Leo Triplet - ZWO ASI 294MC Pro first light

[Stuf1978]

First light for my new 294MC Pro and first time using a cooled CMOS camera. The transition from DSLR was pretty painless to be honest with the exception of shooting various combinations of flats to actually get them to work (a quirk of the 294). Overall I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out considering the modest focal length. I can say it's a joy to process images from a cooled camera as the decrease in noise is immediately evident over a dslr

I do need to sort my spacing out as the stars are a little funky in the corners.

126 x 180 second light frames (~6.3 hours), 30 darks, 20 flats and 20 dark flats from my Bortle 8 garden

ZWO ASI 294MC Pro / Evostar ED72 / HEQ5 Pro / UV/IR Cut

Image capture in APT, stacked in DSS and processed in Ps.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Stuf1978

[scotty38]

Nice. I went for this last night too, trying 210 seconds but for some odd reason I had small tails in the first two subs then all was fine until my guiding stopped on sub 7.... Yep clouds.....

[Stuf1978]

5 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Nice. I went for this last night too, trying 210 seconds but for some odd reason I had small tails in the first two subs then all was fine until my guiding stopped on sub 7.... Yep clouds.....

Ah nightmare, hopefully you'll get another chance this week as the forecast doesn't look too bad

[scotty38]

Thanks, hoping so as I've been having issues with guiding etc and last night that side of it all seemed ok other than the first two subs

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Lovely shot. Some of the tidal tail in NGC 3628 is showing as well, I think.

I am hoping to add some cooled CMOS data from the ASI183MM-Pro to last years ASI183MC (uncooled) on this target one of these days

[Stuf1978]

1 hour ago, scotty38 said:

Thanks, hoping so as I've been having issues with guiding etc and last night that side of it all seemed ok other than the first two subs

There's always something 😆

1 hour ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Lovely shot. Some of the tidal tail in NGC 3628 is showing as well, I think.

I am hoping to add some cooled CMOS data from the ASI183MM-Pro to last years ASI183MC (uncooled) on this target one of these days

Thank you, yeah possibly if you squint hard enough  I think I'd need double the data at least from my bortle 8 zone to bring out the tail so it's prominent. 

Good plan, now I have my dedicated astro camera it'll make it easier to add data every year to previously shot targets. Good luck with adding more to yours  

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

26 minutes ago, Stuf1978 said:

Thank you, yeah possibly if you squint hard enough  I think I'd need double the data at least from my bortle 8 zone to bring out the tail so it's prominent. 

Good plan, now I have my dedicated astro camera it'll make it easier to add data every year to previously shot targets. Good luck with adding more to yours  

Actually, I have found APP quite happily merges old DSLR data with newer CMOS data, as I found out with M33

The slightly eggy stars are due to the field flattener not being at the right distance from the sensor, I believe

[Stuf1978]

Just now, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Actually, I have found APP quite happily merges old DSLR data with newer CMOS data, as I found out with M33

The slightly eggy stars are due to the field flattener not being at the right distance from the sensor, I believe

Nice one, looks great. How does it deal with the different image scales/sizes or does it just resize as part of the stacking process? 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

8 minutes ago, Stuf1978 said:

Nice one, looks great. How does it deal with the different image scales/sizes or does it just resize as part of the stacking process? 

What I do is stack the outcomes of different sessions separately, and create weight maps as well. I then give APP both the light-pollution corrected images plus weight maps, and select one to be the reference. APP adjusts the image scales of the others to that one. This is much faster than restacking all the data

 

[Stuf1978]

6 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

What I do is stack the outcomes of different sessions separately, and create weight maps as well. I then give APP both the light-pollution corrected images plus weight maps, and select one to be the reference. APP adjusts the image scales of the others to that one. This is much faster than restacking all the data

 

Doesn't sound too bad. I haven't tried APP yet but I have been tempted to download the trial version and see how I get on  

[Rustang]

Looking good mate, glad the new camera is going well. I don't know why I was so nervous to change myself, after a couple of issues here and there at the start, it has been running great and fairly straight forward. As you say, there is a big improvement over a DSLR, especially noise, and no horrible banding! 😊

Edited April 13, 2021 by Rustang

[Stuf1978]

1 hour ago, Rustang said:

Looking good mate, glad the new camera is going well. I don't know why I was so nervous to change myself, after a couple of issues here and there at the start, it has been running great and fairly straight forward. As you say, there is a big improvement over a DSLR, especially noise, and no horrible banding! 😊

Thanks, yeah I should have done it earlier