LBN617 and open cluster NGC188.

[ollypenrice]

Lynd's Bright Nebula 617...  Humph, so where's the bright bit, Beverly???   For me, Google only finds one other image of this object, near Polaris, but it's been fun trying to extract what bit there is. 129 x 3 minutes using RASA 8/ ASI2600 OSC/ Avalon Linear based in one of our robotic sheds Observatoire Per Frejvall.  Software (the hard part!) and capture, Paul Kummer. Hardware and processing, me. Pixinsight for ABE and Photoshop for the rest.

 

I was surprised that AstroArt agreed to sigma-stack 129 50 meg images but it did, in only about 15 minutes. Then it turned out that we had another run of about 40 subs which I failed to spot on the capture PC, but that will be for another time...

Paul has been heroic on the software side.

Olly

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by ollypenrice

[gorann]

Very nice indeed Olly! Magnificent star coulour. How did the mount behave that close to Polaris? Is LBN617 the central structure in the image? I would think all of what is in there could be classified IFN. To the left you have caught the reddish squid-like nebula that I also have in an image of Polaris:

https://www.astrobin.com/gvntvo/K/

 

[vlaiv]

Can't help but notice it again ...

[ollypenrice]

3 hours ago, gorann said:

Very nice indeed Olly! Magnificent star coulour. How did the mount behave that close to Polaris? Is LBN617 the central structure in the image? I would think all of what is in there could be classified IFN. To the left you have caught the reddish squid-like nebula that I also have in an image of Polaris:

https://www.astrobin.com/gvntvo/K/

 

It's early days in setting up this mount and, so far, it's proving a little inconsistent, taking a while to settle down to lower RMS values. The first few runs included one or two wild tracking jumps every hour or so, though in the last run all 60 subs were good. The dynamic balance still isn't perfect because of the offset focuser but I need to do a bit of bracket making to fix that and haven't yet found the time. Paul also suspects that there may be some unusued software inputs in the system which might interfere with it. (I don't understand this bit so can't be clearer.)  RMS has been around 0.4" at best to around 1" at worst, so certainly variable.

Edit: Yes, I think LBN 617 is around the central star and, as you say, the rest looks like IFN.

 

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Can't help but notice it again ...

Normally you lose me with the maths: now you're being too cryptic!!! Fishing? Can of worms? Nope, you'll have to give me a clue! 😄

Olly

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by ollypenrice

[Stuf1978]

Stunning work, those star colours 😍

[ollypenrice]

13 minutes ago, Stuf1978 said:

Stunning work, those star colours 😍

I wondered what the RASA/CMOS would be like on star colour and have been pleasantly surprised. I thought the combination of super-fast F ratio and reduced well depth (after my Atik 11000) might give little star colour but in fact there's a lot. This may be connected with one of the scope's weaker points: stars tend to have a soft outer glow but, being soft and faint, this glow will contain a lot of star colour which can then be pulled in towards the cores in processing. I did this partly by the simple use of Noel's Actions Increase Star Colour and partly by selecting the stellar cores and blurring them to bring in the outer colour.

Olly

[Stuf1978]

26 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I wondered what the RASA/CMOS would be like on star colour and have been pleasantly surprised. I thought the combination of super-fast F ratio and reduced well depth (after my Atik 11000) might give little star colour but in fact there's a lot. This may be connected with one of the scope's weaker points: stars tend to have a soft outer glow but, being soft and faint, this glow will contain a lot of star colour which can then be pulled in towards the cores in processing. I did this partly by the simple use of Noel's Actions Increase Star Colour and partly by selecting the stellar cores and blurring them to bring in the outer colour.

Olly

Well it definitely works that's for sure. Look forward to seeing more of this 👍

[vlaiv]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Normally you lose me with the maths: now you're being too cryptic!!! Fishing? Can of worms? Nope, you'll have to give me a clue!

I was hoping that tilted heads will be dead giveaway - for some reason those skewed star halos make me want to tilt my head to make them "straight".

 

[ollypenrice]

7 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I was hoping that tilted heads will be dead giveaway - for some reason those skewed star halos make me want to tilt my head to make them "straight".

 

You're too deep, Vlaiv! 🤣  Re-doing the circular cable guide is on my list but I've been fixing lots of other things as well. The robotic rigs all run without attention for ages then they all need something doing at once. I'll get to it in the end. Meanwhile, don't look at it for too long without turning it upside down for the sake of your neck!

