The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!

[Filroden]

 

4 hours ago, The Admiral said:

Hi guys, this is my first serious imaging that I've managed to attempt this side of Summer, and even then the clouds rolled in before I had finished! Still, up to that point the viewing seemed pretty good. I've been waiting a long time to have a good go at M31 (everyone's favourite), since my miserable attempt a year back when I was trying to image through a spotting 'scope (https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/252380-messing-about-with-m31/#comment-2751013). The mount behaved impeccably, and in the end I managed to stack 152 x 30s frames, together with flats, darks and bias. I'm pretty chuffed with what I managed to capture, though I need to refine the StarTools processing to get rid of the pink-ish core to the galaxy - that colour module again! Consider it a work in progress. The usual gear, Altair Wave 102mm triplet, TS Photoline 2" 0.79x reducer/flatener (spacing not optimised), Fuji X-T1, and Nexstar 6/8SE mount. Stacked in DSS, fiddled with in ST, and sort of finished in Lightroom.

Being predominantly in the East during imaging, it did mean that the rotation was pretty minimal. DSS showed only ~5° rotation during the whole imaging session.

 

Ian, that's a stunning image. The stars are incredibly tight and the detail you've captured is amazing. It just goes to show what's possible! The only thing I might have changed is to make the galaxy core closer to white by either dialing back on the yellow in Photoshop or Lightroom, or making the white balance a little cooler. However, you've got great colour everywhere else in the image.

[The Admiral]

Thanks very much Ken, it has exceeded my own expectations! You are right, the core is too yellow, but I'm wrestling with ST's colour module to get it how I want, not to mention a pinkish halo around the core. I might try another app to see if I can tame the ST output.

Ian

[Herzy]

Beautiful image, Ian. Love the detail in the edges of the Galaxy! Do you have the stack? Ide like to mess with it because this is something I want to go for soon and some processing practice would be great.

[The Admiral]

OK, here's after a bit of pratting around in Lightroom. I think it's better, but it frustrates the hell out of me that I can't readily do all that I need in ST! Still not there yet, arghhh!

 

Thanks Herzy. I have a rather slow internet connection so uploading might be problematic.

[The Admiral]

OK, a bit more contrast added and other minor fettling in Lightroom:

Ian

Edited September 23, 2016 by The Admiral

[Nigel G]

Ian, a fabulous M31 image,  fills the frame perfect,  well done. 

I took  2 hour 20mins of 60s  with my 210mm lens 2 nights ago, taking my time processing it though.

[The Admiral]

OK, here's another tweak. Alright, alright, I'll stop now . It's starting to do my head in!

Thanks Nige. I guess the only thing about using camera lenses is their small OG diameter, so you're not going to capture so many photons.

Ian

 

[The Admiral]

It's a pity that there is an infinity of adjustments possible. I might be here for a long time! I really will stop now, promise!!

Ian

 

[SilverAstro]

22 hours ago, The Admiral said:

an infinity of adjustments possible. I might be here for a long time! I really will stop now, promise!!

Oh no, dont start us off agin on the size of infinities, or size of the universe of possibilities ! Oh no, dont stop now !!

Heheee, but seriously, that is a remarkably fine image.  I think you have secretly snook away and upgraded to one of they spare Hubbles wot FLO are offering  

[The Admiral]

Thanks SliverAstro for your kind comments. I reckon the seeing conditions must have been pretty darned good, until the cloud came in! Ah, I've been rumbled  . Seriously though, if only. And when you think how long it's been literally pushing back the frontiers of astronomy, and all from such a shaky start.

Ian

Edited September 24, 2016 by The Admiral

[The Admiral]

Well last night was a bit of a no-go, go, then a no-go. I didn't set up until 20.00 because the cloud looked too omni-present, but magically it cleared to a nice dark sky. I didn't achieve much though. I started imaging NGC884, the double cluster in Perseus, but temporarily halted when the overhead power line got in the way. I then thought I'd have a look at the Pacman, but it wasn't long before fingers of high cloud started to encroach and I could see I wasn't going to get a good run at it, so I reverted to NGC884 again, which, by then, had cleared the line. But that didn't last too long before cloud interceded. Anyway, here's the result of 53 stacked frames of NGC884 in DSS, ISO1600, 30s, with the usual gear - Altair Wave 102mm triplet, TS Photoline 2" 0.79x reducer/flatener (spacing not optimised), Fuji X-T1, and Nexstar 6/8SE mount. Processed in ST, and finished in Lightroom.

