IC 1318: Butterfly Nebula - Qhy268m first light

[Xiga]

After what has seemed like an interminable wait, i've finally been able to complete an image again, almost a full year since my last one. I sent the mount off to get 'tuned' but the less said about that the better. Anyways, it's good to be back in the saddle again. 

Acquisition for this one has been difficult. After 5 years of doing AP, and not losing a single sub, not one (even doing 20 min ones regularly) i'm now having issues with eggy stars (at best) or trailed ones (at worst). I've been blaming the mount during the last month or so that it took to capture this data, but in truth i think it's mostly been down to differential flexure, a problem i never had before. Anyway, i've now got some new rings and mounting arrangement for the finder-guider, and was able to use it on the last data session, and things went a lot better for it, so fingers crossed i'm over the worst of it now. Still need one more good night on both sides of the meridian to know for sure though. 

So even after ditching a lot of subs, i was still able to salvage most of the Oiii and Sii data for this, as even though the stars were not great, i was only using those channels for tone mapping anyway (and a separate HSO stack just for star colours too). Thankfully, most of the Ha data had ok stars, although i do have some tilt towards the bottom left i think, and which i'm trying very hard to ignore!

Details:

53 x 6 mins of Ha (Baader 3.5nm UNB)
42 x 6 mins of Oiii (Baader 8.5nm)
23 x 6 mins of Sii (Baader 8nm)

Total exposure 11:48

SW80ED, HEQ5-Pro.

Qhy268m. Mode 1, Gain 56, Offset 25, -10c. 

Stacked in AstroPixelProcessor, processed in PS. Resized to 80% as i didn't think 100% was offering anything more, and it also helped hide a little more noise. 

C&C welcome, and CS!

Edited September 19, 2021 by Xiga

[tooth_dr]

Very nice Ciarán. I’m sure it feels great to back into it again!   The tilt looks to quite minor, but maybe you have done some corrective work on the stars in that corner?  

[Allinthehead]

That's a great first light, beautifully processed as always.

[Xiga]

49 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Very nice Ciarán. I’m sure it feels great to back into it again!   The tilt looks to quite minor, but maybe you have done some corrective work on the stars in that corner?  

Thanks Adam 👍 Hope you're keeping well. 

It does feel good to finally be back imaging again! Although it's been a very frustrating month, as out of about 6 sessions only the last one went without issue. Up to now I've just been lucky to have never had any technical issues with the gear, so this is an unwelcome first for me. I'm hopeful the next clear night will go as planned though, now I've re-jigged the finder-guider. 

The image above has had no star reduction or manipulation. This is just the Ha stars as they are, and I have to say it's so nice not having to tame them in processing, so I'm very pleased with the 3.5nm filter (even though Sadr did have a pretty big halo). Some of the sessions were ok, and one or two showed what I thought looked like tilt, but stacking them all has kind of hidden most of the effect. I also definitely had diff flexure too so that was also muddying the waters. I really need a good session of guiding on both sides of the meridian to know for sure where things are at. 

[Xiga]

18 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

That's a great first light, beautifully processed as always.

Thanks Richard! I've had the camera since February, and have been itching to put it to use ever since. 

The camera has definitely impressed me I must say. The sensitivity is great, before with the Atik 383 I could never sufficiently swamp the RN in a Narrowband sub, no matter how long I exposed. No problem in that department now. Only downside is I am currently manually swapping filters. Ok for NB, but for broadband I could quickly end up as a zombie. Maybe next year I can pick up an OSC version of this chip, and leave the mono just for NB. 

[Xiga]

Still getting my eye back in after a year out. Had another look at this tonight, and decided the previous version was just too bright. Plus, it was bringing out the noise a bit too much for my liking, so used Curves to lower the midtones a bit. Also, reduced the image size down to 70%. Calling it quits on this one now!