First dedicated astro camera. Questions about image artifacts

[make]

Hi,

I recently took the leap and got my first dedicated astro camera. Camera in question is ZWO ASI 183MM-PRO. Couple of nights ago I managed to get my first light (exciting times!) I've got couple of questions about image artifacts I am seeing in the images I captured. I know I got lots to learn and there's probably multiple things wrong but I am trying to figure these things out one problem at a time! :)

 

I will attach one light and one flat frame I have taken. You will see on the side of the image there is a tons of horizontal lines. Is this something wrong with my equipment or something I am doing wrong? Any Ideas?

 

Thank you!

[Adreneline]

That looks like a really promising start.

To help people help you did you take any other calibration frames? e.g. darks, dark-flats, bias? If so how many?

Adrian

[make]

1 hour ago, Adreneline said:

That looks like a really promising start.

To help people help you did you take any other calibration frames? e.g. darks, dark-flats, bias? If so how many?

Adrian

Hi. This is un processed image. Looks like stacking got rid of most of the artifacts on the edges. I was just wondering if it's normal to have that many artifacts before the processing? I took 20 darks, 20 dark-flats and 20 flats.

 

I added stacked and cropped image as attachment. Very minimal processing otherwise. I guess it's not TOO bad for a first go. Seems slightly out of focus I'd say.

[Budgie1]

That's looking better.

It may also help if you could list the scope you use, whether it has any reducer/flattener attached, any filters used for this image and the camera gain, offset & exposure settings.

[make]

1 minute ago, Budgie1 said:

That's looking better.

It may also help if you could list the scope you use, whether it has any reducer/flattener attached, any filters used for this image and the camera gain, offset & exposure settings.

Starwave 80 ED Triplet with 1x flattener. No filters for this image. I do have LRGB set but I was just concentrating on getting everything working on this first go without worrying about the filters. Took 20 120sec exposures on gain 177 which was totally randomly selected as I forgot to change it!

[Adreneline]

59 minutes ago, make said:

Seems slightly out of focus I'd say.

I think you are probably correct on that one; it's certainly looking a lot better now. Are you using any sort of focussing aid, e.g. a Bahtinov Mask? - or software such as SharpCap?

I would get everything else sorted before you start experimenting with gain and offset. On my ASI1600MM-Pro I only ever use unity gain (139) and the default offset of 50. I also only use 120s or 180s exposures and all at -20 degrees. Sticking with 139 / 50 / -20 keeps the number of calibration frame options down to a manageable number.

Good luck!