ASI1600mm cool

[The storm fisherman]

59 minutes ago, Gina said:

The 1600 club is growing - yay!

Hi All

I might as well add my name to ever growing list as it going to be my Christmas present and is already on pre order .

and then I will be putting up my Astro modded Nikon D5200 For A very advantage price for SGL members only to recoup some of cost back.

Paul

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, The storm fisherman said:

Hi All

I might as well add my name to ever growing list as it going to be my Christmas present and is already on pre order .

and then I will be putting up my Astro modded Nikon D5200 For A very advantage price for SGL members only to recoup some of cost back.

Paul

I'm in the market for an astromodded dslr but I'm so broke after upgrading to the 1600 I'll never afford it LOL!

[The storm fisherman]

59 minutes ago, David_L said:

I'm in the market for an astromodded dslr but I'm so broke after upgrading to the 1600 I'll never afford it LOL!

I know what you mean if wasn't for the compensation cheque from the bike accident back in January, arriving shortly and after the mount I have spent on the obs'y build I would have had to wait a fair while yet.

[GTom]

2 hours ago, MattJenko said:

More images for the ASI600

Here is a bi colour and then a SHO narrowband image of the Rosette, using 5 min narrowband subs.

Quite stunning!

Which scope did you use? The TS60 or the SW80?

I see you also got the Atik 414ex, are there situations where you think the Atik is the better choice? I was always curious if there is a significantly better solution for small+faint targets (like Pluto with a 90mm APO  ) than the asi1600.

[Astrith]

4 hours ago, Gina said:

The 1600 club is growing - yay!

I wonder who's to blame ?? 

[MattJenko]

37 minutes ago, GTom said:

 

Which scope did you use? The TS60 or the SW80?

I see you also got the Atik 414ex, are there situations where you think the Atik is the better choice? I was always curious if there is a significantly better solution for small+faint targets (like Pluto with a 90mm APO  ) than the asi1600.

Thanks - I used the TS60ED with the ASI1600. Specs are just unreal. With the reducer/flattener it is 260mm focal length, F4.3 and with the ASI, it images at 3"/pixel and covers about 4' by 3'. I took a bit of a gamble getting it all and half expected it not to work, but it is one of those few times when a plan really did come together. Perfect combination in my view and it is so light and small, it fits on my StarAdventurer as well.

As for the Atik 414ex, it is a lovely little camera. It has found a new role in life as a science instrument as I am starting doing some spectroscopy and using it for that. If I had to choose one though, it would be the ASI, no question. One area the Atik does do better in is faint narrowband. I get glow in the ASI around 5 min subs so I stick to that. 20 mins+ easy with the Atik and no glow, clean as you like. I did have a quick test of the Jellyfish the other night in narrowband with the ASI and gave up and chose the Rosette instead as it looked like I would need vast amounts of 5 min subs to get anything on the fainter Jellyfish.

[Gina]

I've found many shorter subs at high gain works best with this camera - it's a totally different beasty from a CCD camera.

[MattJenko]

well done gina. i must obviously not be trying hard enough

[Gina]

Try lots and lots of short subs at high gain.  For instance, this is 259 60s Ha subs (Astrodon 3nm Ha filter) with gain at the maximum of 600 and sensor cooling at -30C.  Calibrated with bias, dark and flat frames to match and simply pre-processed with the BPP script in PixInsight and saved as PNG.  No post processing whatsoever.  Oh, and 135mm f2.5 ex-SLR lens

[piprees]

They're lovely images Gina. If you have the gain at 600 how on earth do you reveal the image? Not really after your secrets!!!

P.

[halli]

I've now got my 1600mm-cool replacement back after a dust issue with the original new camera -  ready for a couple of forecast clear spells Sat and Sun !  

Cant really believe it will be clear though - the new kit Gods will intervene I'm sure.  

Perhaps the jellyfish...............

[Guest]

I have had 4 good clear nights to image in with the ASI1600MM-Cool.

 

My equipment (TS65mm) has performed as never before, with ease and reliably.

 

I have captured about 12 hours of data on the Elephant Trunk Nebula in Ha/Oiii/Sii and LRGB - an unheard of amount of data for Welford Observatory on ANY object in the past 10 years.

 

I'm using PixInsight to process and although not an expert I feel confident in the few scripts and processes I use.

 

What can possibly go wrong....:-)

 

You be the judge, jury and when and if you slaughter my results with accurate and technically focussed feedback .....my saviour...:-)

 

I've posted really bad low res screenshots below to keep SGLs servers from bloating to popping point but you can see the higher res images on my site under "Images" and some notes on the capturing of them can be seen in the "Links" section in my blog.

 

I still have a full set of LRGB data to process and of course bi-colour and HaLRGB...so now its finally cloudy I can do some processing haha!

 

These images below have had flats/darks/bias applied and were taken in 5 minute subs @ 139 gain, the SHO image is 2hrs on each channel - the Ha is 2hrs.

.....and as this is my first real foray into nb imaging - I'm quite pleased with the results...and looking forward to processing the LRGB and bi-colour now :-)

 

David

 

[Astrith]

4 minutes ago, David_L said:

I have had 4 good clear nights to image in with the ASI1600MM-Cool.

 

My equipment (TS65mm) has performed as never before, with ease and reliably.

 

I have captured about 12 hours of data on the Elephant Trunk Nebula in Ha/Oiii/Sii and LRGB - an unheard of amount of data for Welford Observatory on ANY object in the past 10 years.

 

I'm using PixInsight to process and although not an expert I feel confident in the few scripts and processes I use.

