Bogeyman nebula LDN1622 from SE London

[carastro]

for those of you who have been following the "Any-one Playing Tonight?" thread, this is the image I have been doing whilst chatting on there.

Taken on Monday (5 subs) and last night the remainder.

Been wanting to image this for a while but can never seem to get to astro camp when it is up.  So was forced to do it from Bromley with a dirty great tree right in the way stopping me imaging it for 3 hours of the night and then just as it clears the tree it crosses the meridian. 

Anyway, needs must.  This was taken over two evenings in - 2 degrees.  Not a lot of data so therefore don't look too close as it is noisy.  As always I'd like to get more data on this, but I think a darker sky would be more beneficial.

Ha 12 x 600secs Baader 3nm
RGB 3 x 300 binned per each channel
Atik460EX
WO ZS71
HEQ5

Total 2hours 45mins.

[simmo39]

Another target to add to my list, lovely image for such little data.

[Davey-T]

Another WIP Carole, I see what you mean about not looking too close 

Just trying to get a new set of calibration frames finished before the forecast rain appears, takes a while to do 1200 sec' darks.

Dave

[carastro]

Quote

before the forecast rain appears

We've already had rain here. Has it reached you yet?

Carole 

[Davey-T]

7 minutes ago, carastro said:

We've already had rain here. Has it reached you yet?

Carole 

No, but due any minute, still got another hour to go on the darks so don't think I'll make it.

Dave

[Ceph]

The objects in the sky seems to be never ending, never heard of this one. Cool pic 😉

[rubecula]

That's a new one on me also and has been added to my list of targets.  Seeing what is possible in such a short timescale I must have a try at binning RGB data.  So far I have done everything unbinned.

Thanks for sharing Carole,

Robin

[carastro]

Quote

 I must have a try at binning RGB data.

I bin RGB and Oiii and Sii all the time as I have luminance and Ha unbinned for the detail.  

It saves a lot of time and you can get colour more quickly.  Or if I am doing RGB just for star colour, I find 150secs binned with about 3 subs in each channel is sufficient just to add star colour to NB.

You do however need software that will Register and re-size the images as the binned data will be half the size.  Plus you have to take binned calibration files as well.

Carole 

[Allinthehead]

Very nice Carole. Hard to believe an image like this is possible from London, the beauty of Ha filters.

[rubecula]

Thanks Carole, I've already got 2x calibration images but all at 600sec so I suppose that defeats the point.  I need to get some at 300sec. 

So do you resize the bin 2x images (in Photoshop?) and then use DSS to stack in groups and then move the stacked groups back into Photoshop to stretch, combine, etc.?

[MartinB]

Oh yes, that's looking good Carole, definitely worth persevering

[carastro]

Thanks Martin and Richard.

Quote

Thanks Carole, I've already got 2x calibration images but all at 600sec so I suppose that defeats the point.  I need to get some at 300sec. 

That's correct otherwise it doesn't save time.

Quote

So do you resize the bin 2x images (in Photoshop?) and then use DSS to stack in groups and then move the stacked groups back into Photoshop to stretch, combine, etc.?

This is where the crunch comes.  It's pretty impossible to re-size in Photoshop as well as register all the stars.  I struggled for months with combining filters (getting the stars to exactly fit).  Tried Nebulosity, tried Maxim, but nothing worked very accurately.  Then some-one recommended Registar and it's magic for this.  Since then some other software has come out that also works well, such as Pixinsight, and I think also APP.  

Yes I process in Photoshop, but take all the RGB filters into Registar for accurate alignment and then back into PS for processing.  Then I take the Luminance and RGB combined back in Registar to re-size and register the RGB image to the Luminance.   The same would apply to narrowband.

HTH

Carole 

 

Edited December 7, 2019 by carastro

[MartinB]

6 hours ago, carastro said:

Thanks Martin and Richard.

That's correct otherwise it doesn't save time.

This is where the crunch comes.  It's pretty impossible to re-size in Photoshop as well as register all the stars.  I struggled for months with combining filters (getting the stars to exactly fit).  Tried Nebulosity, tried Maxim, but nothing worked very accurately.  Then some-one recommended Registar and it's magic for this.  Since then some other software has come out that also works well, such as Pixinsight, and I think also APP.  

Yes I process in Photoshop, but take all the RGB filters into Registar for accurate alignment and then back into PS for processing.  Then I take the Luminance and RGB combined back in Registar to re-size and register the RGB image to the Luminance.   The same would apply to narrowband.

HTH

Carole 

 

Interesting that you had problems with Maxim.  I have found it to be extremely accurate registering images from the same scope.  Registstar is great for mosaics and images taken with different optics.

[carastro]

Quote

Interesting that you had problems with Maxim.

Well I was given a set of instructions in order to register in Maxim, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't and I would be left with misaligned stars. 

I also had an image of the HH done with my DSLR and I wanted to add Ha done with my Mono CCD camera and all the stars would line up one end of the image, but as you got further across the image the further the misalignment.  I guess it was the different curvatures in the lens/flattener/focal reducers.  As soon as I got Registar everything matched.

Carole 

[MartinB]

38 minutes ago, carastro said:

Well I was given a set of instructions in order to register in Maxim, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't and I would be left with misaligned stars. 

I also had an image of the HH done with my DSLR and I wanted to add Ha done with my Mono CCD camera and all the stars would line up one end of the image, but as you got further across the image the further the misalignment.  I guess it was the different curvatures in the lens/flattener/focal reducers.  As soon as I got Registar everything matched.

Carole 

The first instance sounds weird, I've never had that problem in 13 years.  Occassionally Maxim struggles with images that are inverted after a meridian flip, but it reports the issue and rejects them in the alignment.  I thn rotate the inverted files using the batch process tool.

As far as I am aware, my version of Maxim doesn't model distortions and registar is much better for combining images from different imaging equipment as have found.  You can create a distortion model with PI.  I don't know whether you can with APP but I bet you can!

[rubecula]

Carole, thanks for your help once again.  I'll have a look at APP, if it works well with re-sizing, registering and stacking then that might be the way for me to go. I've heard how good Registar is but it looks expensive for something that only performs a single function.

More research, more money.........

Thanks

[tooth_dr]

2 hours ago, rubecula said:

Carole, thanks for your help once again.  I'll have a look at APP, if it works well with re-sizing, registering and stacking then that might be the way for me to go. I've heard how good Registar is but it looks expensive for something that only performs a single function.

More research, more money.........

Thanks

Robin - APP works flawlessly at resizing, registering and stacking.  It does what Registar does plus nearly everything else.  The only thing I would add is, it's not hard to use, but will take a little bit of working to get what you want.  Once you get the hang of it, it's very simple.

[tooth_dr]

@carastro sorry I didnt comment on the image, as I was too busy replying about APP.

Thats a heck of a nice image for the short integ time, and from a poor location!  I reckon some more data would really smooth it out, and enhance what is shaping up to be a stunner.

[carastro]

Quote

 I reckon some more data would really smooth it out, and enhance what is shaping up to be a stunner.

Thanks Adam.

Yes I'd like to get some more, weather, Moon and tree permitting Lol.

Carole 

[don4l]

That's a very nice image.  I've never tried to do a decent dark nebula, and this looks like it should be my first.