This was an exercise in frustration last night (10/18)! The forecast called for clear skies -- nope. Clear...clouds...clear...clouds...etc., all night up until about 11:10 when I decided to call it looking out to the west and seeing a fresh batch of angry clouds and nearly solid overcast on the way! I think Lake Champlain kept sending presents my way.
Hope nobody else has as frustrating a time as I did.
Anyway, I managed to salvage 1:42 min of subs (from what should have been about 3 hours). That's something, anyway!
AT60ED w/ field flattener (360mm fL)
ASI2600MC Pro (OSC camera)
SkyGuider Pro with guiding via ASIAir Plus using an ASI120mm mini and a 30mm F4 guide scope
Antlia ALP-T Ha/OIII dual narrowband filter
180s x 34 [Total Exposure 1:42]; with dark, flat, and dark-flat frames
Pre-processed in PixInsight and post-processed in Photoshop
Greg
Hi Greg, great image. I love these wide fields. I don't think I could get anywhere near that wide with anything I have except maybe a camera lens. Great nebulosity as well... I was out there too, and not only were there more clouds than expected, but the seeing was horrible (at least at my house). I was trying to validate the work done on my Celestron but the seeing was so bad and clouds so frequent I threw in the towel at around 11pm as well.
Keep the great images coming!
Best,
Terri
Hi Greg, great image. I love these wide fields. I don't think I could get anywhere near that wide with anything I have except maybe a camera lens. Great nebulosity as well... I was out there too, and not only were there more clouds than expected, but the seeing was horrible (at least at my house). I was trying to validate the work done on my Celestron but the seeing was so bad and clouds so frequent I threw in the towel at around 11pm as well.
Keep the great images coming!
Best,
Terri
Sorry you had a frustrating night as well, Terri. And on the flip side, I'd love to be able to do some close-up work! [I thought I could use a Powermate for DSO imaging, but my results (and some 'kindly' phrased feedback on Cloudy Nights) put the kibosh on that idea quickly. I'll just have to wait to get a bigger scope.]
The seeing wasn't very good at my house, either. I had such high hopes for the night! It was probably better I had to quit at 11 -- my granddaughter was nice enough to give me her nasty cold and it started working on me around 7:00 last night. I was ready for bed, anyway!
Greg
Jeez, Greg!
That image is good enough to make me wonder just how much better it would be with hours of subs!
Very nice piece of work!
-P-
Jeez, Greg!
That image is good enough to make me wonder just how much better it would be with hours of subs!
Very nice piece of work!
-P-
Thanks so much, Peter. Those extra hours would add that nth degree of 'Wow!' (for me), I think. The extra time on target would have allowed me to stretch the data just a bit more to pull out more detail without stretching noise and come away with a cleaner image. Then again, I tend to obsess. 😀
Greg
I look forward to comparing the results.
-P-
Had to take a break from shoveling snow (ugh!) over the past few days, so I decided to learn/practice a couple of new things in PixInsight. I reprocessed this Crescent Nebula data from last October (2022) entirely in PixInsight and took a stab at using a Foraxx palette (kind of a modified Hubble palette). The data hasn't changed -- I used the 1:42 worth of data I had captured with my AT60 and my SkyGuider Pro (!) mount as described in the first post of this thread.
I went a little nuts on the nebula to try and bring out the OIII (using a lot of masking just for practice) so it really doesn't look natural.
I can see the Soap Bubble Nebula (planetary nebula PN G75.5+1.7) a little more clearly with this palette. It's the small circular area about 11 o'clock from the Crescent Nebula. I think more integration time would bring this out better. A small emission nebula, SH2-104, is in the upper left of the frame and is so bright that it can be seen with a large telescope.
I'm very curious to see if this is improved when I use a slightly longer focal length on my 107PHQ to capture this again.
Had to take a break from shoveling snow (ugh!) over the past few days, so I decided to learn/practice a couple of new things in PixInsight. I reprocessed this Crescent Nebula data from last October (2022) entirely in PixInsight and took a stab at using a Foraxx palette (kind of a modified Hubble palette). The data hasn't changed -- I used the 1:42 worth of data I had captured with my AT60 and my SkyGuider Pro (!) mount as described in the first post of this thread.
I went a little nuts on the nebula to try and bring out the OIII (using a lot of masking just for practice) so it really doesn't look natural.
I can see the Soap Bubble Nebula (planetary nebula PN G75.5+1.7) a little more clearly with this palette. It's the small circular area about 11 o'clock from the Crescent Nebula. I think more integration time would bring this out better. A small emission nebula, SH2-104, is in the upper left of the frame and is so bright that it can be seen with a large telescope.
I'm very curious to see if this is improved when I use a slightly longer focal length on my 107PHQ to capture this again.
Nice soap bubble!! Not sure I saw it before but it’s very clear here. These wide fields show so much surrounding interest compared to my tight crops of objects (my typical shots). I need to explore expanding my horizons… pun intended (smile).
Terri
@terri Honestly, Terri, I didn't even know it was there until I reprocessed the image and said, "What's that?" 🙄
Greg
