DSOs for the next few nights

[powerlord]

Hi chaps, clocks changed (bah..), and 2 nights+ of clear skies forecast. I've only been doing this for 3 months, but got some nice shots so far of orion, rosette, horse head. In back garden I only have view of S and SW above around 30 degrees, and north above 50.

Can folk suggest targets I could try over the next few days ? - walking around with Sky Safari is great, but I think I'd benefit from some human suggestions 🙂

 

[JSeaman]

Maybe these: Leo Triplet, M101, M51, M81/M82

[DaveS]

We've got clear skies forecast. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, we also have pretty much a full moon.

A counsel of perfection would say don't even bother, a counsel of not-quite-perfection would say maybe some H-Alpha well away from the moon.

However, the bright NB targets of winter are now getting well out of the way, and may not even be visible from your back garden, Galaxy Season is well under way and guess what? Yep, galaxies need dark nights with no moon.

Some galaxies show well defined H-Alpha, but need a fairly long FL and small-ish pixels.

So unless you have a narrow, narrow-band filter for your modded Canon 1200, you're pretty much stuffed, as we all are.

 

For myself I will only be doing some technical stuff, calibration of the autofocus etc until the moon gets well out of the way.

[tomato]

You could try M81/M82 in Ursa Major. For sure, the results will be severely affected by the moon, but it would provide some imaging practice  and you will be more impressed with the results when you can go back and repeat the imaging under a moonless sky. 

Clear skies, even moonlit ones, are not to be wasted in my view, you can't do anything when it's cloudy.

[DaveS]

M81 / 82 should be far enough away from the moon that gradients won't be too bad. Will still be horrible though.

[Astro Waves]

Because I'm not using a go-to mount I basically do a test run of finding targets I have my eye on and see if I can get a some snaps of them, not to be a finished image by any means but just seeing how easy it is to find etc so then when I go out on a nice clear night I know I'll have a much better idea of how easy it was to find depending on the size of the object......or the moon.

[powerlord]

Maybe I got lucky or more likely I'm just less fussy as I took some (for me) nice pics of Rosette Nebula 4 days ago under a nearly full moon.

 

I was thinking maybe christmas tree nebula and another go at horse-head/flame as my last ones were ok, but could do with more subs.

I've been focusing on shooting just with my camera lenses at the moment  -so galaxies are out (well - unless I move to front of house and try andromeda).

Looking at tuesday night, moon is nowhere till 4 in the morning. When I shot rosette above, it was right up there in the south east.

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I am going for the Jellyfish tonight and tomorrow night. I am not going after galaxies with a full moon. H-alpha should be doable, perhaps O-III, but I will see how that goes with a full moon. H-alpha on the Flaming Star Nebula works well too

[DaveS]

I don't want to go haring off after more targets that will end up as half-completed projects for next year, M106 has a good bit of H-Alpha for the ODK, as I already have that started. Maybe point the TS Apo at the Leo Triplet and see if the H-Alpha in that looks doable.

[Clarkey]

Much as imaging over a full moon is more difficult it is not impossible. This was taken over 3 nights during the last full moon. It is not perfect, but I have certainly done worse. Made more difficult by my own incompetence!

M51 in a Full Moon - Imaging - Deep Sky - Stargazers Lounge

 

[powerlord]

well, Im setup on alnitak. Nice clear sky. No moon. Getting good subs at iso800/2 mins. Only get it for about 80 mins or so before it pops behind a neighbour house, but looking nice.

Once that's gone, Ill try xmas tree.

Also, I've got a new old 70s 200mm M42 lens I wanna try out - see how it copes with stars. If good, I might try that for alnitak and M42 in same frame tomorrow night.

Nice to not be freezing to death for once! (was 20 degrees here today)

stu

[Astro Waves]

3 hours ago, powerlord said:

Maybe I got lucky or more likely I'm just less fussy as I took some (for me) nice pics of Rosette Nebula 4 days ago under a nearly full moon.

Same here, if its clear skies I'll definitely give it a go. As your pic proves, you never know!

3 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

I am going for the Jellyfish tonight and tomorrow night. I am not going after galaxies with a full moon. H-alpha should be doable, perhaps O-III, but I will see how that goes with a full moon. H-alpha on the Flaming Star Nebula works well too

I was also thinking the jellyfish but decided to have a go at the Pinwheel Galaxy, mainly because I've not really tried galaxies yet that much. Is it better to go for the H-alpha on a full moon rather than galaxies?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

1 hour ago, Astro Waves said:

I was also thinking the jellyfish but decided to have a go at the Pinwheel Galaxy, mainly because I've not really tried galaxies yet that much. Is it better to go for the H-alpha on a full moon rather than galaxies?

I much prefer narrow-band imaging in moonlight, especially H-alpha, as moonlight doesn't contain much, because of the strong absorption line in sunlight. Backgrounds become very dark indeed. 

[Astro Waves]

Right, I get you. Sadly I don't have any filters as of yet but depending on how the stacking goes tomorrow with the Pinwheel I might try the Jellyfish. I think this is the clearest night I've had since I started shooting, its great. Got about 3/4 hours of subs so far, might have to call it quits soon though.

