16 hours plus maybe another 8

[TiffsAndAstro]

I'm thinking cave nebula dual narrowband for tonight, tomorrow and maybe even Thursday

Moon is out like a ww2 anti aircraft spot light. I've gone off my m31 4 panel idea (I'll rotate scope in rings 35 degrees and try another 2 panel when moon is gone, one day)

So no mosaics, just want to see what hopefully 12+ hours on one single target is like.

I would try heart nebula but it looks slightly to big for my fov.

Is cave nebula a reasonable target for me or too tough? Heart should be v bright, not sure about cave nebula.

Edited September 17 by TiffsAndAstro

[ANTARES1_1]

Why don't you give elephants trunk a shot?

Edited September 17 by ANTARES1_1

[TiffsAndAstro]

Just now, ANTARES1_1 said:

Why don't you five elephants trunk a shot?

Er if you mean elephant trunk nebula, did that recently

except my framing was rubbish so don't really want to return to it. It is still a possibility though it fills my fov 

[ANTARES1_1]

Maybe cente ring ather trunk next time might help?

Edited September 17 by ANTARES1_1

[ANTARES1_1]

3 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Er if you mean elephant trunk nebula, did that recently

except my framing was rubbish so don't really want to return to it. It is still a possibility though it fills my fov 

Why don't you try shooting galaxies this time as your album seems to be lacking galaxies

Edited September 17 by ANTARES1_1

[TiffsAndAstro]

7 minutes ago, ANTARES1_1 said:

Why don't you try shooting galaxies this time as your album seems to be lacking galaxies

400mm and moon will be pointing its light pollution laser  directly at me. 

2 panel m31 and maybe even m33 if time before horsehead arrives back

[Elp]

I don't know how you get so many imaging nights.

[Elp]

Also full moon tonight which will affect your o3 signal.

[TiffsAndAstro]

33 minutes ago, Elp said:

Also full moon tonight which will affect your o3 signal.

it was out last night and it didnt seem to, too much. but choice between nb and bb with moon out and has to be nb. 

i accidentally imaged tulip nebula last night for about 1.5 hours and graxpert didn't remove much gradient. whether that means there wasn't much gradient or graxpert not perfect i dunno. maybe its just an overall loss of data? Oiii did look fainter than even usual  though looking at the saved backgrounds now its darker, that might not be true

[WolfieGlos]

3 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Moon is out like a ww2 anti aircraft spot light.

🤣

I’ve not tried the Cave before, but at least you’d be away from the Moon. 

There’s a partial eclipse in the early hours, so grab a shot of it if you can. They aren't that common, and are even rarer on a “SuperMoon”. I’m imaging clusters tonight, so I’ll have the UVIR filter already in for it.

[TiffsAndAstro]

17 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

🤣

I’ve not tried the Cave before, but at least you’d be away from the Moon. 

There’s a partial eclipse in the early hours, so grab a shot of it if you can. They aren't that common, and are even rarer on a “SuperMoon”. I’m imaging clusters tonight, so I’ll have the UVIR filter already in for it.

I think partial is 3:15am? 

Don't tell anyone, but I can't find moon in Nina if I want track it, I'll have to find and object near by or (hurriedly ) type in moon's Ra Dec from stellarium

I'll post a preview tomorrow see if people think it's worth another 16 hours on cave nebula, lol

My guiding all over place again no idea why. I'm doing some at 0.65" which is amazing and then occasional 2" ones

If cave sucks I'll just do NGC 6960 add 16 moonlit hours onto that

I'm hoping the moonlightophobia on sgl is mainly really for those excelling at astro, rather than the likes of me where even the most terrible imaging session and resulting image is still way better than not having done that.

Edited September 17 by TiffsAndAstro

[TiffsAndAstro]

Does an insanely strong full moon affect guiding ?

Also I'm not too partial to 4% eclipse

Edited September 17 by TiffsAndAstro

[WolfieGlos]

Mines hovering between 0.9-1.1, aimed down low in Aquila at about 40 degrees, so I’d say not  

[Elp]

The moon doesn't really affect guiding directly, if you can see stars you can see stars. The seeing will dictate guide quality. My RMS is similar dropping down to 0.6-0.7 at times, 0.5s exps.

[TiffsAndAstro]

2 hours ago, Elp said:

The moon doesn't really affect guiding directly, if you can see stars you can see stars. The seeing will dictate guide quality. My RMS is similar dropping down to 0.6-0.7 at times, 0.5s exps.

i think i give up with  understanding guiding.  also don't think im going to like my 8 hours on cave nebula, after watching a few vids  

[Elp]

What's actually happening with it. If you upload your phd2 guidelog I'm sure someone will find out what's up.

[TiffsAndAstro]

its very eratic. it seems to be very related to gain, star peak shape, snr and exposure length.  ill upload it tomorrow but i doubt can tell anything from it. 

the additional green circles haven't been appearing last couple sessions, im hoping i somehow disable multistar guiding even though i've checked multiple times. 

going to try resetting from scratch hope and hope i get lucky

maybe improved a little hard to tell really. 

lol i just noticed my framing is probably well off. 90 more minutes see what i get tomorrow. different target tomorrow night. east or west veil i think.

 

Edited September 18 by TiffsAndAstro

[TiffsAndAstro]

was gonna pack it in at 5 and do flats, but, as i opened the back door, i saw Orion so i had to do a few minutes on HH. 120 subs. just to see....getting too light though now i think  will try at 4am tomorrow after whatever else i do first.

