Have I made a mistake going OSC, a few questions

[carastro]

Quote

PS: Speaking of registering R/G/B  or H-a/O-III/whatever: Siril also does a pretty decent job there. I'm super-impressed that carastro can get Photoshop to work for that, in my experience it sucks at that task.

Not sure where you formed that impression, but I don't/can't use Photoshop for registering.  I actually use Astroart for stacking, and Registar for registering and do all my post processing in PS.  I just gave a list of Registering software so as not to force my particular choice on the OP.  

I haven't heard of Siril, but will take a look at it if only for the sake of some-one I have been teaching who can't afford Registar. 

Carole 

[Adam J]

Those charts say 1hour for narrow band don't take that literally. 5 to 10 mins max. 

[rickwayne]

21 hours ago, carastro said:

Not sure where you formed that impression, but I don't/can't use Photoshop for registering. 

Oh, sorry Carole! I just formed an assumption based on your text and the screen shot. Never mind!

Siril is definitely worth a look. It has its quirks, and has misbehaved occasionally for me and for some friends, but it's my go-to among the free programs for stacking. Multiplatform, open source, reasonably performant. User interface takes a bit of getting used to and it does leave intermediate files on your disk with the gay abandon of a bunny fertilizing your yard. Calibration, registration, stacking, and (L)RGB composition are pretty straightforward (in addition to the registration it does among the subs in a stack, it also automatically registers your L, R, G, and B frames.)

Demosaicing Bayer-gridded frames is a bit nonobvious, easy enough once you get it.

Wow, is that a ringing endorsement or what?

[carastro]

I took a look at Siril, it looks a bit too much like Iris where you need a mathematical mind in order to get it to work.   But I will mention it to the person i have been teaching as he is certainly more technical than me.

Carole 

[Danjc]

Thanks to all that have given advice it is appreciated, also thanks to @FLO for there great customer service and accepting the 294 back no problems so I could get one of these 😁

 

[JamesF]

The ZWO boxes have gone a bit upmarket since I last bought one

James

[Danjc]

6 minutes ago, JamesF said:

The ZWO boxes have gone a bit upmarket since I last bought one

James

It’s very Apple -esque    

[rickwayne]

Ooo, we're 183 Buddies! Although you've got total snobbery rights with a Baader Ha filter there, instead of my measly ZWO.

I hope you just enjoy the heck out of the thing. I really like the smaller pixels that let me crop more aggressively without making my images look like Minecraft screenshots.

[geordie85]

On 24/05/2019 at 20:06, Danjc said:

Thanks to all that have given advice it is appreciated, also thanks to @FLO for there great customer service and accepting the 294 back no problems so I could get one of these 😁

 

Have you set this up yet? I'm curious to know how you've added the 1.25 filter I to your imaging train? 

I'm planning on getting the qhy183m and 1.25 filters but don't quite have enough for a filter wheen yet. 

[Danjc]

14 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

Have you set this up yet? I'm curious to know how you've added the 1.25 filter I to your imaging train? 

I'm planning on getting the qhy183m and 1.25 filters but don't quite have enough for a filter wheen yet. 

Unfortunately I haven’t had time to have a play yet but it does come with a T2-1.25” adapter that screws in just in front of the sensor although I also have an EFW so will be using that. 

 

[Danjc]

4 minutes ago, Danjc said:

 

Double post ignore 🙄

 

 

Edited May 25, 2019 by Danjc

[geordie85]

22 minutes ago, Danjc said:

Unfortunately I haven’t had time to have a play yet but it does come with a T2-1.25” adapter that screws in just in front of the sensor although I also have an EFW so will be using that. 

 

Thanks. I don't think the qhy183m comes with any adapters though. 

[Simon Pepper]

How did the OP get on? I have the 294MC I love it but I am itching for what can be achieved by going mono. Intrigued to know if you believe you made the correct decision? Pros and cons.

 

thanks 

[rockinrome]

On 17/05/2019 at 11:55, carastro said:

I would always prefer mono as it is so much more versatile insomuch as you can do narrowband whereas with OSC its really only broadband and with a bayer matrix it will be less sensitive.