Olly

[peter shah]

another fine image Olly

[gorann]

42 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

You're too deep, Vlaiv! 🤣  Re-doing the circular cable guide is on my list but I've been fixing lots of other things as well. The robotic rigs all run without attention for ages then they all need something doing at once. I'll get to it in the end. Meanwhile, don't look at it for too long without turning it upside down for the sake of your neck!

Olly

I have to say I did not notice the skewed star halos and neither did I get what Vlaiv tried to say. It does not disturb me much, but yes, I get a bit of those halos too with my RASAs and have not yet messed with the cables to possibly fix it. It is easy enough to fix in processing, at least in PS.

[ollypenrice]

58 minutes ago, gorann said:

I have to say I did not notice the skewed star halos and neither did I get what Vlaiv tried to say. It does not disturb me much, but yes, I get a bit of those halos too with my RASAs and have not yet messed with the cables to possibly fix it. It is easy enough to fix in processing, at least in PS.

I can fix non-round stars in Ps easily enough but slightly oval outer haloes are not so obvious. I'm just fooling around with this problem at the moment. I didn't really notice them much either, I must admit. That man from the East has a lot to answer for! 

Olly

[tomato]

Lovely “off the beaten track” image.

I must admit I thought the key item in Vlaiv’s fishing photo was the can of worms relating to the recent PopArt LRGB colour rendition thread,  but to be honest there is nothing I would want or could do to improve the colour in this image.

[gorann]

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I can fix non-round stars in Ps easily enough but slightly oval outer haloes are not so obvious. I'm just fooling around with this problem at the moment. I didn't really notice them much either, I must admit. That man from the East has a lot to answer for! 

Olly

I just use a curve to darken the halo in PS, then use it as a layer and brush tool to darken it selectivelly where it protrudes. Voala - a round halo!

[ollypenrice]

@vlaiv

😁lly

[wimvb]

What took the longest time, fixing the stars or fixing Forest & son?

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

What took the longest time, fixing the stars or fixing Forest & son?

The stars!

[gorann]

On 02/10/2021 at 16:43, ollypenrice said:

I can fix non-round stars in Ps easily enough but slightly oval outer haloes are not so obvious. I'm just fooling around with this problem at the moment. I didn't really notice them much either, I must admit. That man from the East has a lot to answer for! 

Olly

I was thinking, why not just keep them in there as a trade mark of the RASA with a circular cable arrangement, just like star spikes on Newtons and the Hubble. It may drive out man from the East nuts, but.....

[Catanonia]

Having the exact same combo, I aspire to this   If ONLY I had your skies Olly

[vlaiv]

34 minutes ago, gorann said:

I was thinking, why not just keep them in there as a trade mark of the RASA with a circular cable arrangement, just like star spikes on Newtons and the Hubble. It may drive out man from the East nuts, but.....

I have no issues with circular cable management - in the same way I don't mind diffraction spikes.  I do however object then cable circle is tilted - in the same way I object when scope is not collimated properly .

[ollypenrice]

17 hours ago, vlaiv said:

I have no issues with circular cable management - in the same way I don't mind diffraction spikes.  I do however object then cable circle is tilted - in the same way I object when scope is not collimated properly .

Collimate those cables, Olly! 

[gorann]

Not sure how we could avoid oval halos if they are caused by the circular cables going out on one side, unless we make two more dummy circles oriented like clover leafs. But the net effect of that would be bigger halos.

[vlaiv]

1 hour ago, gorann said:

Not sure how we could avoid oval halos if they are caused by the circular cables going out on one side, unless we make two more dummy circles oriented like clover leafs. But the net effect of that would be bigger halos.

Oval halos are made by oval cross section of circular cable. It is oval because it is tilted. Tilted stuff needs collimation - that bit is obvious

Take circle and look at it face on - it will be circle - but look at it from an angle and it will be ellipse. For example, this image clearly shows what happens when you look at circle from an angle :

[skybadger]

That earth is flat!

 

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Oval halos are made by oval cross section of circular cable. It is oval because it is tilted. Tilted stuff needs collimation - that bit is obvious

Take circle and look at it face on - it will be circle - but look at it from an angle and it will be ellipse. For example, this image clearly shows what happens when you look at circle from an angle :

I don't know what they drink in Serbia but I want to try it...

Olly