NGC7000 (Caldwell 20) North America Nebula

[Rattler]

Just got round to posting this. I had so many issues that night. AP is not easy lol. Still I'm fairly pleased that I actually got this data just before sunrise. I need to add another 2 or 3 hours plus another 2 or so in Hydrogen Alpha at some point. I'm still learning and just started using Pixinsight so lots to learn.

NGC7000 (Caldwell 20) North America Nebula
22/04/18, Dunsop Bridge
Type- Emission Nebula
Location- Cygnus
Distance- 1600 Light years
Size- Diameter 100 Light years

Scope- Explore Scientific ED80 APO Triplet
Mount- SW NEQ6 Pro Synscan
Camera- Canon 600d (modified)
Guide Scope- Altair Astro 50mm
Guide Camera- Altair Astro GPCAM2 290 mono
Software- Astrophotography Tool, PHD2, EQMOD, Deep Sky Stacker, Pixinsight (Trial) and PS.

3 x 10 minute exposures

[LightBucket]

Great image, maybe take more darks to reduce the noise some...

[Rattler]

15 minutes ago, LightBucket said:

Great image, maybe take more darks to reduce the noise some...

Cheers. Yeah there aren't actually any darks or other calibration frames here. I ran out of time with the sun rising. I defo need to add more to it.

[Buzzard75]

Best part about calibration frames is they can be done any time, including when the sun is up!

[MarsG76]

Nice... noise is a bit high but look up Topaz Labs Denoise, great plugin

 

[Guest]

Good work :-) ....try Morphological Transformation to reduce the stars and bring out the nebula :-)

David

 

[ollypenrice]

20 hours ago, Buzzard75 said:

Best part about calibration frames is they can be done any time, including when the sun is up!

They can with set point cooled cameras. With cameras whose temperature is not controlled it is a moot point whether darks are useful or do more harm than good. Some of the best uncooled DSLR users recommend bias-as-dark and a large (12 pixel) dither between subs. Personally I don't even use darks any more with set point cooled CCD. I use bias-as-dark and bad pixel map.

Olly

[LightBucket]

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

They can with set point cooled cameras. With cameras whose temperature is not controlled it is a moot point whether darks are useful or do more harm than good. Some of the best uncooled DSLR users recommend bias-as-dark and a large (12 pixel) dither between subs. Personally I don't even use darks any more with set point cooled CCD. I use bias-as-dark and bad pixel map.

Olly

Agreed, in fact I always found that some darks helped with my DSLR, BUT only up to a point, after using more than about 10-15 dark subs, I found more made no real difference, in fact possibly did more harm than good....  

[Buzzard75]

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

They can with set point cooled cameras. With cameras whose temperature is not controlled it is a moot point whether darks are useful or do more harm than good. Some of the best uncooled DSLR users recommend bias-as-dark and a large (12 pixel) dither between subs. Personally I don't even use darks any more with set point cooled CCD. I use bias-as-dark and bad pixel map.

Olly

Point on the temperature and darks. I've never heard about bias-as-dark. Have to figure out what that's all about as I currently only shoot with DSLR and taking darks basically doubles my working time. Not sure how it would even work as I thought bias were used to remove electrical noise from both the flats and the darks and the darks were used to remove hot pixels from the lights. Off topic anyway. I'll read up about it myself.

[ollypenrice]

8 hours ago, Buzzard75 said:

Point on the temperature and darks. I've never heard about bias-as-dark. Have to figure out what that's all about as I currently only shoot with DSLR and taking darks basically doubles my working time. Not sure how it would even work as I thought bias were used to remove electrical noise from both the flats and the darks and the darks were used to remove hot pixels from the lights. Off topic anyway. I'll read up about it myself.

I certainly wouldn't waste imaging time shooting darks! Doubling the signal, especially if you dither, will be way more effective against noise than darks. Here's a video by Tony Hallas whose DSLR images are excellent: 

Bias-as-dark is a well known approach and works for me with CCD.

Olly