The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!

[Nigel G]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Was that a kit lens? or another lens you used. Did you use some form of shield on the lens? I have sheilds made from flowerpots that I have flocked.

It was a stock lens with a large matt black flowerpot as a dew shield. The lens max F5.4 so not ideal but have had fairly good images with it before.

[Nigel G]

I have managed to bully an image from the data. Due to very heavy gradient removal most of the detail that is there has been lost, but they are all visible, just.

The gradient removal has also removed any fainter emissions in the surrounding area, not that they were clearly visible anyway.

A large crop off the bottom of the image and loads of ST tinkering.

So not a total loss but not far from it.

This is a second stack of 60x60s ISO 800, Canon 1300D & 55mm lens F5.4 on my Star discovery mount, flats and bias. DSS & ST

Cheers

Nige.

 

[Filroden]

1 hour ago, Nigel G said:

I have managed to bully an image from the data. Due to very heavy gradient removal most of the detail that is there has been lost, but they are all visible, just.

The gradient removal has also removed any fainter emissions in the surrounding area, not that they were clearly visible anyway.

A large crop off the bottom of the image and loads of ST tinkering.

So not a total loss but not far from it.

This is a second stack of 60x60s ISO 800, Canon 1300D & 55mm lens F5.4 on my Star discovery mount, flats and bias. DSS & ST

Cheers

Nige.

It's a shame the gradient meant having to butcher the background. Give it another night, and better luck, and you could be pulling Bernards Loop out of it!

I finally have a clear-ish night. Some haze lower down causing the LP to bloom but I'm taking 120s shots at f2.5 / ISO 100 and seeing a little trailing. I am seeing halos which I'm hoping are haze and not bad CA. Here's a single shot with a quick colour balance in Photoshop.

Edited December 5, 2016 by Filroden

[SteveNickolls]

I do love these wide field shots, keep them coming!

Here's two taken Sunday night (4th December), first M81 & M82 and friends (only x10 fifty second light frames at ISO 800 plus x50 flat frames and x50 bias frames) taken with my Synscan alt-az mount and Canon 600D DSLR at 200mm FL-

And the face-on galaxy NGC 2403 (again only x10 fifty second light frames at ISO 800 plus x50 flat and x50 bias frames) also 200mm FL-

I have a new lightweight set up for taking these wide field shots making it easier on cold nights with not having to put out the telescope to piggyback the camera on-

I can align the camera with the mount and have been attaching a hand warmer to the end of the lens to keep the dew away (it works).

Here is a wide shot of part of Auriga taken using the camera piggybacked on the telescope and using the Synscan alt-az mount (on the 28th November 2016). The image is from x39 sixty second light frames at ISO 800 plus x60 flat frames and x50 bias frames. There was a great amount of moisture in the air that night and masses of scattered local light pollution. I used a lens at 100mm FL.

Cheers,
Steve

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by SteveNickolls

[Filroden]

I can't believe you've got two such good images in under 10 minutes. Nicely captured and processed!

[alacant]

15 minutes ago, SteveNickolls said:

wide shot of part of Auriga

The clusters look amazing in your composition. Hope you don't mind, I'm learning colour balance ATM. I took the curves down a bit. Probably way off now! Clear skies.

[SteveNickolls]

2 minutes ago, Filroden said:

I can't believe you've got two such good images in under 10 minutes. Nicely captured and processed!

Thanks Ken, I was surprised to see actual colour in M81 and M82 after just ten exposures. I did push the exposure time a little beyond the field rotation guide and seem to have got away with it thanks to the small FL involved. StarTools is excellent for processing galaxies.

Cheers,
Steve

[SteveNickolls]

4 minutes ago, alacant said:

The clusters look amazing in your composition. Hope you don't mind, I'm learning colour balance ATM. I took the curves down a bit. Probably way off now! Clear skies.

Thanks for your interest. No worries altering things :-)

Cheers,
Steve

[Filroden]

Well, last night was a bust. I'm not sure if it was the haze or my set up or what, but I got nothing useable from the DSLR + 85mm lens. Partly it was because I went for targets either too high and suffered rotation or too low and terrible LP through the haze. Nonetheless, it reminded me of why I love the new camera. Processing the RAW subs took an age compared to the fits files from the 1600, and each RAW, once debayered, was over 220Mb in size. Okay, they are only held during the integration but they really slow down the processing.

I took a more detailed look at an individual sub and it looked ok (once I reduce exposure time to address rotation) so I still want to go down the wide field route. So the lens is going back to the store today and I have my eye on this to use with the ZWO 1600: 

 

SAMYANG 85 mm f/1.4 IF Lens

Any thoughts?

[happy-kat]

Think that is still fly by wire focusing.

[Filroden]

On the Amazing Q&A it's saying it's fully manual other than the Nikon variant. Is there a way to check?

