You're a Wizard, Duo!

[Peds]

This was a test image for a camera I just purchased mainly for travel, the ASI2600MC Duo. As much as I'd love to carry all my astro gear (filters, rotator, etc) with me on trips, luggage space is at a premium when traveling with the family. The simplicity of a OSC camera with a built-in guider was too appealing. This camera will live on my AP Stowaway.

Rather than do the usual unguided imaging run after creating a model, I wanted to see what I could get with only a rough polar alignment (a single pass with Polemaster), no model, and a 4nm dualband filter in front of the guider. I'm impressed! PHD2 was able to find stars to guide at 1s exposure (note this is with a 4nm filter and at f/7), but I chose to guide at 4s. I suspect that with a proper model and "bump" guiding, results will be even better. After I dial in tilt, I'll also need to test the Duo guider with my 0.8x reducer (f/5.3), which has a smaller image circle - at 40mm - but should be even easier to find suitable stars to guide with.

I suppose now I need to go shopping for a lightweight/portable mount. The Rainbow Astro RST-135E seems to have everything I want, except the price!

Anyway, here's the Wizard Nebula, taken from my backyard in very light polluted East London, UK. More info on Astrobin here.

 

[JonHigh]

Very nice. Been thinking about buying this filter to replace my Altair Tri-band. Out of interest, what were your settings used?

[whipdry]

Nicely done, somehow your image processing has a relaxed feel to it... even the wizard has his feet up!

Peter

[Peds]

On 16/09/2023 at 00:25, JonHigh said:

Very nice. Been thinking about buying this filter to replace my Altair Tri-band. Out of interest, what were your settings used?

I set the temperature to -10C, gain to 100, offset to 50 and took 300s exposures.

 

21 hours ago, whipdry said:

Nicely done, somehow your image processing has a relaxed feel to it... even the wizard has his feet up!

Peter

Ha! By the time I realised the camera was on sideways, the wizard was already deep asleep. 

 

[JonHigh]

Nice!   Not too far off my setttings. Good to know. 👍🏻

The one setting I’m unsure of is the offset. Got it at 50 as well which seems to work nicely so it’s not rock bottom but I have seen others at much higher levels. The histogram doesn’t seem to clip at 50 that I’ve seen. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by JonHigh

[Peds]

On 17/09/2023 at 09:52, JonHigh said:

Nice!   Not too far off my setttings. Good to know. 👍🏻

The one setting I’m unsure of is the offset. Got it at 50 as well which seems to work nicely so it’s not rock bottom but I have seen others at much higher levels. The histogram doesn’t seem to clip at 50 that I’ve seen. 

I haven't played around with it much but 50 seems to work well.

[Dark Raven]

On 15/09/2023 at 17:26, Peds said:

I suppose now I need to go shopping for a lightweight/portable mount.

If you can guide at 1 sec. with the Altair DB NB filter, I would suggest ZWO AM3. ASIAIR Plus would go a long way in reducing your luggage needs in combination with AP and MC DUO.

Your setup could look like something in between my two rigs.

The smaller one got upgraded with MC DUO just recently. 😉