Cat Season

[Sunfish]

4.5 hours of the Cat's Paw in RGBHOO. Interesting to process this in the default RGBHOO settings of Astropixel processor which was fairly painless once i scaled back their ambitious stretch a little.

Interesting also that zooming in on the original I can still see the colour temperature of all the background stars with a little saturation .

I would like to double the time and see how it looks. Anyone have a Baader sii 8nm 1.25 they don't need?

After tightening up all of my loose collimation screws and reverting to a default reducer back-focus my stars are much more round in the corners also. Good enough for my eyes but perhaps others could point out some tuning required.

[PKay]

Hi Ray

A good start. Well done.

What camera and gain / ISO settings, & length of subs?

[Sunfish]

Thanks Peter.
An hour each of Ha and Oiii and the rest in RGB all at 3min exposures gain75 asi 1600 at 12.5 degrees. The cat is not that bright.

I am thinking of trying gain 0 next time just to see what happens. Without the flats the stacks are streaky.

[xelasnave]

Good start on a great object..it keeps giving.
Ray I know it goes against all the rules but try some ha, at 200 gain for a minute or more you may be surprised what you can get away with.
Alex

[Sunfish]

Thanks Alex. I am no stickler for the “ rules” but bitter experience with the 1600 Ha at high gain leaves me with a useless stacks of streaky stormy subs. It may be possible to run very short subs with a lot of dither at a higher gain with a lot of perfect flats and avoid the streaks but then i wonder what the benefit is when I can guide for ten minute subs if required and sit on the deck and look at the stars.

Without guiding I can see your point.