Hyperstar Imaging with Edge 1100HD and Atik 460ex (OSC)

[skygeezer]

I plan to add many images to this thread and invite any other Starizona Hyperstar owners to please feel free to post on this thread as well!

Lately I have been trying more mosaics since my field of view is around 1 degree square and I really love the big swaths of sky along the Milky Way. I'll post this one to begin which is a single frame of 15 subs each 4 minutes long, each. I am finding out after about a year of experience with this system (in my decently dark skies) that 3 minute subs with more exposures gets me the best results.

Iris Nebula NGC 7023 in Cepheus

[skygeezer]

M33 in Triangulum.  This was 24X300 subs.

[skygeezer]

M17 (20X24 seconds)

[Chris]

That is some serious signal your getting, wow M33 nearly burnt my retinas!  

[jambouk]

How are you guiding?

[skygeezer]

Thanks for the compliments, guys!

I use an Orion short 80mm wide field refractor with a SX Lodestar II for guiding and Maxim DL 5.

Here is one of my favorites… NGC 1333 in Perseus. I really like the combination of reflection, emission and dark nebulae! This was 26X240 seconds.

Curt

[ollypenrice]

Decent star shapes and deep signal. This is good. Your cores are over cooked on the Iris and M33 but I doubt that this is overesposed in the data. I'd try a slightly softer stretch for the cores and a bit of layer masking to blend them in to the deep stretches you've posted.

Olly

[skygeezer]

Thanks for the tip, Olly! I'm just learning the ropes with Photoshop and trying to understand layer masking. There is so much to learn!

Here is IC 5146 (Cocoon) and B168 from a couple of weeks ago. I took three panels to complete this one and merged them using MSICE software. Each was 10 subs/180 seconds.

[jambouk]

Do you use a flattener? They are amazing!

[Coco]

Superb image set, very nice.

Goes to show that good skies,fast optics are the OSC cameras friend

[Mav359]

Really pleasing to see these, i have a 9.25 + Hyperstar and its taken me a good year to really get to grips with just getting it collimated & general use (which theres been a lack of). I'm slightly down on your spec but its encouraging to good results with the hyperstar.

It works well for me as well because when i do get to a dark site you can image multiple targets during the night due to less exposure time.

Great images, spec love the Iris.

[skygeezer]

Thanks for the encouragement fellas!

Jambouk… I don't use a flattener as the Edge optics are already pretty well corrected.

I really do like the fact that I can capture several objects in one night if I can stay awake...

Here is my M31 that imaged a week ago or so. I took 12 panels of 10X180 seconds and combined them in MSICE. 

[jambouk]

12 panels! That is dedication!

James

[sloz1664]

Excellent Images & the M31 mosaic is amazing.

Steve

[johnh]

Hyperstar is a fantastic set up for wide field.  Results are very compelling and mosaics are breathtaking.

John.

[Robp]

Lovely images.

Never really looked into hyperstar before. Its surprising how good the images are with shorter subs.

[Chris]

Wow! that M31 image is stunning, really deep and well processed to my eyes, well maybe a touch too much red channel I'm not sure? But those dust lanes, wow!

[Grotemobile]

Wow. That has got to be one of the best set of

deep sky images, I have seen on here.

F2 is very fast.

Steve.

[symesie04]

Very nice images. M17 is lovely. But agree with Olly about M33 being a little blown on the core, also M31 maybe is a little saturated in the red channel, but its always hard to know if image or monitor. Just out of interest do you use calibration frames with the Hyperstar setup?

[skygeezer]

Thanks again for the kind words, gents. I'm just getting to the point where I understand some of the basics in processing but am far from being where I'd like to be! It seems like each time I re-process an image, it ends up looking completely different from the last iteration!

Personally, I think Hyperstar is a really good alternative for those who have limited time in an evening to capture data, especially when weather or light pollution is an issue. Of course, my HS images will never look as good as those with the equipment, time and dedication to create seemingly perfect images. I so admire them!

Here is another mosaic I did in September of IC 1396, the Elephant Trunk Nebula in Cepheus. This was a nine panel mosaic, each panel was 18 mints (6X180 seconds).

Curt

[ollypenrice]

Very good 1396. 18 minutes is nothing on this but has given you a really strong signal. I've always been a bit sceptical about the Hyperstar but you have this working well and it's getting you your images when a slower system might not.

Any kind of OSC or DSLR thrives on fast optics, as Guy says.

Olly

[skygeezer]

Thanks, Olly. I appreciate the encouragement.

Someone asked about calibration frames… I use flats and bias frames only that I took last fall.

Here is my Small Sagittarius Star Clod mosaic from this summer. Nine panels again, 45X120 seconds. I was playing around with length of exposures vs. number of subs.

[skygeezer]

Here's one that didn't turn out so well that I finished two weeks ago. The area around Sh2-155 (Cave Nebula) in Cepheus. This was a nine panel mosaic as well but I didn't get enough data… it looks too thin to me. (7X180) X9.

[skygeezer]

Helix Nebula (18X300seconds)

[Coco]

Crikey Curt, slow down fella, these need to be picked through and savoured, they really are wonderful ..