Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space....

[TiffsAndAstro]

....while looking like a jellyfish/brain swimming towards space ocean waves

quick stretch of 72 x 60 secs, unpurple and a denoise in graxpert. also took a test 5 minute sub and 10 minute sub, not included in this image. 'acceptible' guiding calibration but had under 1" for the 10 minute sub. which is my best ever autoguiding. m33 to follow  

 

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

slight improvement. will try and get more hours on this, im surprised one hour would look this nice

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

got an extra 40 minutes of dubious subs last night through clouds, but between jpg compression, slightly different processing and slight increase in total integration time i can't see much difference. just posting in case its of interest. 

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

so i was polar aligned and phd2 calibrated by 1024 last night. seems i can do polar alignment just slower than my camera gets to -5c. however, my guiding was variable. i think it might have been the alt/az lock bolts not being tight enough (but not too tight) hard to tell. if that doesn't fix it tonight  im gonna reset phd2 start from scratch again.

i got about 6900sec 'usable' frames after cullling, but the result seems 'washed out'. moon did arrive around midnight (i think) but even so, i think i need to cull some more as there was (possibly) high thin cloud most of the night and other clouds moving through my fov. the tools i have available to help me decide which to cull/not use are the plot in siril and before that, scoring in dss also the fwhm and background% in dss. 

i realise for fwhm lower is best. is there a maximum background% i should cull? some of those 1035pm shots are a bit bright  and the 330am ones  

meridian flip went fine, but i think i'm wasting a little time by using a risk averse 10minutes either side. think i'll drop than to 5 minutes tonight  

Edited July 24 by TiffsAndAstro

[TiffsAndAstro]

so i think this is the best i can do just stacking any old frames from all 3 sesssions on this target. 3 hours ish in total. ill post another stacking the choicest ones (as far as i can tell). maybe also one of just last night's session.

i think, with this image, there is a slight overall improvement in detail but also a bit less detail on the right hand side of the brain. not exactly scientific though, as im bound to have stretched and processed each differently.

[TiffsAndAstro]

ok 7.2 hours, pretty much every non disgracefull sub i have. think its 6 sessions, including a 20min and a 10min session. rotational differences between sessions (though this has stabilize a bit now) meant i had to clone some bits.  also it might be a stretch too far. end of july soon, time for a new target.

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

one more wafer thin go. would be interested in comments if anyone finds this interesting, before i say what i did   its still a bit of a mess, sadly, but not sure if the blue/green is Oiii or what  gonna try this on my (non) squid just in case i can get something

 

Edited August 3 by TiffsAndAstro

[TiffsAndAstro]

didn't work on my squid shockingly

[TiffsAndAstro]

so i've culled any sub with any obvious issue and this is down to 4.3 hours total lol. i've lost all the (possible) Oiii blue/green and gone back to 70s brown somehow, but i think there's more detail in the brain's crenelations? maybe.  less is more ? or less bad is more less bad

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

ok, just for comparison to the above image, below is 3960 seconds of just the dnb Ha/Oiii subs. I think its the least unattractive to the eye version i've managed to create, but then i don't think this is the most photogenic target  no plans to go back, but who knows?

[Mr Green]

Did you take this with the SW 72ED?

If so, you've got me wanting to have a crack at it.

[TiffsAndAstro]

11 minutes ago, Mr Green said:

Did you take this with the SW 72ED?

If so, you've got me wanting to have a crack at it.

No reason not too - its pretty high up still. my fov is quite small so i could choose clouds/waves or bubble nebula thing and i chose clouds. but that bubble nebula might be nicer to get. its faint though i think, so maybe not lol  i mean the bubble chasing the brain - not sure its  official term/name, think an amateur discovered it in 2007?

Edited September 4 by TiffsAndAstro

[Mr Green]

14 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

No reason not too - its pretty high up still. my fov is quite small so i could choose clouds/waves or bubble nebula thing and i chose clouds. but that bubble nebula might be nicer to get. its faint though i think, so maybe not lol  i mean the bubble chasing the brain - not sure its  official term/name, think an amateur discovered it in 2007?

I tried to image the bubble nebula at the beginning of the year and it was tiny although close to the tadpole nebula so you can get that in the same frame.

I'll have to dig out the data and share it with you.

I think I had a hard time processing it at the time as had awful tilt issues.

[Mr Green]

Just realised you're not using an APS-C sensor so what I'm saying is irrelevant 🫣

Unless you fancy doing a mosaic.....

[TiffsAndAstro]

3 minutes ago, Mr Green said:

I tried to image the bubble nebula at the beginning of the year and it was tiny although close to the tadpole nebula so you can get that in the same frame.

I'll have to dig out the data and share it with you.

I think I had a hard time processing it at the time as had awful tilt issues.

aologies, the bubble i meant is a faint one trailing ngc 6888

i had ago on bubble nebula before i got my filter. it was small but quite nice. i got another small nebula in frame but at the time i didn't know i might also have gotten a bit of lobster claw. need to go back re-do it and have a look if i did.

[TiffsAndAstro]

4 minutes ago, Mr Green said:

Just realised you're not using an APS-C sensor so what I'm saying is irrelevant 🫣

Unless you fancy doing a mosaic.....

im going to finish my 4panel on veil then do a 2 or 3 panel on m31. i don't like a 2x2 4panel too much, awkward to use on a phone etc so will try and still to linear ones. without a rotator that might be tough

 

Edited September 4 by TiffsAndAstro

[Mr Green]

You can get a rotator for the 72ED that is quite cheap.

I find that you have to really tighten the screws after making adjustments otherwise it sags which in turn causes more tilt (the bane of my astro journey so far).

Other than that, it's worth trying out.

Link below:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/sky-watcher-evoframe-camera-rotator-for-evostar-72ed-ds-pro.html

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

9 minutes ago, Mr Green said:

You can get a rotator for the 72ED that is quite cheap.

I find that you have to really tighten the screws after making adjustments otherwise it sags which in turn causes more tilt (the bane of my astro journey so far).

Other than that, it's worth trying out.

Link below:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/sky-watcher-evoframe-camera-rotator-for-evostar-72ed-ds-pro.html

 

I bought this when I got my scope but sent it back as it seemed impossible to screw in to my ovl flattener.

I think rvo sell one that might work, but I'm lucky atm current rotation works for m31 and veil mosaics.