Sadr Region in Ha

[Adreneline]

No astro darkness and pretty rubbish seeing but hey-ho the gear was suffering from a severe lack of use so decided to brush off the dust and have a go anyway.

This is 45 x 180s of Ha using the RedCat + ASI1600MM; calibrated, registered and integrated in APP, processed in PI and tweaked in Affinity.

I thought it was worth including the starless image as well as there is so much structure to see in the nebulosity.

Thanks for looking.

As always C&C welcomed.

Adrian

Edited May 31, 2021 by Adreneline
Typo

[geeklee]

Lovely Adrian.  Nothing there to suggest it was anything other than a successful outing! Great seeing the starless version if only to focus my eye on certain areas I may have missed looking at the star filled one.

It's only civil darkness up here and you can tell even at 23:30 it's still not that dark at all!  I was out having a play with the Samyang (and Ha) in this area too last night.

[Adreneline]

Thank you Lee.

27 minutes ago, geeklee said:

I was out having a play with the Samyang (and Ha) in this area too last night.

I've been reconfiguring my Samyang - again! My brother-in-law has printed some stuff off for me. It's still a w.i.p. - I'm trying to learn how to use Fusion 360 so I can create an HTD form gear to attach to the lens focus ring - I'm getting a bit old to learn new software  Also got the WO handle/guide-scope mount on order to improve that aspect. I know the 294 (which I bought with the RC in mind) is not a good match but for adding RGB to NB I still think it has potential.

It might be a rubbish time for serious imaging but it's still useful for trying new things and refining existing gear - like fitting the EAF to the RC in preparation for 10th June.

Does refining ever finish?

Adrian

Edited May 31, 2021 by Adreneline
Typo

[geeklee]

20 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

I've been reconfiguring my Samyang - again! My brother-in-law has printed some stuff off for me. It's still a w.i.p. - I'm trying to learn how to use Fusion 360 so I can create an HTD form gear to attach to the lens focus ring - I'm getting abit old to learn new software

This could be extremely well timed... I'll drop you a PM.   I haven't a had a chance to post some photos but I've been busy configuring EAF on my Samyang based on your ideas and previous iterations and have done what you mention above (an HTD 3M and a GT2 2mm)

20 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

Also go the WO handle/guide-scope mount on order to improve that aspect. I know the 294 (which I bought with the RC in mind) is not a good match but for adding RGB to NB I still think it has potential.

Definitely.  That setup is looking very compact and neat.  The handle should finish it off nicely... for now  

20 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

It might be a rubbish time for serious imaging but it's still useful for trying new things and refining existing gear

Agreed, that's a couple of nights I've been out checking/refining.  Wish I could start earlier than 23:00++!

Edited May 31, 2021 by geeklee

[AbsolutelyN]

Superb Adrian! 

[Adreneline]

3 minutes ago, AbsolutelyN said:

Superb Adrian! 

Thank you Tristan - it worked better than I expected.

I tried the OII filter at about 01.00 - a moment of particularly wishful thinking - how foolish of me!

Adrian

[geeklee]

23 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

I tried the OII filter at about 01.00 - a moment of particularly wishful thinking - how foolish of me!

😅 You've saved me the bother of doing something similar.  In my head I was saying "Surely this will work fine".

[AbsolutelyN]

It's really nice and proves you don't need total astro dark to get excellent images. 

[Rustang]

Very nice   I'm interested to know why you have only taken short subs at 180 sec's !? 

[Adreneline]

4 minutes ago, Rustang said:

Very nice   I'm interested to know why you have only taken short subs at 180 sec's !? 

Hi.

Thank you.

Habit is probably the honest answer.

I used to live in a Bortle 5/6 area and going beyond 180s offered no benefit. Haing moved to a Bortle 2/3 area I'm still using 180s (and sometimes 120s and 60s) simply because I have Master Dark frames to match. I also used to live under the flight path for a fairly busy airport (EMA) and when I used 300s or even 600s with my previous CCD far too many frames were wrecked by passing aircraft coming into land - the discard rate with 180s was far less.

I suppose I should try experimenting in this location with (a) longer exposures and (b) changing the gain when the astro dark skies return.

Have to say I am pretty happy with the depth I get using 180s, gain 139, offest 50 and -20 degrees but I really should experiment more I guess.

Adrian  

[Rustang]

51 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

Hi.

Thank you.

Habit is probably the honest answer.

I used to live in a Bortle 5/6 area and going beyond 180s offered no benefit. Haing moved to a Bortle 2/3 area I'm still using 180s (and sometimes 120s and 60s) simply because I have Master Dark frames to match. I also used to live under the flight path for a fairly busy airport (EMA) and when I used 300s or even 600s with my previous CCD far too many frames were wrecked by passing aircraft coming into land - the discard rate with 180s was far less.

I suppose I should try experimenting in this location with (a) longer exposures and (b) changing the gain when the astro dark skies return.

Have to say I am pretty happy with the depth I get using 180s, gain 139, offest 50 and -20 degrees but I really should experiment more I guess.