Ian

[The Admiral]

Well, as I say, I didn't get much time on NGC281, but I thought I'd see what I could achieve with such a paucity of data. This is a result of stacking 17 x 30s frames in DSS, processing in ST and cleaning up the image as best I could in Lightroom. I'm not professing this to be a serious attempt at the Pacman, but I was a little surprised at what I could get out, and without too much trouble to be honest, especially considering that a number of frames showed significant glow from thin high cloud. A lot of noise, masked by upping the black point in LR. I'm pretty impressed with the Fuji's red response.

Ian

[SteveNickolls]

Hi Ian,

These are really good images-well done. I think this shows how far you have come since last year. M31 is very colourful and shows the star forming areas nicely. I do like your Perseus Double cluster. Will you be imaging NGC 281 again to add to your existing 17 frames of data? When I attempted The Pacman Nebula last season I took x100 light frames at 40 seconds (ISO 1600) and it was still elusive if that helps judge the number of exposures you might want to try. I may have overlooked what you have recently posted Ian as I catch up but did you include dark frames when processing any of the three objects? Appreciate you can't easily post the FITs file for your M31 with your Internet connection.

Best Regards,
Steve

[The Admiral]

Thanks for your encouraging words Steve. Yes, I included darks, but I used those for the M31in all of them.

I'd like to try imaging the Pacman properly, i.e. devote a session to it, rather than this brief encounter. Still, I was surprised at how well it was recorded for such a small amount of data.

Cheers, Ian

[Herzy]

Is your camera modified? I'm really surprised you pulled out that much data from such short integrations. That's making me think I should give it a go too. 

[The Admiral]

No Herzy, standard sensor, though it's proving to have a particularly good red response. I agree, I was surprised to see it. If the weather co-operates I might give the Pacman my full attention tonight. You don't know until you try!

Ian

Edited September 25, 2016 by The Admiral

[jimbo747]

Excellent set of images there Admiral! You wouldn't be disappointed if they came from a heq5 or something!

 

 

[The Admiral]

12 hours ago, jimbo747 said:

Excellent set of images there Admiral! You wouldn't be disappointed if they came from a heq5 or something!

Thanks very much jimbo. I've always subscribed to the maxim that an EQ mount isn't essential for obtaining perfectly acceptable astro-images, provided that one works within the constraints imposed by Alt-Az imaging.

Ian

Edited September 26, 2016 by The Admiral

[calli]

Long time no post in this thread from me.

I am still using my NexStarSLT Alt/Az Goto Mount but in August I got the chance to do a vacation in south germany and experienced dark skies which are not possible here in the german captial Berlin. So I like to throw in some images here.

The M27 is done with my Mak127 and the Nikon D5100. Approx 75 subs at 15s, darks, stacked in DSS, finalizied GIMP 2.9.x. The sky was nice that evening but not as brilliant as for the M31 image.

The Andromeda Glx M31 was taken with my Nikon D5100 and a Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm Zoom, 210mm @ f5.6. 17 minutes accumulated light from 20s subs, and darks, stacked in DSS,  finalizied GIMP 2.9.x also. The image is only slightly cropped so you can see that my Series 1 lens has a problem in the top left corner... Maybe the plastic D5100 body is not made for such a 1kg heavy old style lens...

Andromeda was my first try in that DSO, so I have no comparison. But hell comparing the M27 with my older attempts shows how much a good sky gives you. Of course I think I am now better in image work but....

You can see yourself and see some of my enhancement at my Google photos folder: https://goo.gl/photos/fN794VnbNKKwXzdv7

The today first 11 images are done at the dark spot in bavaria in August. Look at the description, for e.g. M81 and M101 I could only do some handfull images so there is many room for improvement. But you can't do a vacation with your familiy as astro-vampire ;-)

Cheers,
Carsten

Edited September 26, 2016 by calli
added some info

[The Admiral]

The weather last night (25th Sept) turned out to be good for imaging, once the blobs of high level cloud had passed overhead. It was dark, the stars weren't twinkling, and I could just make out the Milky Way running down through Cassiopeia. Anyway, enough of this lyrical stuff! It gave me a chance to beef up the number of subs I'd got during a transient attempt on the Pacman a few days ago, and then I turned my attention to the Heart Nebula, which I've not tried before, but not with any great expectations. In all of these attempts I stacked the subs in DSS, along with a new set of flats, and darks and bias frames from 22nd Sept. I processed in StarTools, but with both images I found that using the colour module gave me some fairly lurid nebulæ, together with a lot of green stars which were darned hard to eradicate whilst keeping decent colours in the clouds. So in the end I resorted to upping the saturation and other heavy lifting in Lightroom. Perhaps I've been a bit too heavy handed?

Usual gear - Altair Wave 102mm triplet, TS Photoline 2" 0.79x reducer/flatener (spacing not optimised), Fuji X-T1, and Nexstar 6/8SE mount.

