The EQ3 DSO Challenge

[happy-kat]

This blog will help if you have not used StarTools before here but if machine is low spec once in StarTools do bin and crop first before anything else

[Stub Mandrel]

34 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

This blog will help if you have not used StarTools before here but if machine is low spec once in StarTools do bin and crop first before anything else

Wow, that's the first Startools tutorial I have seen that I could actually understand and follow, kudos to Ecuador!

[Nigel G]

Excellent blog happy-kat,  thanks for sharing. 

[happy-kat]

I like that blog because they cover the right settings to use in DSS to maximise what you get out the other ends. StarTools needs flats, if you attempt to process without flats it can be very dire.

I love the very powerful and versatile masks you can create to use in StarTools. On the StarTools forums there are some excellent in depth guides written by a member for many of the modules. I use the CA removal tools as even my DSLR lenses have a bit too much CA as the aperture needed for maximising light. Don't judge the user GUI appearance for what it can do.

Edited July 14, 2017 by happy-kat

[Peco4321]

 

[alacant]

8 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

correcting collimation will put the light patch in the middle

+1. BUT just a heads up that before the OP corrects the collimation, he should take flat frames with the existing collimation, otherwise the 'light patch' will not coincide. HTH.

[Stub Mandrel]

43 minutes ago, alacant said:

+1. BUT just a heads up that before the OP corrects the collimation, he should take flat frames with the existing collimation, otherwise the 'light patch' will not coincide. HTH.

Agreed, I was just worried he might expect not to need flats once the collimation was spot on.

[Nigel G]

@Peco4321 Hope your finding ST ok.

A recommended work flow for ST. This is how I start an image.

StarTools likes autosave.fits files.

Open file and bin 50%

auto dev, this will look bad but will show you any stacking artifacts.

Crop to required size.

Select Wipe. use gradients first, put dark anomaly to about 8 pixels and select, DO, if your happy press keep. use temp auto dev for this. ( if you find ST very slow then bin 35% )

If you have vignetting, Select wipe again, select vignetting and repeat dark anomaly 8 pixels. if your happy  select keep.

Next Develop. reduce gamma to 0.90 - 0.95 and select home in until your nearly there, then move the digital develop slider till your happy.

Next colour. I normally raise dark saturation to 8 and lower saturation amount to around 100%, play with the red green blue sliders to suite your image, this is quite sensitive so small ajustments.

Life. Select moderate and do. if you like it keep, if not try heavy.

Select life again and use less more or isolate, move the strength to suite your image.

Then play around with everything to see what happens.

Don't do any noise reduction until you turn off tracking, ( on the top bar) be bold with the grain size, about 18-20 pixels. Then raise the smoothness to about 80.

The filter mode is a good tool. use filter mode- reject. zoom in and select unwanted colour pixels, usualy bright green ones. this reduces the chosen colours, can work wonders  

You should find it quite quick to learn.

Any problems were happy to help.

Good luck  

Nige.

 

 

Edited July 14, 2017 by Nigel G
additions

[Peco4321]

Thanks for all that @Nigel G, and here's my first effort, with the right data in, I think I will get some better results out.  Not brilliant, but small steps.

[Nigel G]

The background is looking much better, there's lots of good tricks to learn, I  quite often reprocess past images because of new found methods.

I hope you enjoy the  journey  Peter.

Nige. 

[happy-kat]

The mask tool is really useful you can exclude sensitive areas so they don't get overly effected.

[bobro]

Lots of posts on StarTools recently. I now have a copy of StarTools but haven't dived in yet (tried briefly but not enough time to quite get it). Hope I can improve on an attempt at reprocessing my recent M27 in GIMP!  

 

[Stub Mandrel]

I now have a cooled DSLR and a guide camera! My next session I will be trying to get guiding to work on my EQ3.

[mikey2000]

Cool! (Literally).   Do you intend to use PHD2 for guiding?   I've got my eq3pro guiding reasonably well now but it took a while to get there...

[Stub Mandrel]

Yes PHD2, original PHD refuses to talk to my camera.

[Stub Mandrel]

Well, five-minute guiding with an EQ3 (here with an Ha filter) works! The stars are round, but unfortunately a thick layer of ice/condensation completely ruined all my subs, still the aim of the exercise was to get guiding working. Next job, fit a different resistor to the cold finger heater. Boy I learnt a lot last night!

Close up of an unstretched  5-minute RAW showing reasonably round, tight stars (with condensation haloes and a few hot pixels)!

A recognisable Eastern Veil with awful condensation doughnuts. The Ha is so strong you can see tendrils behind the condensation blur!

Worst ever Ha image of the Pelican. So bad I'm not even sure it is on target. I think I'll send @Uranium235 a copy to stick on his observatory wall

I need to get rid of a lot of backlash in DEC if I am to image high up. Veil at ~67 degrees ALT was fine, Pelican at about 78 degrees ALT was all over the place.

I've found this a problem with unguided imaging as well.

The RA guiding was very good, with a long-term RMS of between 0.13 and 0.25 Arcseconds, which is apparently quite creditable.

Hmm... I coudl pretend I took those on my phone and enter them as a StuPod...

[mikey2000]

RMS that low is about 4 times better than mine!  Not bad at all, especially if it it generally well controlled with no mad excursions.   I still get the odd wild unexplained excursion in RA or DEC or both at the same time.  They can still have low-ish overall RMS but the sub is wrecked.

 

It sounds like your DEC axis would maybe benefit from a bit of attention.  I've spent a lot of time on mine and PHD2 still sees the backlash as off-the-scale poor but it doesn't seem to prevent my DEC guiding being consistently better than RA.

 

Also, now you have a guide camera, have you tried the SharpCap polar alignment routine? It's very useful!

[mikey2000]

OOps  - I forgot to say I love that middle one.  If you look at it through half-closed eyes, it looks like a ghostly shadowy face looking right at you...

[bobro]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I need to get rid of a lot of backlash in DEC if I am to image high up.

DEC direct drive perhaps? Looking forward to some super guided images to come! 

[Stub Mandrel]

42 minutes ago, mikey2000 said:

- I forgot to say I love that middle one

In Victorian times I could have sold that as evidence of ectoplasm!

[alacant]

12 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

get rid of a lot of backlash in DEC if I am to image high up

Hi. When you have it as good as possible, offset the polar alignment by say, 10º in AZ. DEC then drifts and has to be corrected, but in one direction only. The motor always turns the same way for the correction; no backlash. Works as close to the pole as ngc2403, haven't tried closer -I don't think there is anything. HTH.

[wimvb]

10 degrees? That seems excessive.

[Art Gecko]

You guys have been busy while I've been away! Some really nice work too, well done everyone!

Managed to get out last night for the first time in a while, finally had a shot at the NAN... managed 26 mins in 1 minute subs (accidentally left the ISO up at 3200 as I was distracted by a friend who was out with me asking loads of questions and such... but the high ISO seemed to work out ok anyway).. flats and darks applied... quite pleased with the outcome for such a small integration time.

[alacant]

8 hours ago, wimvb said:

10 degrees?

10'?

[wimvb]

Seems more reasonable to me (with little guiding experience).