finally took the plunge into Mono - Carina meets ASI294mm

[Robert_T]

I'm excited to finally try my hand at mono and pleased with the result; though posting an SHO Carina after the splendid one Rodney has posted here it's a tough act to follow!

After the last year using a series of OSC colour cameras and the optolong light pollution filters my first foray into Mono is via the new-ish ZWO ASI294mm and a set on Antlia Narrowband 3.5nm SHO filters and ZWO filter wheel. Took a while to get eveyrthing setup but finally managed around 6 hours last night with ~ 2hours on each filter with 300s expsoures. This is using my APM 130 and the riccardi 0.75x so ~585mm fl.

Stacked and processed in APP with just some minor tweaking in PS. I am impressed with how much can be done with narrowband in APP. I'll process this also later in Startools using the linear stacks from APP but happy with this for a first go, new camera, new filters, new processing etc. Amazing what can be captured in narrowband in a light polluted city with a full moon!

In APP I loaded SII as red, Ha as Green and OIII as blue but also then added SII and OIII as green as well... seems to produce a better SHO colour balance as a starting point. Basic colour APP gradient and star colour processing and HSL selective colour.

High res on astrobin link below https://astrob.in/5pkch9/0/

[TrevorW]

Good effort

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

That’s great work Robert. Looks. Like you will be having lots of fun with the ASI294. We seem to be missing the Astrobin link.

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Ryderscope

That’s great work Robert. Looks. Like you will be having lots of fun with the ASI294. We seem to be missing the Astrobin link.

thanks Rodney not sure why the link didn't show ...redone above and here

https://astrob.in/5pkch9/0/

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Originally Posted by Robert_T

thanks Rodney not sure why the link didn't show ...redone above and here

https://astrob.in/5pkch9/0/

That works. Good to be able to view on the large screen.

[Robert_T]

and inspired by Rodney's recent version I've done a restack and reprocess on the colour and reloaded - also gave me a chance to try calibration using darkflats instead of bias...can't say I noticed any difference.

https://www.astrobin.com/5pkch9/B/

[Wilsil (Wilco)]

Great image.
I know your feeling as I have started the same journey this weekend with a new mono camera and filter wheel.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by Robert_T

and inspired by Rodney's recent version I've done a restack and reprocess on the colour and reloaded - also gave me a chance to try calibration using darkflats instead of bias...can't say I noticed any difference.

https://www.astrobin.com/5pkch9/B/

Repro looks great now, well done!

[gregbradley]

That's a really good Carina image.

Greg.

[ab1963 (Andrew)]

Wow that's amazing i have never seen an image that pulls you in like that and thank you for sharing

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Wilsil

Great image.
I know your feeling as I have started the same journey this weekend with a new mono camera and filter wheel.

thanks Wilco, will follow your progress as well on this mono path... last night was a good example of the difference... lost a lot of subs due to cloud, but whereas with OSC it would be just reducing the stack... now I have a bunch of Ha, less OIII and barely a few SII... so I can see imaging on partly cloudy nights will mean a lot of going back and trying to balance up such mismatch...might not be so important?

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by ab1963

Wow that's amazing i have never seen an image that pulls you in like that and thank you for sharing

thanks Andrew. I never tire of looking deep into Carina :-)

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

That's a really good Carina image.

Greg.

thanks Greg for the kind comments. I may need to pick your brains at some point on this new camera (asi294mm).

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Andy01

Repro looks great now, well done!

thanks Andy, yes I definitely prefer the repro too. I do seem to get some colour shift from my screen an PS to AB... not sure why.

[Karlz (Karl)]

Looks great Robert, we've nearly gotten similar colours. Yours with mono and mine with OSC.

[AdamJL]

I missed this... what a beauty. The second version is my favourite. Excellent depth and control here, this is an amazing shot of a fantastic nebula.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Excellent image Robert

Originally Posted by Robert_T

also gave me a chance to try calibration using darkflats instead of bias...can't say I noticed any difference.

Flats may need darks but darks never need flats, sooo, they are "flatdarks"

Mike

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Karlz

Looks great Robert, we've nearly gotten similar colours. Yours with mono and mine with OSC.

I saw that too Karl. The latest OSC with Lextreme are pretty amazing. I am having fun with my new mono camera, but have no plans to sell my QHY268c as yet :-)

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by AdamJL

I missed this... what a beauty. The second version is my favourite. Excellent depth and control here, this is an amazing shot of a fantastic nebula.

thanks Adam, much appreciated. I don't think I'll ever tire of Carina as a target. We're lucky in the southern hemisphere to have somehting so large and bright and with such depth, and it helps it is so uniform there's not the struggles with say the tarantula nebula (another fave of mine) to protect highlights to bring out the faint and fuzzy :-)

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Excellent image Robert

Flats may need darks but darks never need flats, sooo, they are "flatdarks"

Mike

thanks Mike, I cant say I have the best grasp of calibration frames. I've always used Darks, Flats and Bias, but read some users of the 294mm saying to use Darkflats instead of Bias. I've tried both and both seem to "work" fine so I may just stick with Bias as taking flatdarks is an extra step I can do without. This of course is while using the camer in 2x2 binning mode... I read it's harder to calibrate in 1x1 so something for the future.