Thoughts on which imaging rigs to concentrate on

[Gina]

Sky's cleared - Simeis 147 is still down in the trees so I'm capturing something else as a test.  The California Nebula (NGC 1499).

Edited December 3, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

It's rather small for this FOV.  This is a single 30s sub.

[Filroden]

It looks to be extended to the lower left. Maybe more to it than you're seeing in a single sub?

[Gina]

Yes, could be.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

This shows my alignment error.  As usual with CdC, south is at the top

[Gina]

This is another nebula I haven't imaged before

[Gina]

Captured 125 30s Ha subs of the California Nebula, fed them through Blink and 6 were dud so I have 119 left which I'm feeding through BPP though with a master dark that doesn't match because I have yet to capture dark frames of 30s at gain of 600.

Now capturing more 120m Ha subs of Simeis 147.  I've found a collection I haven't processed yet - don't know how I missed them   I'll feed them through Blink when PI has finished the BPP run.

[Filroden]

PixInsight can optimise darks and interpolate them to shorter exposures so if you've used a longer exposure dark it might be ok.

[Gina]

That's useful

[Gina]

Here's the result - screenshot of auto-stretch in PixInsight followed by a bit of histogram fiddling in GIMP - background gradient that wants removing but tomorrow I'll collect some correct darks and run the process again.

[Filroden]

Looks like the Hand of God rather than California!

[Gina]

Looks like I didn't capture the 120s g600 darks after all - at least, I can't find them.  My memory seems to be playing up!  Firstly I find nearly 100 Ha subs of Simeis 147 that I don't seem to have processed and now I can't find the 80 120s g600 dark frames I thought I'd captured.  I think I'll have to get a notebook to log what I do - separately from posting here - I mean pen and paper

Tomorrow I need to capture 80 30s g600 darks and 80 120s g600 darks.  I already have the 60s g600 darks and master.  Then I will have to feed all the lights and darks through Blink to reject duds followed by using BPP on the data.

[Gina]

Looks like Simeis 147 does have OIII nebulosity and even SII so maybe I'll use tonight to try those or at least OIII depending on how things go and how long I can stay awake   Here an image from the 'net.

[Gina]

It would appear that I have 98 120s Ha subs of Simeis 147 of which 62 were used with wrong darks to give the interim result posted above.  I now have 50 odd more subs tonight so I reckon I now have 150 plus subs of 120s making a total of 300m = 5 hours.  The 62 processed before make up about half what I now have and that was a reasonable result so I think perhaps I have enough Ha subs and should try OIII.

[Gina]

Captured a couple of 120s OIII subs and auto-stretched one in PI but can't see anything of the DSO.  Now trying 240s.

[Gina]

Can't see any nebulosity...  Trying 6m...

[Gina]

6m OIII sub auto-stretched in PI the captured from screen and histogram stretched in GIMP to the Nth degree and still I can't see anything resembling the OIII nebulosity seen in that other image (taken with an SBIG camera).

[Gina]

10m and virtually white-out!!! I'm giving up on that.  Going over to the Tadpoles...

Edited December 3, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

A single sub 120s OIII of IC405/410 auto-stretched in PI and further stretched in GIMP.  Actually, I think IC410 - the Tadpoles - would be better done on it's own with a narrower FOV - say 400mm rather than 135mm making it 3x bigger but would still be rather small.  At least this view can be combined with the Ha to make a colour image.

[Gina]

When I have the 45mm lens on the rig I can capture the IC405/410 and Simeis 147 in the same frame plus a few other DSOs as well.  As in this screenshot but the frame moved upwards (to the south).

[Gina]

Not really sure what to do with the rest of the night.  If it wasn't for needing a meridian flip I could set something up and leave it running while I go to bed.  Unless I can find something to the west of the meridian already.

[Gina]

Decided on the Heart and Soul in SII 120s subs with g600.  Should be able to get about 4hr before they go below the observatory roof.  Can't remember if I captured SII before but pretty sure not at g600 so this data should be better if I did.

Data faint but there in histogram stretched version.

[Gina]

Changed my mind and decided that more Ha data on Simeis 147 would be more useful and would produce a lot more data and I would really like to produce a cracking version of this.  Later I might grab some RGB data to colour the stars using masks to make the Ha red and the stars natural colour.  It will be later because the weather forecast is for cloud and rain for the next week

Now capturing the 120s g600 darks.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Downloaded the overnight Ha subs and after using Blink to turf out the duffs I have 143 120s lights or 286m = 3hr 46m of integration time.  That should add nicely to the 98 previous ones giving a total of 241 subs or just over 4 hours   Not a lot compared with what I've previously captured with CCD mono cameras but I'm hopeful.

[Gina]

I need to sort out which DSOs I have captured and with which filters plus the imaging parameters.  Then go on to sort out which ones I want to capture in the future.