Many Firsts & NGC 2020 (Bi-Colour) added

[Atmos]

Well yesterday I had a number of firsts that I have managed to tick off my list. It was my first night of unmanaged imaging (still checked it numerous times throughout the night but it was largely automated). It was first light for my ASI1600 which arrived at 8:30 am yesterday morning (first light 13 hours after delivery). It was the first time I'd used a holographic attachment for focuser alignment and it worked remarkably well after I figured out what I was actually looking for.

It probably wasn't a good idea to be amalgamating the first use of the camera (took about an hour to get it to talk to software via ASCOM, no issues connecting to the computer), was the first time I'd used Sequence Gen Pro in about 6 months and the first time I'd ever attempted to set up an all night imaging platform. Actually the second or third time I'd used my FLI PDF in aggression after the final adapter arrived for that a week or so ago.

Thoughts on the ASI1600... Brilliant, even though I accidentally plugged it into the USB2 port on my USB hub :lol: I had wondered why it had 5s downloads, figured I just needed to fiddle with things in software at a later date.
Buggered up the OIII data though, SGP struggled with focusing the OIII frames even with 5s exposures so my next clear night will be spent figuring out the Offset from L of all my filters. It did a good job with the Ha though so I have a stack of 1.91" FWHM at 1.15"/pixel.

Ran at Unity Gain as I was too willing to go to bed to fiddle with anything else! Uncalibrated, took flats but they NEED to be calibrated. So far all I've done is an AutomaticBackgroundExtraction, Stretched and increased the contrast a bit with the curves.
31x300s so ~2.5 hours of Ha on NGC 2020.

Anyway, off for another 8 hours of work so I'll post a larger version at another point :)

High Res Ha (http://www.astrobin.com/full/271771/0/) version on AB
High Res Bi-Colour (http://www.astrobin.com/full/272014/0/)

[glend]

Great first light result Colin. The ASi1600 is so smooth. Make sure you are running the latest camera driver from ZWO (its linked on the downloads page of the product).

http://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software/

I would suggest pluging the camera USB3 cable directly into your laptop if possible, second choice is via a powered USB3 extension cable. I assume the one you received has the integrated USB2 hub for the filter wheel.

Suggest you set the USB speed at 70 to start with on the ASCOM driver page, which you can access in SGP after you connect.

Have fun.

[Andy01]

Looks good Colin!
I love those little LMC nebs maybe framing is a tad tight on the top left?
Nice first light :)

[RickS]

Congrats on all those firsts, Colin. Promising results. Look forward to the first real images.

Cheers,
Rick.

[JA]

It Looks amazing - Bring on the colour :thumbsup:
Colin, is that imaged from the Melbourne suburbs?

Best
JA

[Placidus]

Wow! A very productive 2.5 hours, and against towering odds with all those firsts. Well done.

If you had another 2.5 hours, perhaps you could frame a bit to the left, and do a mosaic.

[Spookyer]

Great start and good effort to get this on a first night.

[DJScotty]

That's nice Colin.

Some fantastic detail in there.

Glad to see you are liking the ASI.

It does take a little bit to get used to, but well worth it!

Keep chugging along

Scott

[gregbradley]

Lovely Ha image Colin. I love that area.

Congrats on implementing all those firsts in one night! You did extremely well to get it all working as well as you did. The usual thing is for that to take a while.

Greg.

[Peter Ward]

Wow. Have to say I'm impressed. You have to be chuffed with the results :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

I don't have a CD Drive in my laptop so I was forced to download all of the latest stuff :P

At this stage all I have is a powered USB Hub, I'll see how that goes for now. The camera does have the extra USB ports but I'd prefer to keep away from them if possible as it keeps USB traffic away from camera.

I think the default USB traffic setting is 80, will have to double check that.



There is a lot of little knots all over the place, I don't think there is a single good frame :(



I was hoping for a bi-colour, I have 1.5 hr of OIII but it's FWHM is closer to 4" due to focus being a bit off. It looks OK at the moment but I really need to get some calibration frames.



It was indeed shot from Melbourne Burbes, being in the north eastern suburbs I am imaging directly over the Melbourne sky glow. I love the 3nm Astrodon!



It isn't showing up so nice here BUT there is a decent sized bubble looking thing to the bottom right to which I am curious about! I have a feeling that I'll just keep on finding more nebulosity that needs to be shot :/



Thanks Brett :)



What's not to like about a wider FOV and greater pixel density :P Havent really had much of a play with it yet! Hopefully next week, not sure if I'll find time this weekend.

[Stevec35]

Looks very good Colin! Detailed and sharp.

Cheers

Steve

[Atmos]

I may have gotten lucky :P I had considered calculating the offsets last night but at midnight F was too late and having to get up at 5am to pack up for work... Wasn't gonna happen! I guess the same logic still applies, tackle one issue at a time :)



I am pretty happy with the results, have no idea on the read noise or how much longer I need to get sky limited. Take some bias and darks soon enough :)



Really helps to be blessed with <3" seeing for a change :lol:

[SimmoW]

Thats a very crisp first light Colin, congrats! Welcome to the 1600 club, the mods need to setup a 1600 group theres so many of us!

Ive used the cam's usb hub, havent noticed any issues... yet

[Camelopardalis]

Congrats on the first light Colin, looks like a successful night :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

Still far more KAF-8300ers out there :lol: If I end up having any issues with the USBHub I guess I'll have to look at getting a powered USB3 extension and run most of the stuff through the camera. I only have two USB ports on my computer so I am limited by that.



Thanks Dunk, the camera did all of the work :P

I have a High Res (http://www.astrobin.com/full/271771/0/) up on the internets now.

[atalas]

Splendid Colin:thumbsup:

[Camelopardalis]

Beautiful...really inspired by the 1600 capturing Ha in 5 minute subs :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Wow, not bad Col :eyepop: and nice work getting it all working so quick, well done. I know it was basically a test session but I agree with Andy, if you had just framed the Wacky Races Sherman tank there in the top left a little more to the right....

You have some cracking equipment now mate, so once you are finally out of test mode and you get some good weather, you are gunna crank out some purlers I recon...look forward to the show ;)

Mike

[Atmos]

Thanks :)



This looks like a camera where you cannot get away without calibration, especially when dragging off the noise floor. I have removed a fair bit with gradient removal but on the RHS there is what looks like a fair bit of amp glow.

I hadn't seen the Sherman Tank but once seen it cannot be unseen! Love Hanna Barbara (SP?)!

Some new framing is definitely in order though, the top left is more interesting that the RHS although there is an interesting bubble popping up on the lower right.

I have a dream scope I want... RH200 F/3! The spot sizes on your 300 F/3.8 is mind blowing but I am quite happy not moving much over the 10kg scope :)

[Atmos]

Figured I'd give the bi-colour a go considering I had the data anyway. As the OIII has twice the FWHM of the Ha there are teal rings around all of the stars. Used the Ha as the luminance.

Attempted to make it kinda true to colour so used.
R= Ha
G= OIII
B= 90% OIII & 10% Ha

Aiming for that magenta red and teal blue. Definitely need more than 2.5 hours of Ha and 1.5 hours under moon to figure out whether the fainter areas really are that colour of if I have just incorrectly removed the background gradients before combining. There is Ha virtually everywhere except the lower left. The background on both APPEAR to be neutral (flat) so I can only assume that it is correct. Time and lack of moon will tell.

High Res (http://www.astrobin.com/full/272014/0/) for all ye' pixel peepers.

[Shiraz]

yahoo! well that went well.

your amp glow is about par for the course - the only reason you can see it is that there isn't any other noise at all - it will easily calibrate out.