First Mono Shot - Merged with Canon 60D colour

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Hi everyone,
I have finally jumped into a new mission to shoot in mono for DSO imaging. I have acquired an ASI2600MM from the trades section recently and with some handy starting tips from Martin, have now produced my first image using it.

I chose to target the Horse Head nebula using a 2"Ha Optolong filter with my 10"Newtonian.
One hour exposure combined from two nights of "testing" at -10deg C.
Used APT and ASTAP, processed in Startools and PS.

Was fun to get it all up and running - now hope to refine my skills and combine with colour (using my modded Canon 60D for the time being).

Cheers & Merry Christmas!
Anth

[muletopia (Chris)]

From a humble beginner, the detail of the upper veil and the horse head look very good along with the taming of thr bright stars. I look forward to a colour version.
Chris

[Dave882 (David)]

Stunning detail mate. Well done!!

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Yes, agree with what the others have said. A fine one to add to your Modded Canon's UVIR cut filtered exposures, either as a luminance layer or an addition to your red channel for added Ha intensity. Great start Anthony!

[Startrek (Martin)]

Anthony,
That’s a fine image in Ha of the horsey
Nicely processed as well
Well done !!

Glad to have helped in some tiny way

Onward and upwards from here

Cheers
Martin

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Originally Posted by muletopia

From a humble beginner, the detail of the upper veil and the horse head look very good along with the taming of thr bright stars. I look forward to a colour version.
Chris

Cheers Chris,
Been involved in this hobby for a long time now and although a slow progression I really am excited to see what this camera can do.
I will need to scale the images from my colour shots to match the mono shots but it’ll work I think. I don’t have a filter wheel so it would be a bit of an effort to take RGB with the ZWO but again I’ll take it slowly and see where it goes.

Originally Posted by Dave882

Stunning detail mate. Well done!!

Thanks Dave!
Appreciate your comment. I may try collecting more photons to add if the sky clears before Christmas too.

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Yes, agree with what the others have said. A fine one to add to your Modded Canon's UVIR cut filtered exposures, either as a luminance layer or an addition to your red channel for added Ha intensity. Great start Anthony!

Yes indeed Mick/ a few options in processing are allowed with this sort of data.
I’ll have a go with the Ha for the red channel as you say/ more to learn here …
Thanks mate.

Originally Posted by Startrek

Anthony,
That’s a fine image in Ha of the horsey
Nicely processed as well
Well done !!

Glad to have helped in some tiny way

Onward and upwards from here

Cheers
Martin

Martin,
Very generous in you sharing your workflows to help me along.
ASTAP was a must as the old DSS did struggle with these large files from the 2600MM.
I may need to beef up the PC too as processing is taking its toll with my machine.
Thanks for the encouragement/ will be in touch.
Regards,
A

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Last night although a full moon rising, got out to capture an additional hour to combine this Ha shot.
More depth has been revealed in the horse head itself and deeper contrast.
This was also binned and 35%

Happy with the outcome and comfortable with the procesing through Startools now with playing around with the various modules and noise reduction.
Cheers!
Anth

[muletopia (Chris)]

Hello Anthony,

With the added data the appearance of the double diffraction spikes on the bright star reminds me of a similar problem I had some years back.

Whilst experimenting with a friends mount I failed to tighten the scope retaining screws sufficiently and on the first slew to target the Mewlon 210 with a canon 60 DA slid out and crashed to the floor of my observatory. The camera was destroyed and a crack in the front of the scope resulted, With the camera replaced the effect was a double spike from one spider vane. The vane indeed had a small twist I was never able to fix.
So perhaps check for opposition of the vanes as a slight alignment problem would lead to the double spikes, perhaps.
Chris

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

That’s tough luck / I’ve done that once before when I started many moons ago/ my DSLR ended up with a softer landing on grass thank goodness!
In my picture it is a case of two separate captures but not in perfect alignment when framing as I can only manually plate solve. Hence a slight variation as a cause of rotation of the camera in the focuser tube. This unfortunately creates the obvious double diffraction spikes when I overlay the two images.
I could try and mask this area out using the first image star and this might eliminate this effect.
The only other way is to leave my camera in the focuser in between sessions so as to keep the alignment un-altered.

[muletopia (Chris)]

OK, understood. The processing program Astro Pixel Processor will align the two sets of frames.I have used it for some time with my Mewlon250 which replaced the damaged Mewlon 210. BTW the replacement camera is a QHY8l, big pixels to match the 2metre focal length of the Mewlon.
Chris

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Hi there,
I wanted to have a go at merging an old colour shot of the same subject I took back in 2021 (a while back now) using my trusty Canon 60D.
The only trouble here was scaling and rotating it to match the mono shot I took this month with the ASI2600MM.
Both cameras have an APS-C sensor which are suited to each other in terms of framing which is why I chose this mono camera in particular.

So, I took some addtional short subs for the stars a few nights ago this week and combined it all together using Photoshop and Startools.
I learned a bit more about using masks and this helped rid some clashing diffraction spikes in Altinak which was evident previously.

Procesing can be time consuming and a little annoying at times but in the end it brings all the late night efforts together for a keep sake image to be happy about...

All up I'm impressed with how much the Ha has improved the image from my old capture using the DSLR. It's only taken me 20 years to try it out!
Thanks for looking -

Christmas Cheers,
Anth

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Spectacular images Anthony!

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Very well done, Anthony. The extra detail from the Ha really helps with putting structure into the colour image.

V.

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Well your method of combining the mono's Ha and the colour from the DSLR worked a treat. Clever and time saving, as opposed to a LRGB filtered set using the mono camera. Great result which will build confidence in trying this method on other objects. Well done Anthony!

[Cyberman (Rob)]

Very nice Anth. What was the DSLR and Mono exposure times? I might have a go at the horse if the clouds hold off. Cheers, Rob

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Spectacular images Anthony!

Leo- Thankyou - Such a magestic area that's for sure!

Originally Posted by AstroViking

Very well done, Anthony. The extra detail from the Ha really helps with putting structure into the colour image.
V.

100% Steve, I was amazed at the improvement - It certainly "lifts" the image. So much dynamic range with the mono shot and breaths life into the limited stretch of a typical classic DSLR output. More integration would help smooth it out further, but I'm putting this one to bed for this year.

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Well your method of combining the mono's Ha and the colour from the DSLR worked a treat. Clever and time saving, as opposed to a LRGB filtered set using the mono camera. Great result which will build confidence in trying this method on other objects. Well done Anthony!

Cheers Mick- Yes I believe this technique definately works for Ha rich nebula such as this and it can be used as a luminance layer overlay as well as integrating into the red channel of the colour shot. As mentioned before the only hastle is the scaling and registration between the two images. I will look into some of the sugestions made to help with this. Might turn to M42 and repeat this application as I have a previous colour shot as well.
Will try RGB filters in future with the ASI2600 / Interested to compare the colour quality one day.

Originally Posted by Cyberman

Very nice Anth. What was the DSLR and Mono exposure times? I might have a go at the horse if the clouds hold off. Cheers, Rob

Thanks Rob. Go for it - Orions belt is perfectly positioned for a while yet...
The DSLR shot was made up of:
1.5hr UV/IR cut 60sec ISO800 for colour
50m Baader UV/IR cut 30 sec ISO800 for stars
1hr 60sec V3 IDAS Hutech filter for the nebulosity (taken all from bortel 7 backyard skies)
1hr First Mono shot using Optolong 2" Ha filter 90sec at gain100 -10degC
Darks & Flats
This attached image has minor enhancements to the stars and contrast: