Elephant's trunk nebula. It's only taken me 10 years to post an image!

[Petrol]

I started imaging about 10 years ago with limited success. I went the whole 9 yards and built this roll off.....     Link to roll off build 
I seemed to have the infrastructure there, the roll off was quick and easy. Mount was solid in a cubic metre of steel reinforced concrete. Guiding was ok back in the days of PHD1 but the images were poor and not really worthy of posting on here. Life got in the way but now I'm back and after many upgrades - RASA, ZWO OSC cam, Samyang 135, Pixinsight ect. It's been a monumental learning curve especially using new software.
I now use NINA for for scope control, plate solving and imaging. Pix for processing

I'd Like to thank Olly for his advice on hardware and in particular, Laurin Dave for his monumental help on processing. This guy has saved me hours and hours of hassle and frustration. Mucho respect.

I know I have a camera tilt problem, that's on the back burner for now but this is what I managed

EQ6
Rasa 8
ASi294MC pro
90 120s Lights
30 Flats with Geoptic panel
30 darks
Bortle 6


All comments welcome. I want to improve
Thank you for looking
Pete
 

[Sunshine]

Fantastic!

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Very Nice image 🙂 

Steve

[simmo39]

Yep v nice. I know there is no up and down in space as such but to me the image is upside down. lol

[Petrol]

8 hours ago, simmo39 said:

Yep v nice. I know there is no up and down in space as such but to me the image is upside down. lol

I still can't get the basics right 😆

Thanks for the feedback 👍

Pete

[tomato]

Great image, well worth the wait 👍

[Fegato]

15 hours ago, Petrol said:

I still can't get the basics right 😆

Thanks for the feedback 👍

Pete

 

Nice one!  But it's not so much upside down as a mirror image - with the RASA you need to flip each image after integration.  As for the "right way up" - well there really isn't one, that is up to you. After all it goes round in a big circle up there, so any way round is correct!

[ollypenrice]

That's terrific.

Regarding tilt, have you seen the tilt thread on here?

Olly

[Petrol]

On 10/01/2023 at 14:40, simmo39 said:

Yep v nice. I know there is no up and down in space as such but to me the image is upside down. lol

We're all still laughing about that in my household 🤣

11 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

That's terrific.

Regarding tilt, have you seen the tilt thread on here?

Olly

Thanks Olly, that will be my next job along with the Samyang rig I'm on with 😵
I doubt you will remember but you suggested both the RASA and the SY 135, I listened and took your advice 👍 Going back many many years you helped me out when I didn't know what guiding was....... and I still have the ST80 guidescope which will be back in action with my Newt

I'm amazed how things have moved on.....
Nina is awesome especially with the plate solving and meridian flip
Pixinsight is an ass to get to grips with but with my very limited knowledge, seems to sort out most of the problems especially background noise and colours with a OSC cam
Then there's OSC narrowband filters...... wow what a monumental difference they make. It's night and day with my light pollution.
Its funny though how some of the fundamentals never change. Solid pier (big hole in the ground 😆) good mechanics in the mount and good seeing.
I've bought a lot of gear on this forum and everything has been spot on. I've also learned a lot and would like to thank everyone for their help and advice. This comunnity is awesome!
Clear skies

Pete
 

[ollypenrice]

9 hours ago, Petrol said:

We're all still laughing about that in my household 🤣

Thanks Olly, that will be my next job along with the Samyang rig I'm on with 😵
I doubt you will remember but you suggested both the RASA and the SY 135, I listened and took your advice 👍 Going back many many years you helped me out when I didn't know what guiding was....... and I still have the ST80 guidescope which will be back in action with my Newt

I'm amazed how things have moved on.....
Nina is awesome especially with the plate solving and meridian flip
Pixinsight is an ass to get to grips with but with my very limited knowledge, seems to sort out most of the problems especially background noise and colours with a OSC cam
Then there's OSC narrowband filters...... wow what a monumental difference they make. It's night and day with my light pollution.
Its funny though how some of the fundamentals never change. Solid pier (big hole in the ground 😆) good mechanics in the mount and good seeing.
I've bought a lot of gear on this forum and everything has been spot on. I've also learned a lot and would like to thank everyone for their help and advice. This comunnity is awesome!
Clear skies

Pete
 

I do remember the earlier conversations, possibly because of the Preston connection. (I used to work there.)

Another huge advance is a recent one. Star Xterminator transforms post processing by giving control over star size while still stretching very hard. This is a huge step forward in imaging.

Olly

[Chris]

Looks fantastic! Hopefully you wont leave it another ten years for your second image  

[Ouroboros]

That’s a gorgeous image. Well worth the ten years wait! 😀 I really like the colour of your reds there. Mine always seem to be a mucky brown. 

[Petrol]

Olly, my light polluted sky was your main concern when we first spoke 😁 In fact one of the things on my bucket list was to visit your place to see the Milky Way. Long story short, I went to Texas to visit / help a freind out with my other hobby, car restoration. He took me to Big Bends National park and McDonald Observatory, Bortle 1. All I can say is for anyone who looks up at the night sky, it's 100% worth the effort to see it in all it's glory. I have a keen interest in the history of astronomy and it's fantastic to see what our ancestors saw. It's the greatest show on earth!
I bought RC astro's noiseXterminater on Laurin Dave's advice and will no doubt buy the other plugins 👍

This is by no means the last image I'll be posting. I'm retired now so I have more time. I also have a motorhome and plan to travel to better skies with a mobile rig I'm building. It will be interesting to see the difference, if any, considering how good these OSC dual / tri band filters are!

Thanks very much for all your comments, it's much appreciated
Clear skies

Pete