North America and Pelican Nebulae

[Stuf1978]

Finally had a clear spell over the last two nights (although it was very murky last night especially), so managed to grab 6 hours of 5 minute subs on the North America and Pelican Nebula. 

WO Redcat/ZWO ASI 294MC Pro/Optolong L-eXtreme/HEQ5 from my Bortle 8 garden, stacked in DSS and processed in Siril and Photoshop

Critique welcome

 

Edited September 8, 2021 by Stuf1978

[Rustang]

Very nice 👏👏

[Stuf1978]

1 minute ago, Rustang said:

Very nice 👏👏

Cheers mate 👍

[Stuf1978]

Slight tweak of the colours, not sure if I prefer this version? 

[Stuf1978]

Yet another reprocess as I've been working on trying to produce bicolour images from OSC data for months without much success until now

 

[Catanonia]

12 hours ago, Stuf1978 said:

Yet another reprocess as I've been working on trying to produce bicolour images from OSC data for months without much success until now

 

 

Try this video - you may be able to get the techniques and apply to the software you are using

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Catanonia

[Stuf1978]

8 hours ago, Catanonia said:

Try this video - you may be able to get the techniques and apply to the software you are using

 

Thanks, I'll take a look 👍

[licho52]

I am wondering if (assuming you dithered your frames) you could use drizzle integration to get more detail out of the picture, considering that Redcat and 294MC give you about 4"/pix.   With my combo that had 2.8" I recovered a lot of detail with drizzle, it really works wonders.

Edited September 15, 2021 by licho52

[Stuf1978]

1 hour ago, licho52 said:

I am wondering if (assuming you dithered your frames) you could use drizzle integration to get more detail out of the picture, considering that Redcat and 294MC give you about 4"/pix.   With my combo that had 2.8" I recovered a lot of detail with drizzle, it really works wonders.

I don't think the image is lacking detail, and although the 294 and redcat combo is in theory significantly under-sampling I was under the impression that for widefield images such as this it isn't such an issue as you're not trying to resolve the finest of detail.

However, as you mention it, it's probably worth a shot restacking with drizzle just to see how it compares  

[licho52]

The picture is fine as it is but drizzling can reveal more and can also improve star shapes and increase SNR.  It's especially apparent in undersampled material, as I remember when I had 294MC with its relatively big pixel.  Once I started using drizzle it sort of became mandatory for me to do it due to the noticed improvements.  The downside is of course the fact that it's computationally intensive and can take long time and disk space.

The picture really makes me tempted to purchase a Redcat.  I am just worried I won't use it enough as I have 2 other telescopes and there's already not enough clear nights to use them.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

53 minutes ago, licho52 said:

The picture really makes me tempted to purchase a Redcat

I have hovered over the buy button several times since they came onto the market.
This really is a great FOV for this target.

Steve

[Stuf1978]

5 hours ago, licho52 said:

The picture is fine as it is but drizzling can reveal more and can also improve star shapes and increase SNR.  It's especially apparent in undersampled material, as I remember when I had 294MC with its relatively big pixel.  Once I started using drizzle it sort of became mandatory for me to do it due to the noticed improvements.  The downside is of course the fact that it's computationally intensive and can take long time and disk space.

The picture really makes me tempted to purchase a Redcat.  I am just worried I won't use it enough as I have 2 other telescopes and there's already not enough clear nights to use them.

That's good information and definitely food for thought. I'll try giving it a go and post the image back in this thread (probably won't get a chance until next week) to see if you can see a difference 😉

I love my Redcat, it's such a nicely built bit of kit and lovely to use. I know what you mean though as I have another two scopes as well, so it's always a dilemma on which one to use on those rare clear nights. 

4 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I have hovered over the buy button several times since they came onto the market.
This really is a great FOV for this target.

Steve

Do it, you won't regret it 😁

Agreed on the FOV, so nice for this target.