Remote imaging M16 - My first attempt

[ollypenrice]

7 minutes ago, Star101 said:

The things I did learn about using the  T30 Telescope at Itelescope was the sensitivity of the camera. 

I did have to test the scope/camera first to get a feel for how M16 would look. Here are the test shots. Had I done 300 second subs then the image would be poor. So there is a little bit of work required  

Personally, I cannot afford to purchase such a great scope as T30. I don't have a spare £60K, I have also been to Ollys place and what a lovely part of the world he lives in and yes, I am envious of all the wonderful scopes he has there. I would love to have clear skies every night where I live but its not going to happen....So should I be ashamed of using other scopes? Does this mean only the rich, who can afford expensive scope setups, should be allowed to image and submit those images?......Of course not!! 

For me, I agree with Olly above, It all comes down to how its presented. Which category etc. Show where it is captured and just be honest.  

60s

120s

300s

Off topic but was that with a camera without anti blooming gate? An ST10 or such-like?

Olly

[Star101]

 

Camera PDF details

 

CCD:  FLI-PL6303E  CCD camera

QE: 68% Peak

Gain: 1.09

Full Well:  ~100,000e-  Non Anti Blooming Gate (NABG)

Dark Current:   <.005 e-/pixel/sec. @ -45º C

Pixel Size:  9um Square

Resolution:  0.81 arc-secs/pixel

Sensor:  Frontlit 

Cooling:  Set to -30ºC default 

Array:  3072 by 2048 (6.3 Megapixels) 

FOV:      27.8 x 41.6 arc-mins

Filters:

AstroDon Tru-Balance Gen 2 E series Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, 5nm Ha, 5nm SII, 5nm OIII, and AstroDon Johnson/Cousins UvBVRcIc

Position Angle: 270º

[Star101]

Scope was 

Telescope Optics

OTA: Planewave 20" (0.51m) CDK

Optical Design: Corrected Dall-Kirkham Astrograph

Aperture: 508mm

Focal Length: 3454mm

F/Ratio: f/6.8

Guiding: Active Guiding Disabled 

Mount: Planewave Ascension 200HR

[Jkulin]

OK playing devils advocate here and I know @carastro will chuckle, at what point does an image hosted, captured and processed by one self compete against one setup remotely hosted but captured and processed by another versus data purchased and downloaded then processed compare. So in theory three methods, the first two as I mentioned early require considerably skill and patience, the third well....?

Should someone who spends days, weeks months or years even trying to capture sufficient quality data to produce an image compete for the accolade of "image of the day" for some one who buys their data and then processes it and enters into the same competition.

Should there be different classifications?

[Gina]

I am puzzled by those big spikes below the stars - any explanation?

[Star101]

10 minutes ago, Gina said:

I am puzzled by those big spikes below the stars - any explanation?

The spikes are caused by over exposure of the sensitive imaging chip. The camera is scientific grade. It does not have the anti-blooming gate. So the well capacity is exceeded at 300secs and bleeds over. 

Full Well:  ~100,000e-  Non Anti Blooming Gate (NABG)

 

With the scope/camera combination. 300 second exposure was much too long for M16. Even 60 seconds was still too long. I found 30 second exposures about right.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Star101

[DaveS]

Blooming from over-filled wells. Amateur (And some Pro) CCDs have a "leak" called an Anti-Blooming Gate to ensure the wells don't overflow. 

[Gina]

This is one of my processed images of this area from back in 2013.  Processed in PhotoShop as I recall - Hubble palette.  Not sure of the equipment now but most likely SW MN190 telescope, Atik 460EX camera and Astrodon 5nm Ha, OIII and SII NB filters.  EQ8 mount.  Taken from home in The Blackdown Hills in Devon.  This is a screenshot from my Facebook page - I have the original on a backup drive somewhere.

 

[DaveS]

*sigh*

And *that* is why we've missed your imaging postings Gina

[Gina]

Well, I'm planning a return Dave.  Just hoping I can remember how to do it all.  Oh, and for the weather to do it when it gets dark again!!

[glowingturnip]

I've posted this before, but I have a hard time with the concept of renting time on other people's rigs.

