Horsehead in colour

[gregbradley]

Here is the colour version of the Ha version earlier.

Ha LRGB 60 30 30 30 30. I still need to dial in some tilt but I corrected some of it already (more correction needed as well).

I am not sure but I think because this camera is so highly resolving it may be showing up differences in the focal point of my Astrodon filters. Not sure yet.
But I can this camera will require great accuracy. Otherwise it pretty much acts like any CCD camera. Calibration was no trouble.

I'll probably add to this if the weather clears.

https://pbase.com/image/171409826

Greg.

[silv]

Glorious!

[gregbradley]

Thank you!

Greg.

[PKay]

Absolutely stunning Greg.

Nice colour balance, contrast and depth.

A case of 'this is how it should look like' :)

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much.

I noticed the colour from this camera was more vibrant then normal as well.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Yep...veeeery nice Greg, veeery nice :thumbsup:

Mike

[Ryderscope]

That’s fantastic Greg, great result :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Great result... but....(sorry) Alnitak has uber-swamped the field.
(I won't be so crass as to point you to my KAF16803 version of the same field)

Could it be the mode you are using has insufficient well depth :question:

None the less, a very fine HH :thumbsup:

[marc4darkskies]

A very fine image Greg! :thumbsup: Nicely done!

Yeah, I suppose Alnitak is somewhat overwhelming but it doesn't detract, it just distracts.

[gregbradley]

Cheeeers Mikey.



Thanks Rodney.

[gregbradley]

I personally don't mind Alnitak blazing like that but I get your point.
If I do more time on it I'll try the mode 3 (extended full well mode) and see
what difference it makes. The 16803 has been the king of full wells and yes it can capture Alnitak quite well, done it several times.

Next clear night.



Thanks Marcus.
This camera has an extended full well mode, I think its something crazy like 175,000 electrons. So I'll try that when I add to it.

Alnitak is the big hurdle on this part of the sky.

Greg.

[Nikolas]

Love the detail around the flame nebula great image!

[gregbradley]

Cheers Nik. That's more detail than I have gotten before.

Greg.

[Robert_T]

Fabulous in colour and impact with great fine detail in the flame. I kinda like the way you have Altinak here. Something for me to strive for :-)

[gregbradley]

Thanks Robert.

I just did an alternate processing on Alnitak taming it a bit more.

https://pbase.com/image/171410797/auto

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I tamed Alnitak a bit more. Still very dominant though.

https://pbase.com/image/171410797/auto tamed Alnitak version

https://pbase.com/image/171409826/auto original version Alnitak "unplugged".



Greg.

[strongmanmike]

"What do you do if you don't like Alnitak..?" in the words of Ms Hall "well, fortunately... I love it!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C_7oRtVmpk) (go to 2:10 mark :lol:)

Semantics aside, overall, an excellent Horsey Greg :thumbsup:

Mike

[DavidTrap]

Very nice Greg - I've had little chance to use my camera over summer...

Are you able to share what mode you used for this broadband image?

DT

[gregbradley]

Hehe, yes I am happy with it for a first light. It can only get better from here.



Mode 2 Gain 26 offset 10.

I think these are the default settings for Mode 2. Mode 1 for narrowband and Mode 3 for fast large optics for the extended full well. This mode might be more appropriate for the Honders at 305mm aperture and F3.8.

AP130GTX with the quad compressor might be good with mode 3 as well or stick to Mode 2 for broadband imaging.

I am not sure how much offset affects things. I experimented with my QHY294M and 2 quite different offsets. I checked the images in CCDstack - they looked almost identical. The histogram peaks shifted slightly.

Perhaps a higher offset can remove some of the background banding along with higher gain.

These Sony sensors have a dual gain amplifier so read noise drops significantly at some point. I am sure that point is in the graphs on the QHY site. I looked it up, its Gain 26. Read noise drops considerably.

Greg.

[DavidTrap]

Thanks Greg,

I’d hoped to get a feel for this camera over the summer, but alas no.

DT

[petershah]

love the colour in this :thumbsup:

[Robert_T]

Hi Greg, I think this has the same sensor characteristics as my QHY268c ? It has that same sweet spot in Photographic mode at gain 26... I've never got any clarity of offset. For what its worth I've played around with all three modes and found High Gain mode the most useful... mostly at gain 60 which has very low read noise yet still respectable dynamic range, but even when I want deeper wells the High Gain mode at zero gain is very deep (similar to photographic mode at 0 gain and not that much less than Full Well but with much lower read noise) . upshot is they are the only two setting is use now.... high gain mode with either 60 or 0 gain. Cheers robert

[gregbradley]

Hi Peter, Yes I was surprised at the saturation of the colour as well. Initially the 30 minutes worth each of rgb seemed pretty noisy but surprisingly it cleaned up well. I think though 1 hour each of rgb really should be the minimum.



Thanks Robert. Yes the 2 sensors have the same architecture so I would not be surprised if the settings translate across the 2 models.

Are you sure the well depth is still high in high gain mode? It usually butchers the well depth.

As to gain and offset there seems to be little difference in the images so I would not fuss over it too much. I tried last night Gain 26 versus Gain 56, images looked almost identical and the histogram was simply a bit higher with the higher gain.

Greg.

[Andy01]

Looking very promising Greg!
I agree with Peter W though, Altinak is very distracting when presented like this.
I'll be fascinated to see what happens as you fine tune the new camera settings :)

[gregbradley]

Yeah I did a bit of experimenting last night until the clouds rolled in. The full well mode does tame Alnitak quite a bit.

Greg.

[Placidus]

Gorgeously rich colour. Very appealing.

Alnitak is fine. It's a part of the fun.

[multiweb]

Looks great Greg. :thumbsup: Your ha was already super tight and you've blended the colors really well. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: Alnitak is the way it should be. Makes the picture real. Some will say there's probably an AI plugin for that. :P

[rustigsmed]

nice classic looking HH Greg!

[JA]

Very Cool Greg. I especially like the detail in the red curtain and hills & peaks behind the Horsehead. Flame rocks too:thumbsup:

Best
JA

[gregbradley]

Thanks JA. I am happy with the camera's performance at this early stage.

Greg.

[Robert_T]

Hi Greg image attached shows the well depth and read noise for the various modes... dark blue is high gain. At zero gain well depth is a pretty respectable 60k and read noise low. That said I note they've added an Extended Full Well mode now (yellow) that has a lower read noise so closes the gap a bit on this and may be worthwhile for high dynamic range subjects where expsoures are long enough to swamp the read noise.

[gregbradley]

The QHY600M graph is similar but I think the dual gain kicks in a tad earlier at Gain 26.

Thanks for that.

Greg.