First light CFF 105 F6 FPL55 triplet

[gregbradley]

I have had this scope for quite a while now but haven't had too many chances to use it.

Adapters, bushfires, smoke,cloud - you know the usual!

At my dark site recently I was able to get some lovely clear dark skies but the seeing was unusually bad. Lucky its only 630mm focal length.

Eta Carina. FLI Proline 16803. The flattener works well, the adapters are the correct length, stars seem fine when everything is tightly snugged up ( a feat in itself, I don't think there are many scopes with a 44mm corrected field at 105mm F6 - FSQ being the only one I know of, perhaps some AP's).

Manually focused as I haven't installed the electronic focuser yet, that's next so sightly sharper results can be expected from thermal compensation.
Feathertouch focusers though are the best and it wasn't hard to get it sharp.

HaLRGB. I like the starless version best but both are presented:

https://pbase.com/image/170493708/large starless

https://pbase.com/gregbradley/image/170492479/large stars.

Greg.

[Xeteth]

That starless version is absolutely gorgeous, a great shot!

[Peter Ward]

Looks like a superb piece of glass.

Well Done :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Like most starless versions I see (including the ones I have done :P) while certainly quite a cool and interesting effect, don't fully do it for me aesthetically :shrug: as they always look crappy when viewed up close but hey, apart from a slight out of focus in the top left quadrant, the stars-in version is most excellent with lovely colour :thumbsup:

I think you will have some fun with this rig mate ;) I look forward to seeing more :thumbsup:

Mike.

[topheart]

I agree!
Fun times ahead!!

:)

Cheers,
Tim

[Slawomir]

Really nice first light Greg. Looking forward to more wide field star-rich images - have fun with the new scope :thumbsup:

[Geoff45]

Good first light Greg. The one with the stars works best for me.
Geoff

[graham.hobart]

that is pretty sharp and glorious. Lovely indeed.
Nice rich colours
Thanks for sharing
Graz

[Retrograde]

Congratulations on first light Greg.
Gorgeous image - you must be pleased with the scope. :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks. Yes, its quite dramatic isn't it.



Thanks Peter. You can tell a lot of care has gone into it.


Thanks Mike.
The starless one is a bit divisive. Some like it some don't. It does leave little artifacts where some stars were. I can blur them out but it reduces the overall sharpness. Perhaps some selective blurring is the key.
The rotating focuser must not have been fully locked down as when I used the scope a day later stars were sharp in all 4 corners. I was expecting to handle some tilt but it was, I think, the rotating focuser or perhaps the camera was not fully on its adapter. It doesn't take much to show up.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Tim. A high quality small widefield refractor is an instrument I like to come back to occasionally. They have a character that is appealing and some objects really work with them.



Thanks Suavi and thanks for your advice along the way.



Thanks Geoff.




Thanks Graham. It turned out pretty well considering the seeing was the worst I had seen in quite a long time.




Thanks very much. Yes I am very happy with it. I have had 2 FSQs and a TEC110 fluorite F5.6 so its good to have a good wide refractor again.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Hey the out of focus corner was pretty minor and I only commented on it because you were posting a test of performance first light, it was of little consequence to the overall appearance of what looks like a very nice astroimage :thumbsup: I suspect due to the massive nature of your attached gear, you will notice very slight changes depending on the position of the object in the sky..?

As is usually the case with this technique, unless it is viewed at less than 50%.. and 33% is probably about right, the starless version looks very crunchy and grainy and artefact ridden and I can't help but think errr yuk, like someone has scrubbed it with steel wool :confuse3: Image processing/aesthetics aside, the starless effect can still look cool :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

All good. I was checking corners carefully and did see evidence of tilt but I swapped cameras for a night then put the Proline back on and I tightened up the knobs for the rotating focuser and one went in a bit more. The stars in those subs were all good. So I am thinking it was merely a knob not fully tightened.

I usually run a noise reduction on the starless but it also blurs it a lot. So a decent workflow there is yet to be worked out.

Probably selective noise reduction with a mask.
Greg.

Greg.

[multiweb]

Looks great Greg. Lots of fun those short FL rigs. :thumbsup:

[Ryderscope]

Some very nice hardware to be had there now Greg. Perfect FOV for framing this object as well. Am looking forward to many more nice images.

Clear skies.

[gregbradley]

Cheers Marc. I need to get something more organised for my mounts counterweights than whatever was lying around!



Thanks very much Rodney.

[Andy01]

Looks good Greg, nicely framed! :thumbsup:

The starless version looks overall good, but close up there are some warts from the star removal process that could be cleaned up easily.

Must be the season for new toys, surprised it isn't raining yet! :D

[gregbradley]

Thanks Andy.
What do you recommend to clean up the starless version? I have used Noise Ninja but it blurs a lot to do it.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I posted a more cleaned up version of the starless image.

Some masked selective noise reduction. Same links as the original post.

Greg.

[HAlfie]

Wow impressive picture! Keep up the good work! :)

[gregbradley]

Merci Philippe!

Greg.

[Andy01]

Hi Greg,

In my workflow, I use Starnet++ via the terminal on my mac on each registered master set prior to combining them ie: HA, O3 etc. Any residual stars or artifacts from the process are then very carefully removed with the healing brush or patch tool.

The original layer with stars is then placed over the top so I can blink thru and see if I've missed anything or if any important data was affected by the star removal process.

The RGB stars are then overlaid, usually in blend lighten mode.
Hope that's useful! :D

[gregbradley]

Thanks Andy.

I'll try that next time I do one.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

That is a nice field of view of this large object. I do like though how you captured the luminance within the certain areas of the nebula. I have found it can often really make an image. Framing like a peace sign is interesting too.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Paul. All in all I am very happy with the performance of the scope.
I think I will have to learn drizzle integration in PixInsight as well using the Proline with its 9 micron pixels.

Greg.

[Atmos]

It’s come up really well Greg, your revised starless version is looking better :thumbsup:

Even though there is a little tilt it’s handling the 36x36mm square sensor size really well.
Drizzle integration is a very easy step in the whole pre-processing equation. I’ve only ever used PixInsight and AstroPixel Processor and it’s very easy in both of those.

[Ant0nio]

Lovely image Greg, Looking forward to seeing more.
The CFF gear is indeed impressive. :thumbsup:
Cheers,
Tony

[gregbradley]

Thanks Colin. There was only tilt on this nights imaging. I reattached the camera later on and tightened the rotating focuser and it gave no tilt.

Good to hear about the drizzle being easy.

Greg.



Cheers Tony. Yes the CFF rocks!

Greg.

[Placidus]

So much superb detail in one image.

There is a very fine little ram's horn or spiral pastry or some such at 3 o'clock.

Lovely.

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much M and T. I wonder if its at a different distance?

A question - so all of this nebula comes from the star Eta Carina?? Or was Eta Carina formed in all this nebula?

Greg.