[happy-kat]

A bit more googling does suggest it's manual. 

[The Admiral]

4 hours ago, Filroden said:

I took a more detailed look at an individual sub and it looked ok (once I reduce exposure time to address rotation) so I still want to go down the wide field route. So the lens is going back to the store today and I have my eye on this to use with the ZWO 1600: 

SAMYANG 85 mm f/1.4 IF Lens

Any thoughts?

Don't know about that one, but I hear that the Samyang 135 f/2 is very good. Have a look at the Polish lens review site - very thorough: http://www.lenstip.com/index.html?test=obiektywu&test_ob=166

I'm not sure that Samyang make fly-by-wire lenses.

Ian

[Stub Mandrel]

if you search eBay for "Zeiss 135 3.5 m42" you will find old lenses listed that will give brilliant results (we're talking pin-sharp across the field at f3.5, and effectively apo so the only CA issue is that if you don't block UV you may need to correct small violet halos) and leave you £££ for another new one.

[Filroden]

1 hour ago, The Admiral said:

Don't know about that one, but I hear that the Samyang 135 f/2 is very good. Have a look at the Polish lens review site - very thorough: http://www.lenstip.com/index.html?test=obiektywu&test_ob=166

I'm not sure that Samyang make fly-by-wire lenses.

Ian

That's a really good site. Thank you. It looks like a solid lens at f1.4 and f2. Not as sharp as it could be, but good enough. It does have a lot of vignetting at wide apeture but I guess flats will deal with that. It looks like it needs a UV filter to avoid coma. My L filter is a UV/IR cut filter but one thing I've never understood - does it make a difference if the filter is before or after the lens? I'm guessing not since you can buy both.

[Nigel G]

I'm stacking 30 % of the W/F image to see what difference it will make. Seeing Steve's 10x50s I thought I'd give it a go, maybe it will be better maybe not.

In the mean time I had a play with my 30 minutes of M42 without LP filter and come up with this, I prefer it to the first try, there seems to be more detail than I managed before and more nebula.

I may have pushed it to far but it is colourful

I'm wondering if I am getting better images stacking less sub's. The last few have been better with less, maybe its bad subs but I check every sub as it downloads and dump any with trails.

Nige.

[Filroden]

The colour is beautiful. The only thing is it looks a little over sharpened, giving your stars an outer ring. But I can count three of the four stars in the Traperium which is amazing at 30s. How did you stop it blowing out?

[The Admiral]

That's a beaut image Nige, I'd be very pleased if that was mine. I don't think I've seen as much dust cloud as this shows. I can't wait for it to come around at an hour I can cope with 

Ian

[Nigel G]

43 minutes ago, Filroden said:

The colour is beautiful. The only thing is it looks a little over sharpened, giving your stars an outer ring. But I can count three of the four stars in the Traperium which is amazing at 30s. How did you stop it blowing out?

I used Photoshop express and reduced the highlights and boosted the shadows, I thought I had over done it a touch with sharpen but it did bring out a bit more so I settled for the middle

Nige.

[Nigel G]

Thanks for your comments guy's.

update on WF 30% stack, not worth it, I think I have got as much as I can with what I have got.

Next clear night I will use the 80mm lens F3.6 and I can use the LP filter with it I think. I'm not sure if I can fit Rosette and Orion in the field of view though.

Nige.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I agree the image is a tad over sharpened (im thinking this shows finer detail?). 

Fantastic image. The colours are lovely. The dust is lovely.

Well done and thanks for posting.

Edited December 6, 2016 by LukeSkywatcher

[Stub Mandrel]

That's excellent Nige.

Why not split it? Keep the existing version as the lower colour layer, so you don't risk losing it, and create another version focusing on getting  detail without over-sharpening paying no attention to the colour at all. Put this second version on top of the first one, but set it to 'luminance'.

I do this with most of my images as it means you only have to worry about one thing at a time.

[LukeSkywatcher]

45 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

That's excellent Nige.

Why not split it? Keep the existing version as the lower colour layer, so you don't risk losing it, and create another version focusing on getting  detail without over-sharpening paying no attention to the colour at all. Put this second version on top of the first one, but set it to 'luminance'.

I do this with most of my images as it means you only have to worry about one thing at a time.

Layers?. Its how many people get great images of M42 without overcooking the Trap.

[Filroden]

Well, the Samyang lens works with the ZWO 1600.. but this numpty ordered the wrong camera adaptor when I got the camera in September and it doesn't reach focus when using the filter wheel. Now having to arrange to swap it for the right one! Still, I did discover a massive stain on the chip which somehow got there the last time I used it so I took the opportunity to clean my kit. 

[Stub Mandrel]

33 minutes ago, Filroden said:

Still, I did discover a massive stain on the chip which somehow got there the last time I used i

That's the problem with the latest kit, people drool over it...