NGC281 (Pacman). A total of 170 x 30s frames were stacked, ISO1600

Compare it with this though, a whole different ball-game (and result!).

IC1805 (Heart Nebula) A total of 123 x 30s frames stacked. ISO 1600. This was a bit more difficult as the mount doesn't list the IC catalogue, so I had to GOTO NGC1027 and move up a bit from there. Not far off in the end, needs to be a bit further to the right, and of course not helped by the narrow FoV. Nor the fact that the nebula isn't visible in a single sub.

Interesting lower star density in the upper right. Dust clouds perhaps?

Ian

Edited September 26, 2016 by The Admiral

[The Admiral]

3 hours ago, calli said:

Long time no post in this thread from me.

I am still using my NexStarSLT Alt/Az Goto Mount but in August I got the chance to do a vacation in south germany and experienced dark skies which are not possible here in the german captial Berlin. So I like to throw in some images here.

The M27 is done with my Mak127 and the Nikon D5100. Approx 75 subs at 15s, darks, stacked in DSS, finalizied GIMP 2.9.x. The sky was nice that evening but not as brilliant as for the M31 image.

The Andromeda Glx M31 was taken with my Nikon D5100 and a Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm Zoom, 210mm @ f5.6. 17 minutes accumulated light from 20s subs, and darks, stacked in DSS,  finalizied GIMP 2.9.x also. The image is only slightly cropped so you can see that my Series 1 lens has a problem in the top left corner... Maybe the plastic D5100 body is not made for such a 1kg heavy old style lens...

Andromeda was my first try in that DSO, so I have no comparison. But hell comparing the M27 with my older attempts shows how much a good sky gives you. Of course I think I am now better in image work but....

You can see yourself and see some of my enhancement at my Google photos folder: https://goo.gl/photos/fN794VnbNKKwXzdv7

The today first 11 images are done at the dark spot in bavaria in August. Look at the description, for e.g. M81 and M101 I could only do some handfull images so there is many room for improvement. But you can't do a vacation with your familiy as astro-vampire ;-)

Hi Carsten, you've got some nice planetary and lunar shots in your folder, but of course DSOs are a whole different ball-game! As you have found, dark skies do make such a difference, especially with Alt-Az imaging. Your M31 is showing some nice dust-lanes, but I'd urge you to try to get a lot more frames if you can, there's no substitute for photons . With nebulous and galactic objects I expect to get at least an hours worth of subs, but I can get away with rather less with clusters.

Cheers, Ian

Edited September 26, 2016 by The Admiral

[SteveNickolls]

Last night I had another go imaging the Heart and Soul Nebulae region using my Canon 600D DSLR with the lens set at 100mm and piggybacked onto the SkyWatcher Startravel 102mm refractor/Synscan Alt-Az mount. The image below came from 124 light frames of forty five seconds each (ISO 800) plus x50 bias and x50 flat frames. I did not use dark frames. The frames were stacked in DSS and processed using StarTools. Also in the image is the Persus double cluster (at 3 o'clock position) and Stock 2 (Muscleman cluster). The open cluster NGC 1027 can be seen in the Heart Nebula.

Cheers,
Steve

[The Admiral]

A nice crisp wide-field view Steve. Is the 'open group' of stars at the 10 o'clock position from the double cluster also an open cluster? I've looked on Stellarium and it doesn't seem to have a name though.

Ian

[Filroden]

35 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

A nice crisp wide-field view Steve. Is the 'open group' of stars at the 10 o'clock position from the double cluster also an open cluster? I've looked on Stellarium and it doesn't seem to have a name though.

Ian

I believe it's Stock 2, an open cluster (from SkySafari).

[Nigel G]

Theres some great images being posted, well done chaps.

I seem to be loosing the noise battle atm. the last 3 images I have taken have had incredible noise levels. I'm not sure what has changed.

I took 3 hours of 60s exps of Heart and Soul with my 210mm lens, its impossible to work with.

I tried to image the Eastern Veil last night, I could only get about 20 minutes of 30sec subs before light cloud spoilt the session. I used darks and bias but again had a long battle with background noise, I'm struggling to work this out. I realise this is short on total exp time but I have imaged other objects with similar total time without the huge noise levels. I'm sure I'll sus it out, just hope its sooner rather than later.

Seeing appeared to be good and light pollution same as ever.

 Taking 3 hours of subs then 4 hours stacking for a screen full of multi coloured pixels is not what I had in mind . or perhaps I just forgot how to process.

Anyway enough of me moaning Here's my Veil neb, around 20 minutes of 30s, 15 darks 50 bias and a lot of post stacking work. DSS and StarTools.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Nige.