I few years back I downloaded some data off the Hubble legacy data website and processed it - I was a tough process, a lot needed doing to the data to make it nice, and I think you'll agree that the end result is beautiful...

... but I never did feel that the image was mine, even with the caption.  In fact in the end I found it embarrassing, like I was passing it off as my work - I'd be scrolling through my work showing someone new - "Wow, look at that one !"  "Oh no, that one's not mine, I processed it from Hubble data", "oh".  I ended up deleting it from my Flickr account in the end.

 

Conversely, over on the Beginner's forum, we occasionally get people posting up asking for processing help - they attach a link to a set of raw data and then various people have a go, bringing back various renditions of a final product.  Are all those renditions still the OP's photo ?  Yes, 100%, every time !

 

For owned remote rigs, the images do of course belong to the author, and I appreciate the effort to set it all up and the worry of making sure it's all maintained, secure etc, but I'm sorry to say there's still a part of me that thinks it's a little bit...  cheating.

[philj]

Nice results

I used to feel remote imaging was not for me, preferring to do it all myself from my own obsy or portable gear if at a star party. This was great and I considered remote imaging a bit like cheating until bad health struck. Now I cannot cope with late nights or the effort of setting up so my imaging suffered so I took out a 40 plan the past couple of years. 

Remote imaging enables me to still do Astronomy and scratch the itch so to speak, if I didnt have that then I wouldnt be able to image at all.

I am sure there are others using these services in similar circumstances so I no longer knock it or poo poo the idea of it.

Edited June 18, 2019 by philj

[glowingturnip]

3 minutes ago, glowingturnip said:

I'd be scrolling through my work showing someone new - "Wow, look at that one !"  "Oh no, that one's not mine, I processed it from Hubble data", "oh". 

in fact it happened just now !  I'm writing this from work, and a colleague just caught sight of that Cat's Eye - "wow, is that yours ?", "errm, no..."

[DaveS]

Damn.

I wasn't going to comment further as I don't like some of the atmosphere in this thread, too much religiosity about imaging. However....

If you've booked and paid for time on a remote telescope, as the OP has done, how is that different to what professional astronomers do when they use their research budgets to book time on a major telescope? Is their work any less "theirs" because they didn't set up the equipment themselves, and it isn't in their own back garden? I think not, so I take my lead from what the pros do.

There is, however a difference between booking exclusive time on a telescope, as the OP has done, and which I've considered, and pooling data, eg on DSW.

I also note, that the images that Goran and Wim processed from LT data during summer, are on the LT Flicker page, with shared copyright.

[Gina]

It's a difficult one.  The image processing is certainly the most difficult part IMO though I'm not saying setting up your own equipment is not also difficult as I know full well.  I agree that it's a matter of doing what you can and within that, what you want to do.  I'm no longer judging others, however they do their astronomy.

[gorann]

7 hours ago, DaveS said:

Damn.

I wasn't going to comment further as I don't like some of the atmosphere in this thread, too much religiosity about imaging. However....

If you've booked and paid for time on a remote telescope, as the OP has done, how is that different to what professional astronomers do when they use their research budgets to book time on a major telescope? Is their work any less "theirs" because they didn't set up the equipment themselves, and it isn't in their own back garden? I think not, so I take my lead from what the pros do.

There is, however a difference between booking exclusive time on a telescope, as the OP has done, and which I've considered, and pooling data, eg on DSW.

I also note, that the images that Goran and Wim processed from LT data during summer, are on the LT Flicker page, with shared copyright.

Actually I later uploaded those LT images to Wikimedia and took away the copyright (after LT agreed) - so they are freely available and the only thing Wim and I will ever earn from them were processing practise during the summer of 2017. By the way, here is my version of the Eagle nebula from the free LT data - I do not feel bad about it at all but I have to admit that I feel more satisfaction from processing my own data - but too often I run out of that.

Edited June 18, 2019 by gorann

[DaveS]

And that's the difference between amateur level and pro level equipment, Even iTelescope's T30 can't compete with that.

[gorann]

10 minutes ago, DaveS said:

And that's the difference between amateur level and pro level equipment, Even iTelescope's T30 can't compete with that.