[Astro Waves]

Definitely getting on the Pinwheel again tonight! just had a go at stacking and editing what I got from last night and I'm well chuffed, managed to get about 4 hours I think. I can't 100% get rid of the gradient but we'll see tomorrow. I'll post a pic then, I think for me this will easily be my best image (seen as how I've really tried about 5 targets so far, haha).

[Astro Waves]

So, I'm ssuuuupppeeerrr happy with this.

To say it was taken over two nights on a 98% and 94% moon. I have sacrificed a bit of faint wispy bits for a clearer more uniformed background and I'm pretty alright with that.

Not guided, no filters, heavily cropped. Stacked in Siril with basic adjustments and only using background removal in Affinity photo (which is really good) with adjusting levels, curves and couple other small tweaks along the way. Let me know what you think.

Lights: 400-ish at 80sec

Darks: 43

Flats: 30

Biases: 50

 

Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101). 21 Mly away.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Astro Waves

[Clarkey]

Great effort with a Redcat.

Just be careful with the affinity background tool. It does have a tendency to do too far and clip the data. There is an add in called Astroflat pro that is worth a look.

[Astro Waves]

Ta very much, I do like it as a scope and I think its a good first scope to have as its pretty wide field but with that means you have to crop in heavily to pretty much everything. I don't mean that its disappointing but on reflection and as I couldn't visit any shops during the lockdown period when I got it I think I may have gone for something with slight more focal length but then I'd need to start looking into a go-to mount which sadly isn't am option at the moment.

I'll have a goosy at AstroFlat, still don't know that much about the programmes side of AP so the more help the better!

[kirkster501]

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  I've gotten into lunar observing and imaging very much recently since, as DaveS mentioned, pretty much every time it is clear the moon is out.  Still love DSO as well of course but we have to make do and mend.

[Felias]

I also decided to profit from the short window in this difficult weather and took over a hundred 30s shots before the moon rose on Tuesday. It is my first DSO photo, and practically the first light of my first telescope, a WO Z61. The camera is a Canon 77D, and for tracking I used a Star Adventurer on a rather cheap travel tripod (I don't have a backyard, so I need to keep my equipment light and portable). The SNR wasn't great, so this is the best I could do after stacking about one hour of total exposure, plus darks, flats and bias. Post-processing was done in Photoshop/Lightroom, mostly just levels/curves, a bit of sharpening/noise and star reduction (first time I do the latter).

Apart from Bode's and Cigar galaxies, you can see NGC 3077 at the bottom, and NGC 2975 in the top right corner. Any suggestions on how to improve the image will be greatly appreciated!

[Clarkey]

On 31/03/2021 at 22:11, Astro Waves said:

Ta very much, I do like it as a scope and I think its a good first scope to have as its pretty wide field but with that means you have to crop in heavily to pretty much everything

Come the autumn and all the nice widefield targets you will be glad of it. I have an SW ED80 which is great, but at a reduced FL of 510mm I would like something wider.

 

1 hour ago, Felias said:

Apart from Bode's and Cigar galaxies, you can see NGC 3077 at the bottom, and NGC 2975 in the top right corner. Any suggestions on how to improve the image will be greatly appreciated!

I think for the limited data you had this is pretty good result. Personally with an hour of data I think this is excellent.

[Astro Waves]

11 hours ago, Felias said:

I also decided to profit from the short window in this difficult weather and took over a hundred 30s shots before the moon rose on Tuesday. It is my first DSO photo, and practically the first light of my first telescope, a WO Z61. The camera is a Canon 77D, and for tracking I used a Star Adventurer on a rather cheap travel tripod (I don't have a backyard, so I need to keep my equipment light and portable). The SNR wasn't great, so this is the best I could do after stacking about one hour of total exposure, plus darks, flats and bias. Post-processing was done in Photoshop/Lightroom, mostly just levels/curves, a bit of sharpening/noise and star reduction (first time I do the latter).

Apart from Bode's and Cigar galaxies, you can see NGC 3077 at the bottom, and NGC 2975 in the top right corner. Any suggestions on how to improve the image will be greatly appreciated!

These look great! this is next on my hit list as well.

[callisto]

11 hours ago, Felias said:

I also decided to profit from the short window in this difficult weather and took over a hundred 30s shots before the moon rose on Tuesday. It is my first DSO photo, and practically the first light of my first telescope, a WO Z61. The camera is a Canon 77D, and for tracking I used a Star Adventurer on a rather cheap travel tripod (I don't have a backyard, so I need to keep my equipment light and portable). The SNR wasn't great, so this is the best I could do after stacking about one hour of total exposure, plus darks, flats and bias. Post-processing was done in Photoshop/Lightroom, mostly just levels/curves, a bit of sharpening/noise and star reduction (first time I do the latter).

Apart from Bode's and Cigar galaxies, you can see NGC 3077 at the bottom, and NGC 2975 in the top right corner. Any suggestions on how to improve the image will be greatly appreciated!

Those images are very good 👍

[Felias]

10 hours ago, Clarkey said:

I think for the limited data you had this is pretty good result. Personally with an hour of data I think this is excellent.

Thank you! I pushed it until the moon started to wash out the sky, next time I'll stay longer -if I ever enjoy a clear night without a full moon, which is proving to be impossible since I bought my telescope...

[Felias]

19 minutes ago, callisto said:

Those images are very good 👍

Thank you!