 

What can possibly go wrong....:-)

 

You be the judge, jury and when and if you slaughter my results with accurate and technically focussed feedback .....my saviour...:-)

 

I've posted really bad low res screenshots below to keep SGLs servers from bloating to popping point but you can see the higher res images on my site under "Images" and some notes on the capturing of them can be seen in the "Links" section in my blog.

 

I still have a full set of LRGB data to process so and off course bi-colour and HaLRGB...so now its finally cloudy I can do some processing haha!

 

These images below have had flats/darks/bias applied, the SHO image is 2hrs on each channel - the Ha is 2hrs.

.....and as this is my first real foray into nb imaging - I'm quite pleased with the results...and looking forward to processing the LRGB and bi-colour now :-)

 

David

 

Brilliant images . I had my ASI 1600 mono delivered today . Swotting up a lot right now .  However I may not be posting any images for a while yet . Especially when they  are looking as good as this !!....Alan.

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Astrith said:

Brilliant images . I had my ASI 1600 mono delivered today . Swotting up a lot right now .  However I may not be posting any images for a while yet . Especially when they  are looking as good as this !!....Alan.

 

You're going to have a fantastic time with this camera Alan - you'll be producing images you'll want to hang on your wall :-)

..and thanks :-)

David

[Gina]

17 hours ago, piprees said:

They're lovely images Gina. If you have the gain at 600 how on earth do you reveal the image? Not really after your secrets!!!

P.

Thank you   It's no secret and I'm more than happy to share whatever I do and find works

I'll go through everything in as much detail as I can.  Firstly the equipment...  I'm using an ex film SLR camera lens - Asahi Super Takumar 135mm f2.5 bought from the well know auction site, Astrodon 3nm Ha filter mounted in ZWO EFW mini filter wheel and then the ASI1600MM-Cool.  All mounted on an EQ8.  No guiding - tracking is adequate with decent PA obtained with PoleMaster.

As posted above, this image was from 259 60s Ha subs with gain of 600 and sensor cooling at -30C.  I mostly use 60s or 120s exposures and have gradually gone for more and more gain, finally reaching the maximum.  It seems to want 200-300 subs to get sufficient imaging time on the fainter DSOs. 

This camera needs calibration data to compensate for sensor noise and amp glow.  I've used 300 bias frames with 1ms exposure and the same gain as the lights and low temperature though tests have shown that the temperature makes little or no difference.  I read that the more bias frames the better.  For dark frames, same exposure, gain and temperature as the lights and 80 dark frames seems plenty. 

The sensor sensitivity varies slightly across the frame and the optical system will always give some variation in the light arriving at different parts of the sensor so flat frames are used to compensate.  I use several layers of a white T shirt over my home made dew shield and held in place with an elastic band.  The mount set to Home and the observatory roof open in daytime.  I used 100 exposures but I think fewer would suffice.  0.1s exposure and the same filter as the lights, in fact nothing else changed except mount from when the lights were taken.

Then the lights, biases, darks and flats were entered into the BPP script in PixInsight and best light frame chosen as reference.  Only thing left was to choose a folder for the results.  Having done this once, the master bias, dark and flat can be used with other sets of lights with the same parameters.  Then BPP was closed and the master light opened in PixInsight, the rejection frames closed and the master light saved as PNG using "SaveAs" from the File menu.  The resulting PNG image file was then uploaded here, and that's it

I have to say that this is the first time I've just used the image from BPP without any post processing.  Other times I've saved from PI as TIFF and transferred into Photoshop for histogram stretching and cleaning up with Noel's Actions - I'm still learning PixInsight and haven't done much post processing yet.

Sorry if that's a lot to read but I've often found that descriptions tend to lack just the detail you want.  If I can provide any further explanation, I'm happy to do so.

[Astrith]

Could anyone tell me where I may find the unity gain settings...et al for this camera please. Hoping to set up for tonight . Best regards.Alan.......found it !.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Astrith said:

Could anyone tell me where I may find the unity gain settings...et al for this camera please. Hoping to set up for tonight . Best regards.Alan.......found it !.

Is it 139? that's what I've been using

[Filroden]

1 hour ago, Astrith said:

Could anyone tell me where I may find the unity gain settings...et al for this camera please. Hoping to set up for tonight . Best regards.Alan.......found it !.

139 gain and the driver defaults to an offset of 21 at that setting.

[Guest]

Just now, Filroden said:

139 gain and the driver defaults to an offset of 21 at that setting.

Ok - i've been using an offset of 10 as when i raised it I think, if I remember correctly, it got too bright

[Astrith]

13 minutes ago, Filroden said:

139 gain and the driver defaults to an offset of 21 at that setting.

Many thanks David.

[Gina]

Why do you want the unity gain setting?  Are you capturing a very bright object?

[Guest]

I wanted to know what it was to give me a place to start as I had no idea what setting to use :-)

I've tried using really high gain settings but just didn't get the results I get with 139g Offset at 10 and 60s on L, 120s on RGB and 5 min on narrowband filters

One day I'll try different settings but as long as I'm getting good results I'm afraid to waste time testing :-)

David

 

[Gina]

That's fair enough   I've been trying all sorts of things.  I can't be sure I have the best settings myself but it seems to work well, so like you, I'll stick with what works ATM

[Astrith]

3 hours ago, David_L said:

I wanted to know what it was to give me a place to start as I had no idea what setting to use :-)

I've tried using really high gain settings but just didn't get the results I get with 139g Offset at 10 and 60s on L, 120s on RGB and 5 min on narrowband filters

One day I'll try different settings but as long as I'm getting good results I'm afraid to waste time testing :-)

David

 

Same here . I have no idea what i am doing , so  I keep following this thread .

[piprees]

3 hours ago, Astrith said:

Same here . I have no idea what i am doing , so  I keep following this thread .

Me also!!

P.