IC348, NGC1333 and friends mosaic.

[ollypenrice]

Another project with Paul Kummer, whose RASA 8/ASI2600 OSC rides on my Avalon Linear in one of our robotic sheds, the Observatoire Per Frejval.  6 panel mosaic, about 3 hours per panel in 3 minute subs.

This was a mosaic that did not play nicely and required three attempts to get to the stage of having a processable 6 panel to start with. Even then there was a lot of manual tweaking needed. 

The strawberry-like nebula is IC348 and above it is the colourful NGC1333. There's an interesting shaft of Ha light in the upper left as well.

 

Olly

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by ollypenrice

[vineyard]

That's gorgeous.  Only 3h each panel - yowsa.  NGC 1333 looking particularly inviting for deeper imaging (as is that little bluish region that's 3'o clock from it)!👍🏾👍🏾

[Adam J]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Another project with Paul Kummer, whose RASA 8/ASI246 OSC rides on my Avalon Linear in one of our robotic sheds, the Observatoire Per Frejval.  6 panel mosaic, about 3 hours per panel in 3 minute subs.

This was a mosaic that did not play nicely and required three attempts to get to the stage of having a processable 6 panel to start with. Even then there was a lot of manual tweaking needed. 

The strawberry-like nebula is IC348 and above it is the colourful NGC1333. There's an interesting shaft of Ha light in the upper left as well.

Olly

 

Looks great, never heard of an ASI246 before?

Adam

[Laurin Dave]

Very Nice Olly....   and Adam,  its a typo I believe... should be ASI2600mc

Dave

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, Adam J said:

Looks great, never heard of an ASI246 before?

Adam

Neither has anybody else, Adam! Sorry, a typo as Dave says, now corrected. Thanks.

Olly

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

This is awesome chaps, amazing detail considering the scale!  Love these widefield dusty views.

[gorann]

As I just commented on the Astrobin post, this is lovely! So much going on there, including your Strawberry. The top right corner is interesting and probably not that much imaged, and as you say Olly, also the top left. Gave me inspiration.
Cheers, Göran

[teoria_del_big_bang]

That is just superb, a thing of dreams for many of us (but one day maybe 🙂 ) as Göran says there is just so much going on you can look at it for ages and still be mesmerised.

Steve

[tomato]

Great mosaic result from another RASA/CMOS OSC combination, and dare I say with quite modest integration time per panel?

My word, there is a lot of crud in space, but it is very photogenic crud.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

23 minutes ago, tomato said:

My word, there is a lot of crud in space, but it is very photogenic crud.

Never heard of it put quite like that before, but yes essentially that's pretty much spot on 🤣

Steve

[GalaxyGael]

Fast wide field shots always give inspiration to new targets, especially mosaics. Lovely image. Question on the dust content in this region. Is is of variable thickness in the plane  or layers on dust closer to us on top of dust further back in space?

The dark central rift partitions what looks like overlayered dust and I guess with a lot more exposure time, this wide field image would show the dust lifting of the screen.

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

Great mosaic result from another RASA/CMOS OSC combination, and dare I say with quite modest integration time per panel?

My word, there is a lot of crud in space, but it is very photogenic crud.

Yes indeed, very modest exposure time. But if we compare the RASA 8 with an 80mm refractor, which might be the alternative at this kind of FL, the RASA has (allowing for the central obstruction) 4.9x the light grasp. So 3 hours equates to 14.7 hours. Six panels later, that comes to an alarming 88 hours, as opposed to 18. On the other hand the stellar image quality, seen at full resolution, is not as good in the RASA as from a good refractor. But then, on the other other hand, the fast F ratio is stunningly good on separating nuances in the dust.

I'm really enjoying the RASA. It's brought a fresh approach to imaging for me.

Olly

[tomato]

Yes, Olly, I am very grateful to @gorann for bringing  the RASA/OSC combination to my attention, the light gathering capability suits my somewhat impatient approach to AP perfectly!

I also get a good physical work out changing over the Esprits to the RASA on and off the mount, beats the gym any day...

[Xiga]

What about a dual rig consisting of a Rasa and a Refractor. The Rasa gets the dust, the frac the stars. 🤔

Great image btw 👍

[gorann]

35 minutes ago, Xiga said:

What about a dual rig consisting of a Rasa and a Refractor. The Rasa gets the dust, the frac the stars. 🤔

Great image btw 👍

I would not say that the RASA stars are that bad unless you are a bad pixel peeper, but I had the same idea but someone beat me by an hour from buying Olly's old Tak 106😥

[Xiga]

8 minutes ago, gorann said:

I would not say that the RASA stars are that bad unless you are a bad pixel peeper, but I had the same idea but someone beat me by an hour from buying Olly's old Tak 106😥

I agree Goran, the Rasa stars aren't that bad at all. I didn't mean to disparage them with my comment, but as Olly says, there is still a noticeable difference in quality when compared to a refractor. I've seen some incredible images taken with a Hyperstar + Tak combo where the Hyperstar captures all the dusty stuff and the Tak takes care of the stars.

