Some more with the qhy183m, from April

[Thalestris24]

I managed to get 3 nights in arrow on the 9th/10th/11th April! Not had anything much since.

Equipment: TS 80mm Photoline APO triplet + Lightwave 0.8x reducer + qhy183m + SW 50mm finder guider with gpcam v1 mono. Heq5 Syntrek with belt mod. IDAS D1 lp filter.

Software: Sharpcap Pro livestack with darks and flats, PHD2, Eqmod, Pixinsight, Gimp, Paint.net

Bortle 9 skies + nearby lp

I've had problems with the flats which show when I've (over)stretched the images. Tried lots of things to remove the artefacts but not been successful. Cropping helps...

All images bin 2x2

M3 - combined 4 stacks: 2x13x30s, 9x30s, 6x30s:

Resized to 50% and cropped:

Cropped more:

 

NGC6885 16 x 60s

Resized to 50%

Cropped:

 

NGC6823 16x60s

50%:

Crop:

M27 16 x 60s

50%:

Crop:

Western Veil 20 x 60s, 10th April

50%:

 

Crop:

Another Western Veil crop, 30x60s from 11th April

 

NGC6940 16x60s

50%

Crop:

M57 16 x 60s:

50%

Crop:

 

M56 16x60s

50%

Crop:

A galaxy, ha ha:

NGC5958 3x16x60s stacks stacked in DSS:

50%

Crop:

I definitely need more focal length for some things!

 

There you go. I used Pixinsight's ABE/DBE on them to remove gradients and try to remove artefacts. It works well with gradients... But seems to add noise? I'm slowly getting into the potential of Pixinsight processing . I'll have to try some H-alpha with the qhy183m at some point.

Louise

 

[alan potts]

That mark Louise, is it on the sensor of objective, I cleaned the objective really well the other day as there was all sorts of bits from 8 years, this had a nice effect on the finished item but then had to do new flats.

A massive selection of targets nicely done there and as said need a bit more F/L, shame your not near me I would be happy to let you use my 180mm Mak which is looking unloved.

We have 8 degrees and horrible damp weather after 30 degrees 2 days ago.

[Thalestris24]

Thanks, Alan. Yeah I've since de-dusted the camera window and also adjusted the reducer spacing which was well out. The circles didn't show up on the SharpCap flats. It was only when I (over?) stretched the final image that they became a problem. I tried ABE/DBE and even synthetic flats but didn't manage to get rid of them. Oh well. I have a 115mm/800mm APO but it has an Atik383l+ attached which is too slow for live stacking plus I can't really cope with using more than one imaging system at a time these days, and I've got 3 to choose from. Two are fairly widefield - the qhy183/80mm above and the recently acquired Pentax67 Takumar F4 300mm plus 1100d on an eq3 pro. The latter takes good images but is plagued with red halos which may be related to the lens and/or camera filter combo. I've now removed the Astronomik cls-ccd and switched to an unmodded 1100d, and I'm waiting for an opportunity to try it. If red halos are still a problem I might have to convert it to H-alpha. There is room in the P67-eos adapter to fit a 2" filter  so that's an option to use it with a full-spectrum 1100d. I've toyed with the idea of getting an RC6 but I've already got too much clutter and I'm limited to ~2" resolution here (on a good day...).
Weather is cold, cloudy and miserable here - no chance of any clear skies before Friday  

Cheers

Louise