North American Nebula - Samyang 135mm

[kirkster501]

A new combination I am using - my Samyang 135mm and the QHY268C, a combination that gives a huge wide field.  I do not have the back spacing precisely right just yet but this is not a bad first go.  It is also my first time out with NINA capture software and I am giving up on SGP.

The image is just 19 x 180s with the lens at F2.8 and guided.  I need to stop the lens down another stop to improve the corners.  The gain and offset of the flats and darks I made afterwards do not match that of the lights, doh!,  but they seem to have worked ok.

I need to use an aperture mask moving forward and fully open the lens to get rid of the spikes around the bright stars.

Anyway, hope you like it.

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by kirkster501

[peter shah]

the trusty Samyang 135 wins a gain....great job lovely process

[Chris-h]

Very nice. I love my 135!

[Tommohawk]

Lovely image, nicely processed and framed - good job!

[tomato]

Lovely image, just recently purchased a second hand Samyang 135 with the Sony fitting so it needs a bit of fettling before I can attach my 268c to it, but I’m looking forward to it.

[Roy Foreman]

That is a great wide field view of the north America nebula. Well done. I have a Nikon 135mm F2, and your image has inspired me to try some wide field imaging with it !

[Astroscot2]

That's a great image, and not even an hours with of data,  can I ask if you used a LP filter?

[kirkster501]

Hi mate thanks, yes I did, an LDAS LP filter.

[kirkster501]

More data would bring out further nebulosity.  I am wanting to do a large panel of the  Cygnus/Cepheus/Cassiopeia area with this rig - if it ever stays clear for long enough that is,

[ollypenrice]

Great field!

That was a 6-panel in the FSQ106/Full frame setup.

Olly

[kirkster501]

Indeed Olly and at that F ratio it gathers a huge amount of light very rapidly so you can get a lot done with this rig.

[gorann]

Impressive image Steve! It reminds me to put my Samyang 135 as piggy-back on my double-RASA rig. I recently gave an old Canon FD 200mm f/2.8 (bought cheaply on ebay) a try as piggy-back but its stars were nowhere close to what the Samyang gives.

[kirkster501]

Thanks for the kind comments all.  Yes, without wanting to sound smug, I am impressed too.  This was only meant to be a "test run" the same day I put this rig together.  I tentatively grabbed a few subs before it clouded over, thinking they would be junk and I'd be tinkering a lot more with the setup.  However, to my great surprise they weren't junk at all and this picture is the result.  Literally just pre processing with flats, darks and darkflats and a very small bit of post processing - just noise reeducation, stretch and a colour saturation boost.  That's it.  I do need to drop a F-stop to try and improve the corners.

I think this APS-C colour sensor in the QHY268C and the Samyang 135mm are made for each other.

My permanent mounted dual rig is now the FSQ85 (reduced) and G2-8300 and TEC140 with Atik460.  Then I have this Samyang setup on this page and I also like to do some wide field DLSR 50mm stuff too.  I can have all four rigs going on a clear night to maximise my data.

Edited September 11, 2021 by kirkster501

[Chefgage]

That's a really nice image. I myself took a set of images using the 135mm samyang of the same target as you. I agree with the 'not trying to sound smug'. I too was very impressed with the image it produced. I took mine in a bortle 3 sky whilst on holiday. My usual sky is bortle 8, hence why I am now buying extra lottery tickets so I can move down there!!