M106 and Friends (First PI Process)

[WolfieGlos]

Something I've been wanting to try and test this year, hampered by the clouds obviously to date, was to pair my Starfield 102 with the 585mc. Coupled with the 0.8x reducer, essentially I get a huge "zoom" on the target due to the small chip. Being an astrocam, the benefits of cleaner images vs my usual DSLR noise is a major bonus and something I've wanted to explore before I pull the plug on a cooled cam hopefully later this year.

The main reason for testing was obviously for galaxy season and to try and put theory to practise, especially given that this system is operating at 1.05"/p.

Last night was the first time I've had to try this combination, and with clear skies I was all set. For whatever reason my guiding was all over the shop, spending most of it's time around the 2" mark - low of 1.4" that I spotted, highs of 2.8". Not good. I checked PA, RA/DEC balance and possible cable snags and nothing stood out. My guiding usually sits somewhere between 0.7-1.2, so it's something I need to review.

The initial subs captured in NINA varied from 2.4 up to 2.8 HFR, so circa 6 FWHM (Siril reported this as max of 4.8 FWHM 🤷‍♂️). Luckily the individual subs looked fine, so I decided to plough on until cloud ruined play.

Having just downloaded PI on the weekend for the trial, I've also now downloaded BlurXT and NoiseXT, and OH MY GOD 😲. What have I been missing out on!!!! 

Other than the M44 cluster I posted the other day, this is essentially the first image I've fully processed with PI (and a finishing touch of sharpness to the galaxy cores in GIMP).

103 x 120s subs (03:26:00), calibrated with 15 darks, 20 flats and 25 dark-flats.

I intend to add more exposure time when the opportunity presents itself, so I haven't focused much on the background here or that horrible star halo. But for a first test, I think it was pretty successful.

Comments welcome, and thanks for looking 🙂

 

Edited April 10 by WolfieGlos

[Clarkey]

Great first result with PI. I was 'converted' last year after lots and lots of videos.

I was imaging last night and my guiding was all over the place. I put it down to the wind. Sometimes you just need to ignore the numbers and worry about the result.👍

M106 is worth adding a little Ha to the mix.

[saac]

11 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

I was imaging last night and my guiding was all over the place. I put it down to the wind. Sometimes you just need to ignore the numbers and worry about the result.👍

 

Exactly.  As the saying goes "fly the aircraft"

Jim

[geeklee]

10 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

Starfield 102 with the 585mc.

Fantastic result Chris.  The slightly smaller pixels of the 585MC shining through in this combo to give the tools more to work with.

[ollypenrice]

A very nice, natural-looking processing job. 

Olly

[WolfieGlos]

14 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Great first result with PI. I was 'converted' last year after lots and lots of videos.

I was imaging last night and my guiding was all over the place. I put it down to the wind. Sometimes you just need to ignore the numbers and worry about the result.👍

M106 is worth adding a little Ha to the mix.

Thanks Clarkey. For me it wasn't wind, just standing outside told me that and the guiding graph was very consistent with it's fluctuations (no sudden wind gusts causing a spike). The only thing I can put it down to, is PHD was showing a green text for the SNR, but the SNR was around the 10 mark. The best guiding I had all night (post meridian flip), the SNR jumped up to around the 20 mark. What confuses me, is with the DSLR, if I'm hitting those kind of guiding stats I have star trails. But I didn't get that here. Either way, it worked, so I'm happy.

Just on the Ha, I found this example on Astrobin. If I can get two more clear nights, I'll try and dedicate one to RGB and another to Ha. The Ha in that one is seriously impressive!

4 hours ago, geeklee said:

Fantastic result Chris.  The slightly smaller pixels of the 585MC shining through in this combo to give the tools more to work with.

Thanks Lee! 

4 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

A very nice, natural-looking processing job. 

Olly

Thanks Olly, appreciate it. I have to say, SPCC in PI makes it a lot easier to get the colour balance more natural, and it's probably one of a few of my processed images that "looks right" to me. And it's your fault for showing me Noise/Blur XT on that Triplet image....blew my mind!