Another EAA session with different equipment.

[LaurenceT]

The Stellarmate app continues to frustrate, had to stop and start several times and some images showing weird star artefacts as seen in the Andromeda image. Possibly because I was experimenting with power sources for the Pi and discovered I was under powering it for about 30 minutes so may have corrupted the app, re-installed it today. Also forgot to put a uv/ir filter in front of the camera 😢.

These images taken with the Askar FMA180, ASI533MCPro this time. All are single six second exposures with no post processing. Didn't appreciate the satellite streak on Andromeda 😄.

Andromeda galaxy, crescent nebula and a nebula whose name I've forgotten! 

Edited September 15, 2023 by LaurenceT

[PeterC65]

These are all very impressive for for single six second exposures! Do you really mean that they are just single frames with no stacking? They look too good for that.

The last one looks like it may be the Heart Nebula, IC1805, with bit of the Soul Nebula, IC1848. These are good widefield targets that I've tried with my FMA135.

The colour of both the nebulae images seems a little too brown. That may be the result of not using a UV/IR cut filter, although I would generally use a UHC filter for emission nebulae like these. The colour is M31 looks good though.

 

[Ratlet]

That's an incredible amount of detail for such short exposure.  Great job.  Nebula colours look reminiscent of a dual band filter.

[bosun21]

I think he means stacked 6 second exposures without any processing after.

[LaurenceT]

20 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

I think he means stacked 6 second exposures without any processing after.

Yes sorry, I do mean that but it was only 4 or 5 images stacked before some weird artefacts were seen. I was hoping to try again tonight but with a filter this time but it looks cloudy.

I think I might add my mini filter wheel to the train so I can use different filters.

Edit: I've amended the number of stacked images because it was obvious that some background extraction had taken place so I had another look at the images on my iPad.

Edited September 15, 2023 by LaurenceT

[PeterC65]

I always use a filter wheel for EAA and find it very useful as different objects benefit from different filters. I use a UV/IR cut filter for most galaxies and star clusters a d a UHC filter for nebulae. My UHC filter is currently the Astronomik version but it doesn't cut IR so I'm thinking about switching to Optolong and using the L-eNhace instead.

[LaurenceT]

I've discovered that I need to show a little more patience and understanding using the Stellarmate app. Once I'd twigged that last night was more rewarding. @PeterC65 is definitely correct in that I need to understand the correct filters to apply to different targets so I'm going to configure my mini EFW for this. Just one image from last night I quite liked, NGC 6823, the final image in a stack of 6, slightly sharpened in Topaz Sharpen AI. Colours all wrong I know but the star weirdness disappears when I let things settle down and take a longer imaging run.

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by LaurenceT