M16 Eagle Nebula at 2350mm

[powerlord]

I had scope setup for shooting saturn in the morning. Obviously FF/reducer would usually be used for this - and was for my last attempt, but since it was setup, here's what I managed to get with the asi1600 Ha/Oiii last night.

Seeing was not the best, irrespective of what the sites were saying - no doubt because it was boiling hot and the atmosphere wavering around like a swimming pool.

[ollypenrice]

Well done - and pretty low in the sky from Suffolk, I imagine.

Olly

[powerlord]

ta, yeh its only at 24 degrees, and there's lots of light pollution down that low where I am, so not ideal. Even so, the atmosphere was not my friend - star size average of 8 is double what I'd expect with this setup usually. I shot saturn that morning (see planetary) and that also showed the poor seeing.

I also thought I'd be smart, having not used this setup before and SCTs having such a massive focal range travel knobs- so I set it all up upstairs in daylight where I could focus on something about a mile away.

smuggly then went out at 11 to setup, and realised I'd set it all up with the 6.3FF still on.. so had to start again... farting around trying to see a star for ages, asiair taking a picture and downloading every 10 seconds.. frustrating.

Edited July 21, 2022 by powerlord

[Elp]

14 minutes ago, powerlord said:

trying to see a star for ages, asiair taking a picture and downloading every 10 seconds.. frustrating

Do you not use the focus routine?

[powerlord]

yes, but that has to be very close to start with. If you can't even see stars, it won't do anything useful. With the SCT having around 30 full turns, you need to be pretty much spot on before you trigger the asiair AF.

In daylight it's really easy. At night it's a pain - usually you can't accurately point at a very bright star - which would give you a massive circle obvious even with out of fov - your on polaris. And unless you are really close you see nothing at all. Video mode would help, if it wasn't for the fact in their wisdom ZWO have a buffer delay on it, so it's just as much of a pain as preview.

What I had to do in the end, was plug in a laptop and use firecapture - that gave me a decent refresh rate, and I could work through the whole range to find the focus.

It's why I try to record the rough focus point with each config in the form '17 1/2 turn CCW from fully CW' - then I can set up at night. With a new config even if you think back focus is about the same, it can still be off enough that you see nothing and spend ages twiddling one way or the other to see anything. The oberving brigade have it easy with their superior light capture devices. 😛

[Elp]

I understand now. I've done it with my C6, the main issue I find is that the exposure range needs to be set around 1-2 seconds but whilst youre focusing you're vibrating the setup on every turn so unable to see the effect as well until it dampens down. Sometimes I point the scope directly up as there's usually more stars. Great image by the way, one I want to do but it's too low for me.

[Rodd]

I like the palette. I think you put the petal to the floor with sharpening/stretching.  There are alot of artifacts around the edge of the pillars, and elsewhere. I think if you backed off the stretch s bit and dialed the sharpening down (how ever you did it), these issues would not be visible and the image would fly like an eagle 

[powerlord]

I really just did that for viewing on forum. To try and put an edge to it. It's very soft otherwise to be honest. But I might post a version without topaz sharpening so u can see what u think.