My 2024 astroseason in one place

[900SL]

Given the usual climate here, it may well be a short thread.

Not sure if we are off to a false dawn here, but had a few clear spells in the last week and although not astrodark yet, I'm getting some early Ha. Just hope I can get some Oiii and RGB over new moon!

Here's a rough process on the Crescent, 24 x 360s Ha @ gain 105, 533MM Pro, Edge 4.5 nm filter, seeing OK. Needs further processing but looking OK to me here. I can even see the bubble in Ha!

Edited August 22 by 900SL

[900SL]

And Tuesday evening, first ever effort at the Cygnus wall, managed a couple of hours in between ASI doing it's drop the guide camnera/mount jig

20 x 360s Ha, seeing OK to poorish

[900SL]

Somewhat against the norm, another clearish night yesterday. Seeing wasn't great, humidity high, close to dew point, but managed another 2 hrs in Ha.

Now switching to Oiii and hoping for a couple of clear nights over the next two weeks..

One thing mono is teaching me is the value of concentrating on one target and bagging the hours

Heres a quick calibrated stack in Siril. 50 x 360s Ha

Edited August 28 by 900SL

[900SL]

Clear night again, and half decent seeing to boot. Might be similar tonight!

 Got two hours Oiii yesterday evening, so fingers crossed tonight I can get another two, and RGB stars

This mono will lead me towards Pixinsight, I'm sure. I'm feeling limited by Siril now, and my Affinity skills are poor

Quick HOO to RGB and process, cropped in

Bubble far lower left

 

[900SL]

Getting there. My processing sucks red crayola, that's where I need to invest some time. 

Really struggling with combining starless HOO and a set of stacks of RGB stars. Edge issues with frames not being accurately aligned means I have had to crop in quite a way. It's all a learning curve though, right? (hollow laugh)

Lots of initial issues with frame matching, alignment etc. Figured that out doing manual registration and linear matching, Now struggling to get anything natural looking when i add stars back in

I don't use NoiseXterminator but I think I might have to shell out for it

 

Edit:  .Getting the knack of RGB star recomposition now

 

Edited September 1 by 900SL

[900SL]

New Project, last night's Ha subs on the Cygnus wall, or as I am provisionally entitling it, 'the flaming eagle of light seeks to defeat the forces of darkness', or some such blather

 

Edit: NoiseXterminator is worth every cent

 

 

Edited September 5 by 900SL

[AstroMuni]

On 29/08/2024 at 10:05, 900SL said:

Bubble far lower left

Thats so cool. Hadnt realised that there was a soap bubble next to the Crescent nebula. Thank you.

[900SL]

Bagged some Sii on Friday night, so did a quick process on Siril/Affinity (oh when will I buy Pixinsight...)

Will get RGB stars when I change filters over to LRGB

Here's a quick jpeg

[WolfieGlos]

That's a lovely image of the Wall, that 533mm is doing well   I need to stop looking at your images now, I've made my mind up with OSC. Honest.

[900SL]

55 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

That's a lovely image of the Wall, that 533mm is doing well   I need to stop looking at your images now, I've made my mind up with OSC. Honest.

Mono is a pain to start with, but I'm a convert now. Wait till you see the data I was getting on the eastern veil last night. A single Ha sub is unreal..

[WolfieGlos]

40 minutes ago, 900SL said:

Mono is a pain to start with, but I'm a convert now. Wait till you see the data I was getting on the eastern veil last night. A single Ha sub is unreal..

My bank account isn't going to like you 🤣

In all seriousness, I have been looking at the 294mm for the wider FOV with my 102ED. Bit more expensive, but not at the 2600mm price point.

[900SL]

Demonic, Alienesque or the Joker, depending on your flavour of pareidolia.

Seeing not so consistent last night. For some reason this is proving difficult to combine in HOO, I'm not 100% happy with the result, may revisit this

 

Edited Monday at 06:58 by 900SL

[Clarkey]

18 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

In all seriousness, I have been looking at the 294mm for the wider FOV with my 102ED. Bit more expensive, but not at the 2600mm price point.

Not sure if you would be interested but Meade are selling off there astro cameras and have the DSI-IV mono for £660. This is the equivalent of the 1600mm pro. Although a little older, it is still a good camera. It has a very similar FOV to the 294 but without all the quirks. Yes, it has some amp glow, but this calibrates out easily.

Meade cameras @ Meade Instruments UK (meadeuk.com)

[WolfieGlos]

4 hours ago, 900SL said:

Demonic, Alienesque or the Joker, depending on your flavour of pareidolia.

Seeing not so consistent last night. For some reason this is proving difficult to combine in HOO, I'm not 100% happy with the result, may revisit this

 

Looks good to me! Maybe it's the red of the Ha that's gone to an orange hue that's throwing you?

3 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Not sure if you would be interested but Meade are selling off there astro cameras and have the DSI-IV mono for £660. This is the equivalent of the 1600mm pro. Although a little older, it is still a good camera. It has a very similar FOV to the 294 but without all the quirks. Yes, it has some amp glow, but this calibrates out easily.

Meade cameras @ Meade Instruments UK (meadeuk.com)

Thanks, that's a serious reduction in price and could possibly be a contender....

Edited Monday at 11:10 by WolfieGlos

[geeklee]

4 hours ago, 900SL said:

Demonic, Alienesque or the Joker, depending on your flavour of pareidolia.

That's lovely @900SL  Great faint Ha on the left side.  I agree with @WolfieGlos the orange hue is maybe throwing you.

[ONIKKINEN]

12 hours ago, 900SL said:

Demonic, Alienesque or the Joker, depending on your flavour of pareidolia.

Seeing not so consistent last night. For some reason this is proving difficult to combine in HOO, I'm not 100% happy with the result, may revisit this

 

Some great detail in there, despite the dodgy conditions last night. Nicely done i'd say.

Tweaking the palette is easiest done in a general purpose processing software in my opinion. Photoshop is my choice but Affinity should be no different. Maybe try adjusting the insividual channels with linear curves and see where it takes you?

[900SL]

On 09/09/2024 at 14:10, WolfieGlos said:

Looks good to me! Maybe it's the red of the Ha that's gone to an orange hue that's throwing you?

 

Thanks Wolfie. Figured it out.. it's the linear match/mono recombination and oversaturation. Found a good article by Jon Rista on Pixelmath combinations, I'm trying a different workflow now

On 09/09/2024 at 14:24, geeklee said:

That's lovely @900SL  Great faint Ha on the left side.  I agree with @WolfieGlos the orange hue is maybe throwing you.

Thanks Lee. As above, learning the ropes with mono recombination and processing.. 

On 09/09/2024 at 22:18, ONIKKINEN said:

Some great detail in there, despite the dodgy conditions last night. Nicely done i'd say.

Tweaking the palette is easiest done in a general purpose processing software in my opinion. Photoshop is my choice but Affinity should be no different. Maybe try adjusting the insividual channels with linear curves and see where it takes you?

Thanks Oskari. I've started learning about selection, layer masking and adjustment layers in more detail in Affinity Photo. My initial pixelmath combination and stretching in Siril was incorrect/too aggressive. This data is good to practice on