Busy Night

[bluescope]

Hi

With the forecast of rain for the next week in Perth I spent last night in my observatory trying to improve my skills. I remembered that I had a 1.25" UHC-S filter in my arsenal and decided to give it a try with the st2000xcm .... a 1.25" UV/IR filter was with the camera when I bought it so I attached that as well. I was a bit worried how things would turn out re coma without the 2" MPCC that I usually have in my imaging chain but found it not to be a major problem with the narrower field of view of the SBIG camera. The UHC-S filter helped a lot with the light pollution, it's the first time I have tried imaging with it as I couldn't fit it to my 350D and MPCC in my earlier efforts. I set to work from 9.30pm 'till 4.30am before cloud cover finished the night.

Anyway here are the results.

All single shot colour images taken with my SW 254mm F4.7 Newt, EQ6 Pro, ST2000XCM, 1.25" UV/IR_ UHC-S filters, self guided with CCDOps.

eta 600sec @ -12 degrees
m17 420 sec @ -12 degrees
m20 420sec @ -12 degrees
m8 600sec @ -12 degrees
m83 420sec @ -12 degrees
m104 420sec @ -12 degrees
m16 420 @ -12 degrees

:thumbsup:

p.s. I'm not real impressed with the galaxies but they were part of the session so are included as cropped images.

[richardo]

Geeezzzz, go man go !
Good to see you making the most out of your clear nights Steve, and getting some time with the new camera!
And as mentioned with your other post, good to see you breaking the small time exposure barrier.

Great to get some images under your belt and some satisfaction from the money invested that's for sure. Time at the scope with your gear certainly helps one get to know how far you can go, what the short falls are and what is needed to make your time well spent.

I reckon now you ought to start taking many exposures of the one object and combine them, then this will enable you to stretch them to get the most out of the data, it will reduce noise in your images plus bring out fine faint details. Very rewarding sitting in front of the computer watching it all come together.
Work on one object per night and nail it right down. Take one object over two nights. More sub exposures the better.
I know your just getting into longer exposures, but maybe it's time to think about auto guiding. Beats a stiff neck;)
Pick up a cheap acro refractor and even a webcam will get you going.

Don't take me the wrong way here, I'm just being honest with good intentions is all.
With this set up you have, your images will rock with a bit more time per object invested!

Any ways, keep up the good work.
All the best
Rich

[bluescope]

Hi Rich

Thanks for your comments. I did try stacking some images in Deep Sky Stacker but wasn't very happy with the results but I only tried it once so I'll give it another go. Is there any better/ more suitable software maybe ?

I agree about concentrating on one object at a time in the future, it's the way to go for sure. I've basically been trying to see what the SBIG is capable of to date and as you say I've only just started in the long exposure side of things. I was pleased to pull some 600 second exposures without things going pear shaped.

As regards the guiding I am actually using auto guiding with the ST2000XCM, it has a built in guide chip. The software with the camera ( CCDOPS ) calls it self guide mode so I quoted that, sorry if that caused any confusion.

Anyway thanks again, good to hear from you.

:thumbsup:

[AlexN]

busy sounds about right... Productive on the other hand fits also fits like a glove!

Impressive shots of the nebulae, brought out the colors nicely!

[bluescope]

Thanks Alex, glad you like them !

:thumbsup:

[EzyStyles]

awesome steve!. your images are getting better and better each time. I think the contrast are abit high though, desaturate it down abit will be a tick nicer my opinion :)

[bluescope]

Thanks Eric, glad you like them and your opinion is noted. I reckon you should get a dedicated astro camera, a secondhand st2000 or similar is not that much more expensive than what you have been buying and selling.
My opinion ;)

:thumbsup:

[EzyStyles]

LOL Steve, still need a daylight cam also. unless i have two!

anyway, heres abit of a play with your M16 eagle. there are "heaps" of hidden details in your images. play around with the curves/levels abit ;)

hope you dont mind as im getting abit bored without a dedicated cam so had to play with other peoples images lol.

[bluescope]

Yep, have two Eric ... that's the idea. I still have my 350D .... but then I also have my Hasselblad, Mamiya, Olympus etc as well. Actually I have too much stuff ..... 5 guitars, 2 synthesizers, sound modules, p.a. system, blurr blurr blurr ............ :whistle:

Eagle looks ok .... I don't actually mess around with them much .... they are pretty well as they come out of the camera ( and software ofcourse ) so it's good to see someone else's take on them.

:thumbsup:

[iceman]

Productive night Steve! Definitely improving. Like others have said - multiple images, stack, and care in processing. They look a bit rich in colour to me but otherwise good stuff!

[gbeal]

Good to see progress, very pleasing.
Now like others have said. Pick a target for the night, and the next, and get two to three hours of imaging. I like to keep the sibs at about 10 minutes or less, but equally have shot 30 minutes with no worries. Don't forget to factor in darks, and flats, don't skimp on them.
Gary

[jase]

Pleasing progress Steve. Don't have further advice to add which hasn't already been provided. Would certainly suggest nailing one target instead attempting an imaging marathon resulting in mediocre images. Look forward to seeing more.

[Zuts]

Hi Steve,

Looks like you are beginning to show what the camera is capable of. When I got mine I was a bit worried about only 2 megapixels. Now though I am very happy with it and feel that it is a good enough camera for me in that I can produce good results if I perservere.

Some points from one newbie to another.

(1) Polar alignment has to be good but for 5 minute subs the SBIG can guide it out so it doesnt have to be excellent. I usually spend 40 minutes getting it good enough. The simple test to me is if the stars are round on a 5 minute sub then near enough is good enough.

(2) While you can skip on the alignment you cant unfortunatey skip on the focus. I spend at least 30 minutes on focus with a motorised focuser. This still wasnt enough so i just got a robo focus. Hopefully this will give me better consistant focus in far less time.

(3) To me the images are a bit saturated. If you compare Eric's processing to yours you will see the difference. Eric has shown that the data is all there so I reckon with a bit of a change in processing your images will be spot on.

(4) You need to stack and you need at least 5 minute subs. For me I leave it at 5 minutes because of LP, being only 3km from the center of Sydney, you may be able to go longer. If I am imaging a Galaxy or nebula I go a minimum of one hour. This makes it far easier to process and to me the results are worth every extra sub.

(5) Flats and darks. Darks are easy with the SBIG, I have a library of about 6 at each sub exposure time. I was lazy with flats and didnt bother but once I did the results really surprised me. A grey t-shirt pointing at the bright sky with an exposure length to get the max brightness up to around 30,000 only takes seconds for each exposure. I have a library of only 3 flats.

(6) I calibrate in MAXIM DL, very very easy then stack there as well. After stacking I do a linear screen stretch to max pixel then save as TIFF and process in PS2. The image starts off very dark but with an hour of data, curves and levels easily bring out the detail.

I am no expert but I reckon you are just about there and certainly having fun. A few more sessions and a bit of a change in processing and you will have some great images. Keep up the good work.

Paul

[winensky]

Great shots with really good detail considering they are single shots. Great advice from many. Don't be afraid of stacking. Once you get used to it, and it doesn't take long, you will be amazed at the depth and detail you can bring out.

Kind regards
Matt

[fringe_dweller]

only 5 guitars? i just bought my 10th, a custom shop strat :thumbsup: and just getting warmed up :p
nice work mate :thumbsup:

[rogerg]

Good work steve :thumbsup:

[bluescope]

Thanks all for comments and advice, I shall keep at it when the weather clears here in Perth.
Actually I am just stacking some images from that session to see how they come out ..... if they are any better than what I have posted I will upload them later.
Cheers again.

:thumbsup:

[Phil]

Busy night alright great stuff.
Phil

[Garyh]

Now thats a full night alright!
Way to go!
I see that you have got the guiding down pat!
Colors a little oversaturated for my liking but if they are single shots they are sweet!
Well done!

[MrB]

Hi bluescope,
Good stuff, I moaned when I heard the forecast, but BOY!! what a storm!
Mother-nature really turned it on for us lastnight, what a light show!
Though I noticed it kinda dodged the city and surrounds. (see pics)
Would probably be one of the best thunderstorms I've ever seen.

I sat outside for hours watching it, moving under-cover whenever the rain came down... was sitting there giggling like a little kid.

One strike was so close my house literally shook from the thunder, no exageration, I could feel everything moving.... I was loving it.
I think it was the strike marked just to the right of the letter M in 'Rockingham', my house is under that 'm'.
The storm seemed to be mostly cloud to cloud(which I suspect are ignored by the lightning tracker), but enough big cloud to grounders with kick-you-in-the-chest thunderclaps to keep me interested. :D

Hope you got some action to make up for a night away from the observatory.

[bluescope]

I'm only 3 k's from Perth centre but we had a huge thunder roll in the early hours of the morning which shook us up a bit .... seemed to go on for ever. Didn't do any storm watching !



Thanks Gary, yep the guiding is going pretty good most of the time. I watch as the exposures are progressing and if the guide star jumps around too much I abort the shot and start again. I like to keep the variation down to below 3 pixels for best results so far .... it's nice when it consistently reads below 1 pixel but then you get the odd spike that makes me cringe ay ! I haven't done a PEC run for quite a long time, might give it a go again soon. I guess I could tone the saturation down a bit, I'm not really messing around with them too much at all to be honest !



Cheers Phil, glad you like the images.