Cassiopeia

[happy-kat]

Cassiopea, this is work in progress as  think more lights will help with the background noise, that will be a challenge both getting a clear night and getting the same frame of sky on the camera.

Manual barn door mount, 1100d baader neodymium filter, 40mm pancake lens, f4 18 lights of 2 minutes plus one of 3. Bias and flats. After a combination of stacks there was no difference with noise whether or not I used the master bias as a master dark flat or dark or both on this praticular stack. I do have 4 groups in my stack so I might try a further dss stack that has just one group (it will have 9 minutes less of light data) in case the STNR is being exponentiation across the groups. 

Work in progress both in processing and data collection. DSS, StarTools binned 50% and PaintShopPro. Saved as png

 

[happy-kat]

This is just one group of lights, it appears slightly less noisy but there's a slight loss of data. Processed in the same way. Decided not to post the image it just doesn't have as much data,.

 

[Nigel G]

Manual barn door tracker, Impressive.

It will be a bit of a challenge getting the same view again but I'm sure you will manage and it will be worth it. 

Nige.

[happy-kat]

Getting the same area will be a challenge but worth a go and without the filter.

In the other process of the nearby area on a different thread I was very pleased to have an image with a FWHM thingy beginning with a 2 on a 2 minute exposure. The focus on that run was tighter.

[happy-kat]

On my monitor I can see the red tinge of the Heart nebula and Pacman nebula.

Will be interesting to see if they pop more if I can get more data.

[happy-kat]

I thought I would try to process this in PSP so I saved the fits as a tiff via startools with a crop and vignette wipe. I couldn't make anything worth looking at in PSP... though the stars were nice, round and compact (even if not pin points) which was nice.

[happy-kat]

oooo the image stack I took straight (gap of food in middle) afterwards the same evening does over lap... so now I have to process again to get a processing match for a mosaic. That ICE is sooo cool and clever.

 

[happy-kat]

I got lots more data last night and a super iridium flare.

Next challenge process all stacks the same before mosaic building. StarTools log file will help here.

[happy-kat]

Make that a colour balance challenge too as I didn't use the filter last night as no Moon and high enough above the murk... but it did mean i could actually focus directly using a star though the stars only showed at x10 display, but it made it easier then previously with filter attached.

58 minutes of combined data of the main area.

[happy-kat]

Crop heavier than before along the right side as the garage eves were catching, 50% bin dirty quick stretch this is 8 x 3 minutes only. I haven't time yet to work the combined image of 58 minutes or build the mosaic of outer areas.

 

[happy-kat]

Doing flat darks after chilling the camera off in the lean2. Got to try the newest DSS beta as the groups trick isn't working on 3.3.4. There is no later beta so I will have to fiddle some more.

Edit: operator error! DSS can only use each file once so I had two groups just the exposure length slightly different but can't use the same flats for both as have same name.

[happy-kat]

Couldn't work out why DSS was giving such a weird combined stack from the two separate nights. I had over an hour of data majority of which was 3 minute exposures with bias, flats and dark flats.

I then loaded the two processed images (well the resized down png versions and one being the rough brown one above) into Microsoft ICE and bingo now I understand why I was getting the weird overlap shape. Looking at this I think I will have to process each evening on it's own and then use ICE to generate the overlap. It does beg the question will the data be as good though compared to if I could have stacked the hour of data at the same time. I will whittle out any exposures where the FWHM does not start with a 3 or under.

 

[happy-kat]

So the stacking and processing marathon begins. 6 sessions to do.

[happy-kat]

Gosh this is tricky dicky processing 6 separate stacks and getting them to vaguely looks like a set. This will need more work as I first need to confirm to myself that the blend is correct and second maybe adjust the colours.

Mix of 2 and 3 minute exposures, flats, dark flats and bias. 2 stacks with filter and 4 withouth ISO 800 and then ISO 400. All f4 Canon 1100d 40mm pancake lens. Home made manual barn door over two nights and 6 winds of the handle. starTools then PaintShopPro to match the colour historgrams and ICE to make the mosaic.

stack DSS, StarTools fits file crop, bin 50% wipe vignette, develop, contrast 30%, PaintShopPro historgram save as png, ICE

[happy-kat]

Having done some naval gazing at the stitch and comparing to Stellarium the stitch does look to be correct. That's a relief.

I might process one of the stacks again and add more fiddling like final noise tweaks to compare to the first pass, though the dark flats do seem to have helped quite a bit.

