wow...Orion Nebula was a shocker!! What happened here? HELP!! :)

[oymd]

Good evening everyone.

Had been away from my rig on travels abroad since 22nd November.

My Esprit was stored in a cupboard in a warm room inside the house, surrounded with desiccants, and a plastic bag including 5 desiccant pouches tied with a rubber band on the flatteners side.

Yesterday was my first night imaging. (This is NOT in the UK)

No clouds, temps were around 18C. There was some haze. Do not know how to describe it really. Sky was clear, but visually I could not see plenty of stars.

I am yet to configure the EAF properly on the Esprit. The BACKLASH setting is driving me crazy.

Anyways, after I think I got the autofocus set properly in NINA, and got a V curve, I attempted M42.

At 120s, all the subs were just FLOODED with light and overexposed. Tried M45, and again, anything over 120 seconds was just flooded with GREEN.

So, I tried M42 at 60s. I imaged 60x60s. 294MC Pro, with the Optolong UV/IR 2" filter (brand new and just taken out of its wrapping for this imaging session)

The first images coming in showed HORRENDOUS DUST and LP

Undid the imaging train, and everything VISUALLY looked fine.

Used my Giottas air blower on EVRYTHING, and redid M42. Less motes, but still plenty!

Took flats and Dark Flats with my Geoptik Flat panel.

WBPP in PI, and the result is TERRIBLE??

What's going on here?

Flats seem to be infective?

And the result is terrible.

At the very least, is the FOCUS good?

Attached is the processed image in PI, as well as raw Master Light, and Master Flat, as well as M42 imaged in early November with same exact rig and from same location, except with WO Star 71.

masterFlat_BIN-1_FILTER-NoFilter_CFA.xisf masterLight_BIN-1_EXPOSURE-60.00s_FILTER-60s_RGB.xisf

[wongataa]

Did you see what happened if you removed the new Optolong filter?

[oymd]

51 minutes ago, wongataa said:

Did you see what happened if you removed the new Optolong filter?

That was on my mind. That's why in my post I highlighted the fact it was brand new and in box, and it was clean and pristine.

I am planning on imaging without it tonight.

What do you think of the focus? NINA gave me a good V-Curve, but I do not have a bhatinov mask large enough to check visually.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Focus looks ok to me. If it's out, it's not out by much.

When you say 120s subs were 'flooded with LP', what precisely do you mean? Did you have the subs or happen to note some of the image statistics?

What gain and offset do you have set in NINA?

[oymd]

25 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Focus looks ok to me. If it's out, it's not out by much.

When you say 120s subs were 'flooded with LP', what precisely do you mean? Did you have the subs or happen to note some of the image statistics?

What gain and offset do you have set in NINA?

The gain and offset have been the same, and I never changed them. I think it was 120 and 30, I'll check, but I never changed it in NINA, and I had imaged dozens of targets successfully over the past few months.

The only thing I changed was removing the WO Star 71 scope, and replacing it with the Esprit and the UV/IR filter, as I was aiming to image M33, but it was too low.

With regards to FLOODED WITH LP, what I meant was: In the IMAGING tab in NINA, just I saw the first sub come in, it was like I was imaging at dawn, or sunset. It was completely dark, but the image was just GREEN when NINA applied the debayer and autstretch to the sub preview

[iantaylor2uk]

You'll have more light gathering capacity with the Esprit, due to its bigger aperture. Also 120 secs sounds way too long for Orion. I usually only do 30 secs and even that usually blows the core out.

[oymd]

13 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

You'll have more light gathering capacity with the Esprit, due to its bigger aperture. Also 120 secs sounds way too long for Orion. I usually only do 30 secs and even that usually blows the core out.

Yes, its not the actual target that I am concerned about here.

It is the quality of the image and the sky around the nebula.

This is a CALIBRATED master image, processed in PI.

The sky is horrendous, and the dust motes are everywhere!

[oymd]

6 hours ago, iantaylor2uk said:

You'll have more light gathering capacity with the Esprit, due to its bigger aperture. Also 120 secs sounds way too long for Orion. I usually only do 30 secs and even that usually blows the core out.

 

7 hours ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Focus looks ok to me. If it's out, it's not out by much.

When you say 120s subs were 'flooded with LP', what precisely do you mean? Did you have the subs or happen to note some of the image statistics?

What gain and offset do you have set in NINA?

 

12 hours ago, wongataa said:

Did you see what happened if you removed the new Optolong filter?

Ok, so tonight I tried something different.

NO HAZE, and the sky is definitely cleaner, but NOT GREAT. I am in Bortle 7-8

I decided to image M31.

I had imaged it a couple of months ago using the same imaging train with the WO Star 71, and the result was quite good. I imaged 300s subs, Gain 120 and offset 30, which is the dfault. I NEVER CHANGED those settings, and was not aware that I should change them depending on the image or filter?

So tonight I decided to try with:

1- Optolong UV/IR filter

2- NO filter

3- Optolong L-eNhance, but on ANOTHER target, specifically IC1805.

ALL SUBS were 180s, Gain 120, Offset 30.

1- First sub of M31 with Optolong UV/IR. ABORTED obviously

2- First sub of M31 with NO filter.  ABORTED obviously. First one is stretched by NINA, and second one with stretch removed.

 

 

 

 

 

3- First sub of IC1805 with Optolong L-eNhance. Will continue a run of 60 subs and see what the result is.

 

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Ok, well the image stats seem to be normal in that last image, so clearly there's no problem with the camera or the settings.

The histogram is pushed hard up against the right hand side in those m31 images, which can only mean there's a light source shining into the scope, surely?