An extended noisy crab

[NigeB]

Hello All,

After almost a year of inactivity due to various mount matters, I'm getting back to imaging. It's not been a smooth process - all sorts of things seem to have stopped working over the time the observatory has been out of action (USB cable failures, mice chewing a focus knob...) 

I managed to pick up a Tak 1.5x extender on eBay so my first re-commissioning imagery is with this in the TOA150 optical train, hence I'm working at f/11. M1 is well placed so I gave that a go. With few clear nights, I decided to process what I've got so far, and that's a very mixed bag of exposures taken over 2 night as I re-learn everything. Darks applied but no flat fielding yet. There's some pattern in the background due to a failed experiment in which I powered the CCD from the 12V accessory output of my Digifire 7 dew heater controller - gone now I'm back on a mains transformer but I can't afford to throw away those images!

Exposure info:

5 x 900" + 2 x 1200" + 14 x 300" HA (Total 3 hrs 5 min)
7 x 600" + 3 x 900" OIII (Total 1 hr 55 min)
5 x 900" + 7 x 600" SII (Total 2 hr 25 min)

That's a reasonable exposure time I thought, but f/11 takes its toll, and the signal level is not good. Very quickly processed in PixInsight.

Thoughts/comments welcome - I know my colour pallet is way off at the moment. I'm also wondering about running the camera colder than the current setting of -10°C - what do others use?

Regards

Nigel

 

[AKB]

Cracking image, I’d say.

[NigeB]

On 20/01/2018 at 21:23, AKB said:

Cracking image, I’d say.

Thanks AKB... I've reworked the processing a little having splashed out on a PI license today. Lots of learning to do, and some more exposures as well!

Nice looking observatory in your profile pic by the way...!

Nigel