I did buy a OSC once to try to save on time, but found it funnily enough far more complicated to process due to the bayer matrox settings so gave it up and stuck to mono.

Glad you are changing your mind, it is more expensive with all the "bits" and there is a bit of a learning curve to combine data (I have some You tube tutorials on this) but worth it in the end.  Some targets really show off at their best in narrowband.

Carole 

Not soooo fast there Carole. I use a OSC with an l-enhance filter and it is sound for narrowband data.
I get that mono is more sensitive and I guess more versatile too (with the incurred expense and learning curve) but OSC is going to be my only choice for the short/mid-term at least.

Kind regards
Matthew

[carastro]

Quote

Not soooo fast there Carole. I use a OSC with an l-enhance filter and it is sound for narrowband data.
I get that mono is more sensitive and I guess more versatile too (with the incurred expense and learning curve) but OSC is going to be my only choice for the short/mid-term at least.

My post is dated 17/5/2019, when did these filters come in for OSC cameras?  Not that long ago.  If they had come in at the time of my posting I doubt whether I had heard of them at that time.     

Carole 

Edited May 4, 2021 by carastro

[Alien 13]

I doubt mono cameras will exist in 10 years time perhaps less..

Alan

[Adam J]

48 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

I doubt mono cameras will exist in 10 years time perhaps less..

Alan

I'll take that bet. 

[tomato]

I know the OP has gone mono but I don’t think the latest OSC cameras combined with the latest dual band filters are a non starter for NB targets.

Here is a 1 hour integration with a RASA8/QHY268c OSC using the IDAS NBZ dual NB filter. I dare say a mono camera with separate NB filters will give a better result but this took an hour to capture and 20 minutes to process in APP, so I’d venture OSC NB imaging can be quick and reasonably straightforward with the appropriate equipment and software.

 

 

 

[Mr Thingy]

18 hours ago, tomato said:

I know the OP has gone mono but I don’t think the latest OSC cameras combined with the latest dual band filters are a non starter for NB targets.

Here is a 1 hour integration with a RASA8/QHY268c OSC using the IDAS NBZ dual NB filter. I dare say a mono camera with separate NB filters will give a better result but this took an hour to capture and 20 minutes to process in APP, so I’d venture OSC NB imaging can be quick and reasonably straightforward with the appropriate equipment and software.

 

 

 

Owning a mono system I have been somewhat envious of what can be captured in short imaging sessions, like yours above. My time is very limited, so I recently added an OSC to my collection so that I have the option for short sessions and I must say that I'm very happy with it.

For sure the results won't be as good as with the mono camera but for short windows of opportunity and short processing times, I'm very glad to add this utility.

Below was a camera test 2 weeks ago. Under 1hr integration time.

[ollypenrice]

As I've said on other threads, I do think the CMOS cameras have made a profound difference in the OSC-Mono debate. In the CCD era I really do think it was a no-brainer (or almost) in favour of mono. But I now take CMOS OSC cameras pretty seriously with or without the dual or tri-band filters. If using these new filters I would be aiming to blend pure OSC and filtered OSC into one final image on emission nebulae. This is an old-ish thread so I wanted to update my position.

Processing these data captured by Yves Van den Broek played no small part in my thinking. https://www.astrobin.com/g82xf7/B/?nc=user

Olly

Edited May 5, 2021 by ollypenrice
Typo

[Danjc]

On 03/05/2021 at 22:11, Simon Pepper said:

How did the OP get on? I have the 294MC I love it but I am itching for what can be achieved by going mono. Intrigued to know if you believe you made the correct decision? Pros and cons.

 

thanks 

I got on fine mate and still think I made the right decision (can’t believe I have had it 2 years) I can’t really think of any cons apart from probably going for something with a bigger sensor and at the time maybe the additional cost of filters and EFW. 

Pros for me are it gives me good images I’m happy with and isn’t this complicated beast that some may think it is. 

I can’t compare to a dedicated OSC as I came from a Canon 1100D and didn’t even open the 294.