First Clearish Sky for Weeks - Oh the Irony ....

[steppenwolf]

Tonight in West Sussex, I have the first clearish sky for weeks  - how joyous then that my first 10 minute sub-frame should include AIRCRAFT LIGHTS

[laudropb]

Just so typical.

[wimvb]

Bummer, and if that's a contrail in between the lights, it will probably be visible in the next frame as well.

[Helen]

What is this 'sky' of which you speak......???

[steppenwolf]

It's hard to explain, Helen, but in parts of the UK (excluding the parts with low light pollution like Wales) we have a rare atmospheric phenomenon called 'Clear Sky' whereby we can actually see distant suns at nighttime. To be honest, you'd need to see it to believe it ......

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

[Robp]

Hopefully that wasn't the only sub you captured 

[toxic]

better that than clouds any day.

[steppenwolf]

Hopefully that wasn't the only sub you captured

Thankfully, I currently have 8 in the can but rain is imminent so I am not expecting great things from this session!

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

[Helen]

Ah......  

Apart from the artificial effects, the rest looks good

H

[phil125]

Sure they're not power lines?

[phil125]

Only joking. Amazing image. Did you manage to complete, it would be good to see finished image.

[Owmuchonomy]

Santa, quality testing the new dual boom sleigh surely!

[steppenwolf]

Santa, quality testing the new dual boom sleigh surely!

That would explain the fuzzy centre line, wouldn't it? [emoji2]

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

[steppenwolf]

Only joking. Amazing image. Did you manage to complete, it would be good to see finished image.

I managed a paltry 12 subframes including this one and then the cloud-sensor closed me down (correctly!!). This is what I got and I included the duff sub-frame to show just how powerful 'dithering' combined with the SDMask stacking is at removing this sort of artefact.

[Pompey Monkey]

Excellent work there!

I spent three hours struggling to get my newly arrived Eqdir cable (brand not disclosed) to work with my mount. Nada.

At the end, I just plugged my handset and cheap USB to serial adapter back in and it worked first time!

At least I am ready for a new set of problems tonight!

[steppenwolf]

Good luck getting your EQDir sorted quickly. Tech. problems are such fun.....

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

[swag72]

I like that Steve despite the rogue and inconsiderate planes - Looks fantastic

[Mr Spock]

Superb quality image. It's amazing how those plane artefacts have been erased by processing - awesome! I must delve into these murky arts someday... but then I'm still too fond of my eyepieces

[wimvb]

I managed a paltry 12 subframes including this one and then the cloud-sensor closed me down (correctly!!). This is what I got and I included the duff sub-frame to show just how powerful 'dithering' combined with the SDMask stacking is at removing this sort of artefact.

Rosette_Ha_071215.png

Great rescue. Guess you didn't want to make all photons count    (sorry, couldn't resist) Wonderful image and superb processing. Will you add colour at a later stage or are you going "Ansel Adams" on this?

[steppenwolf]

Thanks for your comments folks!

Will you add colour at a later stage or are you going "Ansel Adams" on this?

I want to collect some more Ha first but I will be combining that with OIII to produce a bi-colour as a minimum and perhaps some SII to produce a Hubble palette version. However, this object is one of the relatively few that responds well to Hb so I'd like to give that a try as well to produce a quasi RGB image mapping Ha to Red, OIII to green and Hb to blue. Plenty of options with this beautiful object!

[wimvb]

Sounds promising, but if the weather and air traffic don't change their game, this is very likely going to be a long time project.

Good luck.

[StargeezerTim]

If you want practice at imaging planes, you can 'borrow' my garden. I'm only a short distance from Stansted Airport. It's also great for practicing imaging through runway, terminal and road lighting. I should rent it out! :-)

[gorann]

Your stacked image looks fantastic!

......and if that airplane had taken a different route, this post would not have existed and entertained a bunch of people waiting for clear skies.

Thank you aviation!

[steppenwolf]

....... and last night I ran a second session to capture some OIII data. The conditions appeared pretty good but there was a lot of high altitude moisture around and I started off badly with some technical issues that I resolved and then had a flawless four hours. The net result was 24 x 600 sec subframes although I was surprised just how noisy these were, most probably because of the moisture.

This image combines the previous Ha mapped to red with the new OIII data mapped to blue with a synthetic 'green' channel. I have been a really naughty boy - NO calibration frames were used (or harmed) in the subsequent processing. I really do need to practice what I preach .........

[strutsinaction]

Wow, fantastic!