[happy-kat]

stack 1 - 15 lights 10 flats 20 dark flats 33 bias - total 31 minutes

stack 2 - 16 lights 10 flats 20 dark flats 33 bias -total  32 minutes

stack 3  - 12 lights 28 flats 15 dark flats 30 bias - total 34 minutes

stack 4  - 9 lights 28 flats 15 dark flats 30 bias - total 23 minutes

stack 5  - 4 lights 28 flats 15 dark flats 30 bias - total 11 minutes 

stack 6  - 11 lights 28 flats 15 dark flats 30 bias - total 33 minutes

 

DSS

Lights, flats, dark flats and bias. Darks make it nosier for me. Kappa-sigma clipping (no alignment of RGB and no hot pixel removal) and used autosaved fits file. I need to experiment with hot pixel removing I just haven't got around to it yet.

--- Develop
Parameter [White Calibration] set to [Use Stars]
Parameter [Gamma] set to [1.00]
Parameter [Skyglow] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Digital Development] set to [76.82 %]
Parameter [Blue Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Green Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Red Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Headroom] set to [5 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [Off]
--- Crop
Parameter [X1] set to [4200 pixels]
Parameter [Y1] set to [100 pixels]
Parameter [X2] set to [104 pixels (-4186)]
Parameter [Y2] set to [2783 pixels (-73)]
--- Bin
Parameter [Scale] set to [(scale/noise reduction 50.00%)/(400.00%)/(+2.00 bits)]
--- Wipe (I use vignette)
Parameter [Mode] set to [Correct Color & Brightness]
Parameter [UNKNOWN] set to [No]
Parameter [Precision] set to [256 x 256 pixels]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [1 pixels]
Parameter [Drop Off Point] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Corner Aggressiveness] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Aggressiveness] set to [75 %]
--- Develop
Parameter [White Calibration] set to [Use Stars]
Parameter [Gamma] set to [1.00]
Parameter [Skyglow] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Digital Development] set to [82.17 %]
Parameter [Blue Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Green Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Red Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Headroom] set to [5 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [Off]
--- Colour

save as tiff for use in ICE

reload tiff then mask stars shrink grow grow grow invert

Life - Isolate

 

[The Admiral]

That's working up into a nice wide-field happy-kat, quite a project! I don't envy you having to match each set to the others though. . And you must have some patience using a barn door tracker, but all credit to you for attempting it.

You just don't realise what's up there when you look up, do you!

Ian

[happy-kat]

Thank you.

It's a challenge when it was so cold. We'll see how much more I can get its not been clear since well one night was but the air was so wet I didn't bother

 

[sloz1664]

That's an epic challenge you have set yourself and it's looking great at present. Cannot wait until you have completed it.

Steve

[happy-kat]

I haven't made any further progress on this two clear ish nights but wimped out as it is so cold and the Moon is playing.

[davew]

This thread raises a question - Can a Galaxy have too many stars ?

I still find it remarkable that you can get images with a barn door sharper than some GEM mounts.

I can see plenty of red tinge. Fantastic effort,

Dave.

This should be in the Challenges section.

 

[happy-kat]

Thank you

There's a link to the barn door build in my signature, it is rock steady which I'm sure helps. Using the 40mm lens does help. If I were to build another one I'd do it with a reverse bolt to push the board up from above by pushing the bolt down, as it would mean I could see a second hand clock right next to the turn handle whereas now it's not so easy.

I haven't sharpened the image, I used the same process flow exactly for all images and then adjusted the colour histogram in psp as 2 images used a filter. Then resized for upload. Sadly I saved the resized colour corrected but not the full size tiff with colour correction.

[happy-kat]

I now have the new book 'dark art, or magic bullet' so time permitting I might start again with the processing. I used bin to bring the file size down and improve signal on the first go.

[happy-kat]

I processed stack 1 again (using the fits file created previously) I tried a few new things but it isn;t stretched as much. Whilst this is showing great shaped clear stars (3 minute subs manual barn door) it is not showing perhaps this is the milkyway so clearly.

When searching the web it is easier to find lots of images of individual DSO when processing to get a feel for what you are aiming for but I am finding reference material to get  a flavour for what I am aiming to bring out of the data for this area harder. There is perhaps an element if I like it that's good enough, so right now I am not feeling a grabbing need to reprocess all the stacks but I am enjoying seeing brighter fewer stars this version of stack 1 is giving. A 70% bin and I reduced the stretch.

[happy-kat]

I am busy reading and practicing and this is an adjustment of the image created earlier of the first stack. When I think I'm happy with the steps taken I will do all 6 again but bin only 70% (this is a 50% bin image below). Really pleased with the amount of red picked up in the right places.