NGC 3628

[Rodd]

I was fianlly able to adda decent luminance to this image.  What a difference it makes.  I was fortunate that seeing during the luminance shoot was the best seeing among all the channels. The tail is still lacking due to my sky, but I don't think I can do much about that with the TOA 130.  I might be able to capture it with a lot of hours using the FSQ 106.  I will ponder that possibility for the future. Not likely to change scopes just for that, and galaxy season is not optimal FSQ time.  Maybe if my sky would permit nice star fields and galaxy clusters, but they aren''t very satisfying with their shortcomings.  Anyway, I am pleased with this image.  While it may not be the most revealing of the tain and the surrounding fain t galaxies and clusters, I believe it to be a decent representation.  It makes me want to bring out the C11!

TOA 130 with .99x flattener and ASI 1600.  About 16 hours of data.  120 sec and 10 sec RGB subs, and 60 sec Lum subs.

 

Edited March 13 by Rodd

[Rodd]

Here is a reprocessed version.  I had a sleep and had at it again.  

 

Edited March 14 by Rodd

[assouptro]

Lovely images Rodd

The “hamburger” galaxy is one of my favourite galaxies 

I’ve never quite managed a decent enough image to share and I wish we had more clear skies to have another pop! 
Thanks for sharing your results 

Bryan 😊

[Rodd]

3 hours ago, assouptro said:

Lovely images Rodd

The “hamburger” galaxy is one of my favourite galaxies 

I’ve never quite managed a decent enough image to share and I wish we had more clear skies to have another pop! 
Thanks for sharing your results 

Bryan 😊

Thanks Bryan. See note below

[Rodd]

All. I rely on this forum for advise and critique.  I obviously processed the above data on no sleep and blurry eyes. It is atrocious. So much so I deleted it from AstroBin and Telescopius. I can’t believe I posted such drivel. Please, don’t hesitate to tell me the image sucks when it does.  I made one bad decision after another.  Here is a much better representation. I got some sleep and binned the data.  I might reduce the brightness a bit and lift the background but at least it’s passable, unlike its predecessor. 

[assouptro]

On 15/03/2024 at 21:01, Rodd said:

Thanks Bryan. See note below

Rodd 

we are our own worst critics 

Throw your mind back to when you were starting out in this crazy hobby 

Im sure you would have been over the moon with the first 2! 
 

I have to admit, I have only viewed your images on my phone so far due to time constraints but they all look great to me! 
 

I hope you are ok Rodd? I enjoy your images as the ones that I’ve noticed are normally taken at longer focal lengths or cropped to achieve the same effect, and I too enjoy imagining “close up and personal” to some of the deep sky objects up there although you have superior optics

Take care 

Bryan 

 

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, assouptro said:

Rodd 

we are our own worst critics 

Throw your mind back to when you were starting out in this crazy hobby 

Im sure you would have been over the moon with the first 2! 
 

I have to admit, I have only viewed your images on my phone so far due to time constraints but they all look great to me! 
 

I hope you are ok Rodd? I enjoy your images as the ones that I’ve noticed are normally taken at longer focal lengths or cropped to achieve the same effect, and I too enjoy imagining “close up and personal” to some of the deep sky objects up there although you have superior optics

Take care 

Bryan 

 

Thanks Bryan....I am fine, ust get frustrated at times.  I have come to teh conclusion that 99% of the frustration comes from the conditions, whether it be haze, high cloud, jet stream, smoke, LP, wind, humidity, the Moon, you name it, it's there most of the time.   The images that give me the biggest headaches are the ones taken during poor conditions.  I am starting to come to terms with this being a part time hobby.  I think from now on I have to accept that I will need, on average, two Moon cycles to finish an image.  Two nights with each filter.  Thats 10 imaging sessions for an HaLRGB galaxy.  If I want to use only subs taken during good seeing, I will need to kake it 3-4 Moon cycles. Man, if I am not careful, I will start to lose interest! 

[assouptro]

20 minutes ago, Rodd said:

Thanks Bryan....I am fine, ust get frustrated at times.  I have come to teh conclusion that 99% of the frustration comes from the conditions, whether it be haze, high cloud, jet stream, smoke, LP, wind, humidity, the Moon, you name it, it's there most of the time.   The images that give me the biggest headaches are the ones taken during poor conditions.  I am starting to come to terms with this being a part time hobby.  I think from now on I have to accept that I will need, on average, two Moon cycles to finish an image.  Two nights with each filter.  Thats 10 imaging sessions for an HaLRGB galaxy.  If I want to use only subs taken during good seeing, I will need to kake it 3-4 Moon cycles. Man, if I am not careful, I will start to lose interest! 

I hear you! 
I am glad your ok, your self criticism concerned me

I have recently pushed forward with more automation, plate solving, focusing, re - focusing after time, rotating and more importantly filter offsets allowing me to have a full filter data set per rare, clear night

it has taken a couple of clear nights to get it working, and there are still things that need a tweak. As It’s still early days  it hasn’t really sped anything up yet but it’s cool having all channels taken under the same conditions and allowing me to do an interim stack with what I have so far allowing me to adjust anything for the next run

I have enjoyed setting that automation up and I still get a thrill pressing the play button on Nina’s advanced sequencer and watching the scope follow my instructions. For me the hobby has always been about getting the gear to work as I want, overcoming the hurdles and occasionally producing an image that I’m never completely satisfied with but hopefully a bit better than the last?! 
 

There are so many variables in this hobby and to add to it the weather has been so bad it’s been almost impossible to get new data recently and I too sometimes wonder how much longer can I torture myself but it has always been a hobby that requires Buddhist like patience! 
 

keep smiling 😊 

Bryan

[ollypenrice]

For me, this image didn't seem exceptional until I clicked for the largest size - and then I found that the central bulge and dust lane were absolutely stunning. Unfortunately the last one seems to have been posted at lower resolution, or am I giving it the wrong clicks? It needs to be seen in large format to show its class.

What I do think is that the fainter outer regions are noisy, with a pronounced grain. I'm sure Russ Croman's Noise Xterminator would fix that easily and might allow you to give the lower brightnesses a bit more of a stretch. I wouldn't apply it to the brighter parts or dust lane. Those are superb.

Olly

[Rodd]

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

For me, this image didn't seem exceptional until I clicked for the largest size - and then I found that the central bulge and dust lane were absolutely stunning. Unfortunately the last one seems to have been posted at lower resolution, or am I giving it the wrong clicks? It needs to be seen in large format to show its class.

What I do think is that the fainter outer regions are noisy, with a pronounced grain. I'm sure Russ Croman's Noise Xterminator would fix that easily and might allow you to give the lower brightnesses a bit more of a stretch. I wouldn't apply it to the brighter parts or dust lane. Those are superb.

Olly

Thanks Olly. You hit upon a couple of the plethora of problems with this image-hence my frustrated post. Here is the final version of this image. better?

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, Rodd said:

Thanks Olly. You hit upon a couple of the plethora of problems with this image-hence my frustrated post. Here is the final version of this image. better?

Yes, lovely. I'm going to see if I can find my old linear TEC140 data and see what difference modern processing tools make. 

Olly

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Yes, lovely. I'm going to see if I can find my old linear TEC140 data and see what difference modern processing tools make. 

Olly

They probably won’t fully compensate for the difference in sky quality.  The difference I see in data quality between a poor night and an average night is huge. I can’t imagine how much better a decent night under good skies would be.  Well, I can imagine (sometimes a good imagination is a bane).