D810A first light NGC3372

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

I couldn't help myself. The sky cleared, so I set up the FSQ106 on the G11 and stuck the Nikon D810A on the back.
This is a single 60s sub, with all noise reduction turned off at ISO3200. No calibrations. 'Processing' was loading it into the new nikon capture NX-D software, setting the black point and exporting it.
I've stuck a higher res version on astrobin here
I took about 15 minutes worth of subs, as well as some flats, darks and bias, and I'm running a quick and dirty processing job in pixinsight right now.
First impressions are that the noise in this camera is significantly lower than the D800, and obviously the H-alpha response is much better.

[Atmos (Colin)]

That's looking really good for a single unprocessed image!

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

That's looking really good for a single unprocessed image!

Thanks Colin, I think I'm going to enjoy using this beast - and here's a 15 minute stack with calibrations.
http://www.astrobin.com/185480/

[DavidTrap (David)]

Gotta be happy with that!!

DT

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

Gotta be happy with that!!

DT

Thanks David, it looks pretty good. Here's a link to about 90 minutes with the D800 by comparison that I took a couple of years ago on the same scope.

http://www.astrobin.com/32280/B/

Cheers,
Andrew.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Far out that's sharp. The stars look like single pixels. And the extra Ha looks great. But 5K of camera is like 10x my budget.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

that is a great first light, got to be happy with that!
looks to me like a winner! hopefully more manufacturers make astro versions ... maybe even mono one day

Russ

[gregbradley]

Fantastic. You must be stoked.

Tiny tiny stars and nice colour. I wonder how it compares with a 60Da. Of course its full frame and 36mp so that is a big plus.

Did the flats work out OK? I remember ages ago someone posted a really nice image around Orion area with a modded D800 and they complained that the flats were nonlinear and he had trouble getting them to flat out.

Not 100% sure what that meant but I took it to mean that the flats didn't match the lights due to some internal firmware processing by the camera (possibly to do with the analogue to digital conversion - not sure).
Any hint of trouble with flats?

Greg.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Fantastic. You must be stoked.

Tiny tiny stars and nice colour. I wonder how it compares with a 60Da. Of course its full frame and 36mp so that is a big plus.

Did the flats work out OK? I remember ages ago someone posted a really nice image around Orion area with a modded D800 and they complained that the flats were nonlinear and he had trouble getting them to flat out.

Not 100% sure what that meant but I took it to mean that the flats didn't match the lights due to some internal firmware processing by the camera (possibly to do with the analogue to digital conversion - not sure).
Any hint of trouble with flats?

Greg.

Hi Greg, I know what they meant. The dark frames on the 800 had a very strange pattern, the chip looked like it was split down the middle and had a big blob on one side (only visible under extreme stretch). For wide field you must turn off the lens corrections in camera or you're going to double up when flat fielding.
The link below is to a (slightly cropped) flat fielded, dark and bias calibrated stack of 15 subs. There is a slightly darker band visible along the bottom of the single sub in the OP that is corrected perfectly. The darks and flats when stretched to reveal any structure look as good as anything I'd expect from my QSI683 - although obviously the levels are a bit higher.
http://www.astrobin.com/185480/
cheers,
Andrew.