EAA Galaxy Quest

[AKB]

...or should that be Galaxy Fest?

A splendid session last night (25-Mar-2019) from about 7:30PM to just a bit after midnight, with the C9.25 Hyperstar plus mono Ultrastar combination.  The seeing was OK, but my impression was that the transparency was not so good.  Started north and generally moved slowly south and east.  Quite a journey, starting with some old favourites (once again) and then moving on to some things I've never seen before.  I had a bit of a hiatus around 21:00 for nearly an hour, when Nebulosity kept dropping the connection to the camera.  Perhaps a USB problem, it's not happened before, but that's (astronomy) life!

Results post-processed in PI, not cropped, all the same FOV.   I wasn't ready to try Jocularity with calibration frames (but thanks, Martin, for explaining some of that elsewhere.)  But I had a great time anyway.

 

"Bode", M81,  @19:35 - 19:55, 30x30s (Total 15min):

 

M51, @20:02 - 20:22, 30 x 30s (Total 15 min):

 

M101, @20:27 - 20:55, 20 x 60s (Total 20 min):

 

"Whale" & "Hockeystick", NGC 4631/4627 & NGC 4656, @21:51 - 22:02, 20 x 30s (Total 10 min):

"Koi Fish" NGC 4559, @22:08 - 22:30, 15 x 60s (Total 15 min):

 

"The Box", NGC 4169 / 4170 / 4174 / 4175, @22:38 - 22:57, 15 x 60s (Total 15 min):

 

"Needle", NGC 4565, @23:02 - 23:14, 20 x 30s (Total 10 min):

 

"Black Eye",  M64 @ 23:21 - 23:41, 30 x 30s (Total 15 min):

 

"Markarian's Chain" (a bit of it)  NGC 4638 (? etc.) @23:49 - 00:13, 20 x 60s (Total 20 min):

 

The End.

 

[Paul73]

Galaxy fest indeed! Prolific! 

How long did the processing take?

Paul

[AKB]

22 hours ago, Paul73 said:

How long did the processing take?

Well, not too long really, although there were nine datasets.  It's doesn't need much brain-work, just plough on through it.  I've got a simple workflow which is all that's really needed for these EAA images, which I really consider just to be documentation of what I saw (a real boon, since I can't sketch at all.)   I's a few hours in total.  Actually the longest single bit was probably posting it here!

The joy of the Ultrastar is the small chip, so processing goes fast.  Basically it's:

• Batch Preprocessing script (master bias and flat, I throw in all the lights, and let the statistics deal with it)
• Mure denoise (just type in number of subs and click go)
• Automatic background extraction (to remove gradients)
• Manual stretch with histogram and curves (this is what takes most time, screen-stretch doesn't hack it)
• optional Unsharp Mask or HDR Multiscale (to add a bit of crunchiness)

Actually, most of the important items above can be handled on the fly by Jocular, so I'm looking forward to do that in future.

Tony

[Paul73]

Sounds so simple when you put it like that. Thanks for posting the workflow.

It’ll be a while before I work up to an Ultrastar.....

Paul

[andrew s]

Very nice, they reminds me of the images in Atlas of Deep Sky Splendors that I used to admire so long ago in the days before CCDs and CMOS cameras.

Well done.

Regards Andrew 

[stash_old]

3 hours ago, AKB said:

"Markarian's Chain"

I do like that image very clear - nice one.

[Mike JW]

Hi Tony, I am new to the forum and also still finding my way with EAA. I too have a C9.25 and use the Ultrastar. Wowed by what you achieve. Such beautiful images. Reading Martins posts and now seeing your results convinces me that I should explore beyond a max time of about 2 minutes. You mention post processing in PI - what is that piece of software?

Recently I visited The Box but my image is nowhere your fine result.

Mike

[AKB]

18 minutes ago, Mike JW said:

You mention post processing in PI - what is that piece of software?

Thanks for your kind comments.  Sorry, PI, I was being too cryptic... "PixInsight", but really for the processing I've done here, almost anything would do.

For EAA, my maximum for a single sub if usually 60 seconds, and 20 minutes on a target is almost my max.  Beyond that, it's real imaging!

[geminijk]

So I thought the purpose of EAA was to not have any post-processing but to basically show the pictures as they appeared "live" on the screen? If you process in PixInsight, or any other program really, doesn't this then qualify as astrophotography? 

 

John

[London_David]

@AKB interesting selection of galaxies! 

@geminijkThere aren’t rules about post processing in these eeva forums - SGL is deliberately relaxed - so you can post anything relevant to the observation.

This eeva reports forum is for any observations made with cameras or NV without worrying about qualifications -  the key thing is object discussion with tech secondary.

Obviously there is some overlap and if the conversation goes too tech oriented I presume the mods will move the post to the EEVA tech forum, but the idea is light touch and easy going for anyone that wants to join in.

[AKB]

8 hours ago, geminijk said:

I thought the purpose of EAA was to not have any post-processing but to basically show the pictures as they appeared "live" on the screen? If you process in PixInsight, or any other program really, doesn't this then qualify as astrophotography?

The “purpose” of all this is to have fun and see and learn new things, IMHO ?.   Even better if you can do this twice for each session – once in “real time”, and once at leisure (perhaps cloudy nights) when you can dig deeper into the data.

I have thought of posting observations here and images elsewhere, and sometimes have done so.  But the quality of image is, inevitably, not quite the same, and the general advice you get on an imaging board is “use longer exposures, take more subs”, which in this context is not helpful. 

@London_David, I appreciate the relaxed attitude, thanks.

Tony

[alacant]

Hi. Love it. It sure beats hour upon hour, night after night at the same darn galaxy. This is the way to do it:)

[HiloDon]

Really great results, Tony!