It’s rare to see a clear stable summers night on the south coast but conditions were pretty good on Wednesday night. No moon, little or no dew which is surprising because humidity was maxing out and no wind around. Even the mozzies must have been off duty.
Still performance testing my new rig with balance , guiding etc.. as this is only my 10th night since setting it up in June / July last year. Picked a big bright object NGC 3372 Carina and captured about 3 hours of good data.The problem with having a 10” at f5 is although your going much deeper you do lose some FOV. It’s really an all rounder scope big scope. In hindsight I should have pushed on until 4 or 5am to capture a few more hours but I was a zombie at 2am and called it quits ( had a big day)
NexDome Obs
10” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon fibre Newt
Skywatcher EQ8-R pro mount
ZWO2600MC cooled to -10C , Gain 101 ( HCG switches on at Gain 100 but so many folk say bump it up to 101 or 105 to make sure, they don’t trust ZWO or the driver )
Antlia ALPT 5nm Dualband OSC filter
TS Optics GPU coma corrector
60 x 3 min subs ( all dithered)
40 x Flats
60 x Bias
EQMOD and Stellarium
APT
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.45 to 0.55 total ) best guiding I’ve had on any mount
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools V1.8
I didn’t process any colour as yet , I’d like to capture more data
So left the image in OSC Synthetic Luminance
No binning
Original frame version
Crop version
Used Startools Spatially Variant PSF Deconvolution again with excellent results (tight white point stars with no ringing and de blurred the nebula beautifully)
Comments welcome
Thanks
PS: Couldn’t upload these on Astrobin as I only had my wife Mac and it didn’t work for some reason
Great stuff, Martin. The stars almost look like flecks of paint! Loads of detail, well done.
Thanks Adam
The new rig performed well and the data was excellent, I didn’t even Bin or have to use any noise reduction ( but I did, only 2 pixels ) you couldn’t tell the difference zoomed in at 300%
Image size was 6200 x4100
Conditions were bizarre for a humid summers night ( probably a one off )
A lucky night but enjoyable
Cheers
Martin
Hi Martin, I agree with Adam’s comment, some nice detail coming out. Looking forward to seeing how you go with this one. Better to save your final version for Astrobin (unless you have one of the paid subscriptions).
Fantastic detail in that shot Martin! Clear and clean- feel like I could reach in and touch it!! Hope you can get some more nights like that one- it’s been weeks since I’ve been able to image anything between holidays and persistent cloud cover. Great work
Hi Martin, I agree with Adam’s comment, some nice detail coming out. Looking forward to seeing how you go with this one. Better to save your final version for Astrobin (unless you have one of the paid subscriptions).
Thanks Stephane,
I decided to drop those monster counterweights down about 3mm on the EQ8-R to put a bit more back torque (east heavy) on the Ra axis. Don’t know if it did the trick but the Ra and Dec pulses on PHD2 were tiny and the trend lines were almost flat lining ( best night of guiding I’ve ever had ) Ra was 0.35 and Dec was 0.28 most of the night
The quality of the data reflected the guiding and atmospheric conditions
When I purchased the EQ8-R my biggest concern was Dec backlash as these mounts were notorious for that ( on forums and reviews etc.. ) but mine straight out of the box was really smooth ( I guess I was one of the lucky ones on the production line , the mount put together in the factory after mine probably had issues ???? )
If I can’t gather anymore data on Carina soon I guess I’ll just process the colour post it and move on to the next target
Fantastic detail in that shot Martin! Clear and clean- feel like I could reach in and touch it!! Hope you can get some more nights like that one- it’s been weeks since I’ve been able to image anything between holidays and persistent cloud cover. Great work
Thanks Dave,
I could tell once I performed the 1st AutoDev stretch that this data was good really good
I could have left it with out any noise reduction which is crazy ( in Sydney noise reduction is my saviour)
It’s nuts down hear on a good night , those folk who have permanent Obs on super dark sites are so blessed
Glad you and I plus many others hold the AP fort in Sydney under heavy LP , you haven’t imaged unless you image under Bortle 7/8/9 skies. It’s a real challenge I must say
Very pleased with the new rig, carbon fibre newts are so stable ( I pulled the primary off during the heat of the day to clean it and it went straight back in like a glove , you couldn’t do that with a metal tube !! )
Thanks for your kind comments
Cheers
Martin
nice pictures hope i can take some thing like that one day!
Like the star.
Thanks Geoff,
I knew nothing about Astrophotography just over 5 years ago , and I’m in my early 60’s , so sure you can take nice Astro images in time , anybody can who has the interest, passion and desire for the hobby.
Hi Martin,
that's great resolution -
you even picked up the oval shape of the Homunculus Nebula.
cheers
Allan
Thanks Allan
Yeh a one off summers night , very stable for the coast
A 10” is where you start to pick up detail where smaller scopes can’t
Enjoying the new rig
Thanks Greg ,Mike and Alex
Much appreciated
All the apprehension and concerns when you set up new rig from scratch are gone now
She’s humming along beautifully
Now for some more clear stable nights like the 25th January
Man this humidity is ridiculous
Come on Autumn