Yes, two meters compared to half-a-metre, and the data was free!

But this one was about two days of processing, including finding the subs in the data base, manually downloading them one by one, sorting out the bad ones (even this mount produces a surprising amount of eggy stars - but then it has to hold 24 tonnes of scope), stacking and aligning them (this was a 4 panel mosaic) and fixing stars (a lot of artifacts on the bright ones as the camera has no anti-blooming gates). So in many aspects much more to deal with than in my own stacks.

[Whirlwind]

7 hours ago, glowingturnip said:

For owned remote rigs, the images do of course belong to the author, and I appreciate the effort to set it all up and the worry of making sure it's all maintained, secure etc, but I'm sorry to say there's still a part of me that thinks it's a little bit...  cheating.

It's largely though to beat the weather/ligh pollution.  If you have access to dark skies with regular periods of no clouds then that's great.  But how is someone in the UK (and other places) able to produce the same quality images that other amateurs can create simply by the luck of where one or the other lives.  The only real method is then some form of remote hosting (or move to another country which isn't necessarily viable).  I do appreciate the loss of technical challenge but then it gets to the point when someone may have the Mach1, a QSI and high quality refractor and imaging then becomes limited not by the equipment which can be set up fairly accurately to the same set up each and every time (and hence is no challenge) but simply the lack of clear skies.

[mftoet]

The following was just posted by John Kroon on Astrobin:

I see several pictures from the HLA and they're beautiful, but I have a question. Why do people just snag data from the archive and process it? Isn't it a bit too far removed from the craft? You know, like setting up your gear, calibrating everything, framing the shot, taking exposures and all that, and then processing the data the next day. Isn't that what this is all about? Grabbing data off of the HLA seems like it wouldn't feel like astrophotography anymore. I've never tried. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm just curious about how people decided to do HLA processing only. And how fulfilling it may or may not be. For example, if I were to ever log-on to a remote site and click the mouse a few times and have data in the morning, even that would sort of feel like a let down.

And here comes the part that sums it up for me:

There's no substitute for being out under a clear dark sky in the thicket of it all! To let your eyes dark adapt as you scan the heavens while your rig loops through exposures to to be immersed in that calm chilly night air with nothing other than yourself and the Universe…where all worries and stress of your job and finances and relationships melt away and it's just peaceful calm beauty. You sort of let yourself go and become part of the night. Another shadow drifting under the cool glowing light from the early fall Milky Way.

For me the field work is way more important than the processing part. Maybe that’s because I can only spend a few days a year (a total amount of maybe 3 weeks at most) at a dark sky location (such as Olly’s). Due to excessive light pollution (assimilation lights to cultivate  flowers and vegetables) the sky at home is terrible. I cannot enjoy the splendour of the night sky at home and neither in a 100 km radius. (I feel sorry for the children growing up in large cities. They might never witness the splendour of the Milky Way, but that’s another discussion.) Traveling to a dark site packed with all my gear after thorough preparation of what to image and how to compose the field of view must be like a scuba diver traveling to coral reef instead of diving in a local, muddy pond or going to a deep sea aquarium  to admire coral and sea live from behind glass.

Another reason is that I started astrophotography using (slide) film. No processing back then. Your image was either sharp (well focused and guided), nicely framed, exposed long enough and free of airplane and bright satellite trails or the opposite. For me an important part of processing is in the first place to see if everything in the field went well and what improvements or adjustments might have to be made to deal with errors or to get even better results the next time. I dare say most of us enjoy continuously optimising their gear (also by acquiring new and better equipment / accessories) and simply being busy with it under the stars.  

Proper data (acquired under a 21+ magn. sky) are easier to process than data acquired under (heavy) light polluted skies. Your nebulae are there instead of having to separate them from noise that almost has the same intensity (signal) as the nebula you’re after. Normally I don’t spend more than 2 hours on post-processing an image (including gradient removal; cleaning the background) captured at a dark site.

[DaveS]

I find the acquisition fairly boring and mechanical. Once the object is centred and the subs are coming in I pretty well leave it to get on with it, while I grab a pair of bins and do a bit of visual. It's been some years since I had to set up each night, and would not go back.

