User Competence Test #2

[Mr Thingy]

Having waited 1 month for a cloudless night I managed to run a second test of my AP rig on Monday night (tl;dr: see image below).

It was only about 25min of lights (for reasons I will explain below) but my goal was to familiarise myself with use of the gear, including the new EAF I fitted. Last time out I had problems with the platesolving software, I wasn't aware of the routines in NINA to refine polar alignment and I couldn't get PHD2 to work.

Like last time I still have PHD2 issues but platesolving worked a treat, the EAF too, and the PA routines in NINA were fantastic and I feel confident about using those now.

Since the moon was very prominent I decided to try shooting in Ha. Without guiding I needed to limit to 90 sec subs, which I hoped would be sufficient with a 7nm filter.

After spending about 1.5 hours setting up and aligning, I then realised my rookie mistake, which was setting up in the wrong position, meaning my target was rapidly moving towards my house, hence only 25 min of lights 🙈

Nevertheless, I'm happy with all I learned, which should help me set up much quicker next time and feel less overwhelmed.

I desperately need to learn processing skils, including ways to avoid losing detail in the core when I stretch the image. Nevertheless, I can't stop looking at this. 

User Competence test 2, just about passed.

-Thingy-

Equipment: SW Evostar 72ED; ZWO ASI 183 GT; SW Evoguide 50ED; ZWO ASI 120 MM mini; ZWO EAF; SW HEQ5 Pro; ZWO 7nm Ha filter.

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Mr Thingy

[geeklee]

That's looking great @Mr Thingy  I think you can safely say that test is passed  

The core is tough - there's some tricks in post processing to help, but generally adding a set of much shorter exposures to the mix seems to be the way it's usually tackled.

[Mr Thingy]

4 hours ago, geeklee said:

That's looking great @Mr Thingy  I think you can safely say that test is passed  

The core is tough - there's some tricks in post processing to help, but generally adding a set of much shorter exposures to the mix seems to be the way it's usually tackled.

Thanks for the feedback.

In the unstretched image the core looks quite good - the stars of/around the trapezium can be made out and there is detail in the surrounding nebula.

I wonder if it's possible to stitch the core from the unstretched image into this? I need to research how to stitch images in GIMP.

 

[alacant]

3 hours ago, Mr Thingy said:

stitch the core

Hi

Yeah. Have the unstretched image in the bottom layer and the stretched image in a new layer above. Mask the top image. Carefully paint the mask away using a fuzzy brush.

Cheers

[Mr Thingy]

20 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

Yeah. Have the unstretched image in the bottom layer and the stretched image in a new layer above. Mask the top image. Carefully paint the mask away using a fuzzy brush.

Cheers

Thanks for the tip. I gave it a go and it definitely improves things a little. The core is less saturated now.

I also cropped the image.