You have 2 Rasa's don't you? Have you given any thought to trying out even a modest doublet on one of them, if even just as an experiment to see how well it would work? Rather than jumping in at the deep $$$ end with a Tak.  

[ollypenrice]

8 hours ago, Xiga said:

I agree Goran, the Rasa stars aren't that bad at all. I didn't mean to disparage them with my comment, but as Olly says, there is still a noticeable difference in quality when compared to a refractor. I've seen some incredible images taken with a Hyperstar + Tak combo where the Hyperstar captures all the dusty stuff and the Tak takes care of the stars.

You have 2 Rasa's don't you? Have you given any thought to trying out even a modest doublet on one of them, if even just as an experiment to see how well it would work? Rather than jumping in at the deep $$$ end with a Tak.  

What I do have is an image of this region from the Tak. With luck I may have the linear stacks on a hard drive in one observatory, meaning I'll be able to see how they combine. Should be fun.

Another trick in the pipleine will be to try a different cable route in front of the RASA's corrector. At present I've got the cables following a circular guide but I'll try a U shaped guide instead. These seem to have caught on.

I've never produced my images for pixel peepers and pixel peep myself only in order to get a feel for what's going on. All my processing is directed towards a normal viewing. Where I'm obliged to present at full size (small targets cropped from TEC140 data, usually) I obviously have to work differently.  In the case of this image the first thing I did was resample it to half size, at which it was still large enough. It's not intended to be 'zoomable' to very high resolution. If that were the objective then I guess I'd bite the 88 hour bullet! To take this image I really think the RASA is the right instrument. For cropped close-ups, it isn't.

Olly

[tomato]

I have a RASA8 and an Altair Wave 102mm F7 APO, they have never been side by side on the mount, so that is something I could try out.

[gorann]

9 hours ago, Xiga said:

I agree Goran, the Rasa stars aren't that bad at all. I didn't mean to disparage them with my comment, but as Olly says, there is still a noticeable difference in quality when compared to a refractor. I've seen some incredible images taken with a Hyperstar + Tak combo where the Hyperstar captures all the dusty stuff and the Tak takes care of the stars.

You have 2 Rasa's don't you? Have you given any thought to trying out even a modest doublet on one of them, if even just as an experiment to see how well it would work? Rather than jumping in at the deep $$$ end with a Tak.  

I actually have a SW Evostar 72ED sitting on top of one of the RASA8, but that is my guide scope (I used to have an ST80 but I decided to blame its flimsy focuser for bad guiding some nights). On the RASA next to it is right now a Samyang 135, but I do have a small TS71 quadruplet that I could put there. However, the problem would be to align it perfectly with the RASAs, not sure what I could use for that which would be stable enough. In any case, I do not mind the slightly soft stars produced by the RASAs and most of the time I strive to suppress the star field as much as possible to reveal more of the structure of the nebulosity, like in this recent post:

 

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

15 minutes ago, gorann said:

I actually have a SW Evostar 72ED sitting on top of one of the RASA8, but that is my guide scope (I used to have an ST80 but I decided to blame its flimsy focuser for bad guiding some nights). On the RASA next to it is right now a Samyang 135, but I do have a small TS71 quadruplet that I could put there. However, the problem would be to align it perfectly with the RASAs, not sure what I could use for that which would be stable enough. In any case, I do not mind the slightly soft stars produced by the RASAs and most of the time I strive to suppress the star field as much as possible to reveal more of the structure of the nebulosity, like in this recent post:

 

That's one heck of a binoviewer!  I'm not envious at all.... 😁

[tomato]

That's a great rig, I like to see Mesu mounts earning their keep.😄

[Laurin Dave]

12 minutes ago, tomato said:

That's a great rig, I like to see Mesu mounts earning their keep.😄

Indeed.... cable management needs work though    

[gorann]

5 hours ago, Laurin Dave said:

Indeed.... cable management needs work though    

No cable snags yet.......

[gorann]

6 hours ago, Zummerzet_Leveller said:

That's one heck of a binoviewer!  I'm not envious at all.... 😁

Thanks. Bu no viewing I am afraid - nowhere to put the eyepieces🤔

[tomato]

1 minute ago, gorann said:

Thanks. Bu no viewing I am afraid - nowhere to put the eyepieces🤔

Yes, I keep trying, but my head gets in the way. 
 

Maybe an inspection camera on the end of a FO cable?😉