour-

Fireworks Galaxy SGL.jpg

And the Pacman nebula NGC 281 using x96 light frames, x50 dark frames, x50 flat frames and x50 bias frames. Stacking in DSS and again subsequent processing in StarTools.-

NGC 281352016.jpg

Cheers,
Steve

Edited by SteveNickolls
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As per Nigel's suggestion, and at risk of flogging a dead horse, I've tried using the 'repair' module in ST to improve the shape of the stars (but not the ones in the galaxy as I lassoed the galaxy out). It does involve creating a star mask, not something I'm particularly familiar with in ST. I also took the opportunity to improve(?) the colour rendition. Final polish in Lightroom.

M88 Autosave crop ST4-rep LR1.jpg

 

Ian

Edited by The Admiral
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Steve, nice work,  all the time put in is definitely worth it with images like these.

Ian, it's looking great, 

Some of these images considering how small the field of view is contain a huge amount of stars, until you see this with your own eyes it's hard to appreciate just how many there is above our heads. I give a big smile when developing an object within or close to the Milky Way  with StarTools. Thousands of star's appear.  ?and that's just from a tiny piece of sky about a thumbnail or so at arms length. 

Well done chap's 

Nige.

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38 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Some of these images considering how small the field of view is contain a huge amount of stars, until you see this with your own eyes it's hard to appreciate just how many there is above our heads. I give a big smile when developing an object within or close to the Milky Way  with StarTools. Thousands of star's appear.  ?and that's just from a tiny piece of sky about a thumbnail or so at arms length. 

Nige

Thanks Nige, Ian and happy-kat. Nige- couldn't agree more about the mind blowing number of stars in what, looking up with your own eyes, is a tiny area of light polluted sky-absolutely brilliant. 

There's the last half verse in a poem by Ralph Hodgson, 'The Song of Honour' that's appropriate-

I stood and stared; the sky was lit,

The sky was stars all over it,

I stood, I knew not why,

Without a wish, without a will,

I stood upon that silent hill

And stared into the sky until

My eyes were blind with stars and still
I stared into the sky.

 

Cheers,
Steve

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On ‎02‎/‎05‎/‎2016 at 08:49, The Admiral said:
On ‎02‎/‎05‎/‎2016 at 08:43, Nigel G said:

I was told that DSS will remove satellite meteors and airplane trails so I leave them in now and it does ☺

I tried stacking rotation of stars around Polaris with my roof in the shot as a reference,  3 hours of continuous 30 second shots, camera on fixed tripod, DSS result was a fine image of Polaris and my chimney, no other stars at all in the image  so DSS removed everything that was not bolted down ☺☺

I did get the image I was after using another photo stacking program. 

Nige.

Thanks for that. I usually weed out the worst ones, then separately register using DSS, and select the highest scoring ones for stacking. I'm going to see what happens if I throw it all into DSS and let it munch its way through to the end.

Ian

I can 100% confirm that it will do this....mostly because if your tracking is so bad that the stars are more lines than points I know from experience that it will remove the star-line things too lol. Something from my very early days.

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Thank you Nige. I'll leave it at that!

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

All inspiring but I bow to light evenings and bed calling, until the seasons change and the camera can be rolling.

Well I must admit that after Saturday night's late nighter, I'm inclined to agree! I'm getting too old to cope with lack of sleep :icon_biggrin:. Not only that, but with a predominantly SW to E outlook I'm running out of decent targets until the autumn. I think Nige must work through 'til dawn though!

Ian

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