 

Edited September 18 by TiffsAndAstro

[Elp]

7 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

its very eratic. it seems to be very related to gain, star peak shape, snr and exposure length.  ill upload it tomorrow but i doubt can tell anything from it. 

Shouldn't have anything to do with gain. Gain is like an electronic amplifier, the photons hitting the sensor independent of gain remains the same.

Shape, seeing can make this change, that's why when seeing is iffy using a longer guide exposure helps. Seeing however was supposed to be excellent last night but I guess will vary by location.

[TiffsAndAstro]

27 minutes ago, Elp said:

Shouldn't have anything to do with gain. Gain is like an electronic amplifier, the photons hitting the sensor independent of gain remains the same.

Shape, seeing can make this change, that's why when seeing is iffy using a longer guide exposure helps. Seeing however was supposed to be excellent last night but I guess will vary by location.

well i did a full reset and went to bed. the little green (multi star guiding?) circles returned and guiding seemed about 1.2" from then on. hopefully i can try it again tonight. and tomorrow night. sn++ struggled a bit on alnitak but i don't care, halo not biggest i've seen.  no processing except quick stretch. 

11 x 120sec subs just for testing puroses  was getting light i think and moon pretty close. 

 

[WolfieGlos]

8 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

was gonna pack it in at 5 and do flats, but, as i opened the back door, i saw Orion so i had to do a few minutes on HH. 120 subs. just to see....getting too light though now i think  will try at 4am tomorrow after whatever else i do first.

 

I must admit, I much prefer the guiding graph in PHD2 rather than NiNa because I find NiNa's looks massively exaggerated, being squeezed into that small space. I set both of them with the Y-axis to +/-8 and it smoothes it out a lot more. Whilst the guiding looks erratic, 1.16" is actually fine.

2 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

well i did a full reset and went to bed. the little green (multi star guiding?) circles returned and guiding seemed about 1.2" from then on. hopefully i can try it again tonight. and tomorrow night. sn++ struggled a bit on alnitak but i don't care, halo not biggest i've seen.  no processing except quick stretch. 

11 x 120sec subs just for testing puroses  was getting light i think and moon pretty close. 

 

Pretty good result for a short time, dawn and a Supermoon. Our skies clouded over at 2:30, but I had enough time beforehand to swap my scope over to a 2x barlow and capture a few of Saturn but not the Moon, or it's eclipse, sadly.

[TiffsAndAstro]

11 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

I must admit, I much prefer the guiding graph in PHD2 rather than NiNa because I find NiNa's looks massively exaggerated, being squeezed into that small space. I set both of them with the Y-axis to +/-8 and it smoothes it out a lot more. Whilst the guiding looks erratic, 1.16" is actually fine.

Pretty good result for a short time, dawn and a Supermoon. Our skies clouded over at 2:30, but I had enough time beforehand to swap my scope over to a 2x barlow and capture a few of Saturn but not the Moon, or it's eclipse, sadly.

i assume it was Saturn i could see east-ish, looked very bright to naked eye. always easy to spot.

im struggling with cave nebula, got some very weird results after a graxpert background extraction and then sn++ just a magenta mess and magenta stars. trying a manual stack now but not too hopeful.

if the moon is about tonight ill try something one panel in veil nebula  

very hopeful about B33 for later in the year, even alnitak seems quite well behaved in narrowband. 

Edited September 18 by TiffsAndAstro

[WolfieGlos]

7 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

i assume it was Saturn i could see east-ish, looked very bright to naked eye. always easy to spot.

im struggling with cave nebula, got some very weird results after a graxpert background extraction and then sn++ just a magenta mess and magenta stars. trying a manual stack now but not too hopeful.

if the moon is about tonight ill try something one panel in veil nebula  

 

I find GraXpert works best for me after my initial stretches in non-linear. If I use it beforehand, it removes all colour and makes a mess, so give that a go.

Yep, it was just to the east of the Moon. I was surprised I could image it being that close to the Supermoon, but Planetary is less affected by LP, mostly just local seeing. It's not going to win any awards, but here it is with a quick stretch and some sharpening. 2x barlow with the Starfield 102 (circa 1420 focal length). I've only done it a few times before and I need to figure out how to process properly, and adopt drizzling into it. Overstretching the image even shows the Moons Titan, Rhea, Dione and Tethys   Check out the Planetary section for some superb images of the planets.

[TiffsAndAstro]

3 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

I find GraXpert works best for me after my initial stretches in non-linear. If I use it beforehand, it removes all colour and makes a mess, so give that a go.

Yep, it was just to the east of the Moon. I was surprised I could image it being that close to the Supermoon, but Planetary is less affected by LP, mostly just local seeing. It's not going to win any awards, but here it is with a quick stretch and some sharpening. 2x barlow with the Starfield 102 (circa 1420 focal length). I've only done it a few times before and I need to figure out how to process properly, and adopt drizzling into it. Overstretching the image even shows the Moons Titan, Rhea, Dione and Tethys   Check out the Planetary section for some superb images of the planets.

That's a pretty cool image either way. I've only used graxpert on linear data. Not sure about removing stars and stretching before using graxpert bug will give it a try Ty.

[carastro]

You're doing well Tiffs.  Pacman is good in Narrowband, Cave is probably OK.  Butterfly in Cygnuis looks good in NB  Wizard Nebula NGC7380 

Soul has an interesting feature IC1871 and the Heart has a middle feature Melotte 15.

Lots to choose from. 

 

 

Edited September 18 by carastro