Adrian  

I see, It certainly seems to work well with 180 sec's  I would love to come away from 600 subs, it feels like such a long time. I'm also bortle 5/6, I'm wondering if I could get away with 180 sec with my older CCD, I'm not sure how to tell though unless its simply a case of do you get the same level of detail!? I guess there are also factors like sensitivity of the sensor and other tech stuff that plays apart too!? I'm also on this target, trying to get any OIII is like trying to flog a dead horse though! 😕

Edited June 2, 2021 by Rustang

[Adreneline]

33 minutes ago, Rustang said:

I'm also on this target, trying to get any OIII is like trying to flog a dead horse though! 😕

I tried OIII once I'd taken 20 frames of Ha. Just one frame convinced me I was wasting my time with no astro darkness; OIII will have to wait a few weeks I think.

When I went to longer than 180s in my previous location all that happened was the background levels came up and there was no perceptible improvement in detail from the target. With my CCD (Atik428ex - now sold) I was able to push it up to 300s and even 600s and there was an improvement in depth but at the expense of more wasted frames from low flying aircraft which would literally obliterate pretty much everything in the fov. Some nights the planes were landing 2 minutes apart so a 10 minute sub would be a total write-off.

Adrian

 

[Rustang]

19 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

I tried OIII once I'd taken 20 frames of Ha. Just one frame convinced me I was wasting my time with no astro darkness; OIII will have to wait a few weeks I think.

When I went to longer than 180s in my previous location all that happened was the background levels came up and there was no perceptible improvement in detail from the target. With my CCD (Atik428ex - now sold) I was able to push it up to 300s and even 600s and there was an improvement in depth but at the expense of more wasted frames from low flying aircraft which would literally obliterate pretty much everything in the fov. Some nights the planes were landing 2 minutes apart so a 10 minute sub would be a total write-off.

Adrian

 

Mines a QHY 9 mono, I think it needs to be pushed to 600 -1200 sec subs from memory and its been working ok but saving time and adding more subs might give a different result, not sure as I'm still learning!. I probably am wasting my time trying to get some OIII but also trying to make the most of what ever imaging I can get, 3hrs worth has produced a very faint amount but stretched to the max, I might try and get a few more hours then just see how it goes.  

[Adreneline]

34 minutes ago, Rustang said:

I probably am wasting my time trying to get some OIII but also trying to make the most of what ever imaging I can get

Well I guess you won't know until you give it a go. My experience with OIII has not been good unless it is very dark and clear - i.e. no Moon and very good seeing. I've found that although I can get something to start to produce a HOO or H(HO)O image the noise from the OIII can really spoil excellent Ha data. SII is better but not a lot of use to combine with Ha unless you have OIII as well.

Good luck - I look forward to seeing how you get on.

 

[Rustang]

40 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

Well I guess you won't know until you give it a go. My experience with OIII has not been good unless it is very dark and clear - i.e. no Moon and very good seeing. I've found that although I can get something to start to produce a HOO or H(HO)O image the noise from the OIII can really spoil excellent Ha data. SII is better but not a lot of use to combine with Ha unless you have OIII as well.

Good luck - I look forward to seeing how you get on.

 

Thanks, Ive had to learn some very useful processing techniques for some not so great OIII/SII data and that's been getting me by. I dont have the strongest of NB filters either but will up grade one day, really enjoying the learning curve of NB imaging though.

[Adreneline]

44 minutes ago, Rustang said:

Ive had to learn some very useful processing techniques for some not so great OIII/SII data and that's been getting me by.

We never stop learning new methods and techniques.

One thing I have found helpful with weak data (following StarAlign, Dynamic Crop, ABE and cloning) is to give it an initial couple (maybe three) modest stretches, then remove the stars with Starnet, then carry on stretching as far as you dare, then back it off one (cos' I always go too far  ) and then apply LHE with settings of 1.2 and 384 to increase the contrast. After that I combine with the Ha - also starless. Once I've created my starless SHO/HOO whatever, I use the cloned copies to combine and stretch (not too much) to reinsert the stars using a Lighten layer, or equivalent. This approach helps to keep the stars in check whilst at the same time allowing you to stretch the living daylights of the NB data  

Of course this all assumes you have PI but I'm sure there are ways of doing something similar in other packages.

Apologies if I am "teaching you to suck eggs" as they say.

HTH.

Good luck.

Adrian

Edited June 2, 2021 by Adreneline
Clarification

[AstroAndy]

Awesome pic., Adrian, the starless version is amazing, you saved all the detail.

[Adreneline]

47 minutes ago, AstroAndy said:

Awesome pic., Adrian, the starless version is amazing, you saved all the detail.

Thank you Andy.

I quite like starless versions of nebula, after all we are trying to image the nebula and not the stars. I think removing the stars can make you much more aware of the structure although I know plenty disagree with starless versions. Each to their own

Thanks again.

Adrian

[AstroAndy]

Indeed, while the stars are there, without them, it doesn't distract from the neb. It's just a pain to get them off, lol, however, it's also good for replacing ha stars with RGB ones.