I have read comments about "the thrill of the chase", but for me the thrill comes later, when I have the data callibrated and stacked on the computer and I'm chasing down the faint details burried in the shadows.

Although I did a bit of simple AP on slide film, the passion only really took off with digital photography and the ability to stack and manipulate the data.

[Jkulin]

I have just seen this and it is the epitome of everything I dislike about remote imaging using other peoples data: -

https://www.astrobin.com/410459/?nc=iotd
 

Quote

 

Emil Ivanov is one of the most talented astrophotographers in the world...! He is also a brilliant opera singer!!!
http://www.emilivanov.com/CCD Images/_about.htm

Well, in addition to all his amazing skills, he was very kind and humble to share with me some of his stunning images done in Namibia!!
http://www.irida-observatory.org/Namibia-Tivoli/Gallery/Gallery.html

Information from his web page:

DCA 16"
Optic(s): 16" f3,75 Dream Corrected Astrograph (DCA)
Mount: Astelco NTM-500 direct drive mount
Camera: Apogee Alta U-16M CCD camera
Filters: Lum, Red, Green, Blue, Ha, OIII and SII Astrodon
Dates/Times: From 3 to17 of May 2013
Location: Namibia-TIVOLI ASTROFARM, S 23° 27' 40,9" / E 18° 01' 02,2"
Exp. Details: L: 12x10min, R: 5x10min, G: 5x10min, B: 5x10min, Bin 1
Total Exposure Time - 270 min (4:30 hours)
More details: Dark and flat frames reduction

Thanks a lot again Emil !!

 

It is indeed a beautiful image, but it should never have been selected above other peoples images such as Barry Wilson and Steve Milne who work hard to obtain remote images.

And to boot the images were taken 6 years ago 🤬

So lets recap with this: -

1. The submitter used someone else's data
2. From a remote site in Namibia
3. Using someone else's equipment at an Astrofarm
4. And they were taken 6 years ago!

Indeed a beautiful image, but it should never have been selected for IOTD above far more worthy images! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

[gorann]

12 minutes ago, Jkulin said:

I have just seen this and it is the epitome of everything I dislike about remote imaging using other peoples data: -

https://www.astrobin.com/410459/?nc=iotd
 

It is indeed a beautiful image, but it should never have been selected above other peoples images such as Barry Wilson and Steve Milne who work hard to obtain remote images.

And to boot the images were taken 6 years ago 🤬

So lets recap with this: -

1. The submitter used someone else's data
2. From a remote site in Namibia
3. Using someone else's equipment at an Astrofarm
4. And they were taken 6 years ago!

Indeed a beautiful image, but it should never have been selected for IOTD above far more worthy images! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

I do not think there is anything wrong with what Daniel is doing when he during cloudy nights in Sao Paulo, Brazil, processes publicly available data. That is his choice and obviously it is improving his processing skills, and he cannot be blamed for someone else rewarding this image with an IOTD. Daniel also posts images that he has acquired with his rather modest DSLR based rig back in Brazil. I expect that Daniel could not wish for anything higher than having the means to buy a top quality rig and being able to move to a place with predominantly clear skies. As long as people are open about what they are doing, like Daniel, I have hard to see why they should be looked down on.

I actually find it quite amusing that Daniel is clearly a much better processer than many of those well-off people (often from North rather than South America) with super expensive equipment that posts mediocre images on Astrobin.

Another discussion is how the IOTD should be awarded. Maybe a quotient system could be introduced? I had the feeling that most IOTD images were based on data from peoples own rigs (backard or remote), but maybe not?

[Jkulin]

Hi Göran, lets agree to disagree, if he wants to process and practice with other peoples data then fine, but it should be classified totally separately from other peoples work and should never be included as an IOTD

Indeed it is not the first time that other peoples data has been selected for IOTD and a number of us have already suggested a review of this, it should be classified totally separately.

[souls33k3r]

Not trying to stir things up but i will agree with @Jkulin on this one. Someone who works hard to acquire the image (their own time and money invested) should be valued and regarded higher than using a publicly available data and get recognistion for someone elses hardships. I would be happy if someone was to process my data, i've got no qualms about that but then posting it to get recognition, i won't be best pleased.