12663 replies to this topic

[StarMike8SE]

Pretty darn good, Mike.  I like the detail you got in the M8 Hourglass.

 

Don

I had to stack mine, and I used a Baader Moon and skyglow filter with built in UV/IR cut.  Mine was around 20 seconds stacked for 4-5 minutes.  That does show the power of stacking though.

[roelb]

Evo 8 @ f/5 - Lodestar X2 Mono - Dark area - SLL V.3.1

 

NGC 7479 - C 44_Barred Spiral galaxy in Pegasus - 9x20s_mean

 

NGC 7317 + 18A&B + 19 + 20-.Stephan.s.Quintet_9x20s_mean

 

M 27 - NGC 6853 - Dumbbell Planetary Nebula - 5x15s_UHC-arcsinh

 

NGC.7023 - C 4 -.Iris Diffuse Reflection Nebula_7x20s_mean

 

NGC.6995 - C 33.-.Veil.Nebula.-.Eastern.segment_8x20s_mean

 

 

 

 

[roelb]

Evo 8 @ f/5 - Lodestar X2 Mono - Dark area - SLL V.3.1

 

NGC.6992 - C 33-.Veil.Nebula.-.Eastern.segment_15x15s_mean

 

NGC.6960 - C 34 -.Veil.Nebula.-.Western.segment_7x15s

 

NGC.7635 C 11-Bubble Emission Nebula_17x15s-UHC

 

NGC.6888.-.C.27.-.Crescent.Emission.Nebula_6x20s_UHC

 

M 76 - NGC 650 + 651-Little.Dumbbell Planetary Nebula - 8 x 20 s

Edited by roelb, 03 August 2016 - 05:21 PM.

[roelb]

Evo 8 @ f/5 - Lodestar X2 Mono - Dark area - SLL V.3.1

 

IC.5146 - C 19 -Cocoon.Emission.Nebula_6 x 30 s - UHC

 

NGC.7331+35+36+37+40 - C 30 - Spiral.Galaxy.in.Pegasus - 7 x 20 s

[ChrisFC]

That's amazing.

I could stack the Cat's Paw for a few minutes, then post-stretch and it still looks invisible compared to that. I'll have to lock myself in my office on wednesday afternoons and put up a 'do not disturb sign' so I can watch more of your broadcasts.

Chris

Thanks, Charles. I was amazed that we were getting decent images with single short exposures. I tried stacking, but the stacking routine was creating distortion of the star field. I think there were too many stars. I'll have to ask Paul about it. We were really thrilled with the performance of the Hyperstar and C11 Edge. It's really a great EAA setup. Not great for portability though.

Don

[Don Rudny]

Chris,

 

It shows what clear skies and fast optics can do for EAA.  Thanks for tuning in.  We're hoping that we can get NSN to record the sessions, so others can see it when they want.  I still think there is something special about seeing these DSO's "live".  The most asked question by the visitors is "are we looking at a live view".  Our goal is to give people around the world a chance to do that from the best astronomy site in the world.  It was great to see you and others from far away places do just that.  Technology advancement will make it easier as time goes on.

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

Don

[Stargazer3236]

Here is a pic of M 76, the Little Dumbell, in Perseus, taken with a Ha 12 nm filter, attached to a Revolution Imager onto my Celestron 6SE OTA, iOptron ZEQ 25 mount, working at f/3.7, Live Stacking in SharpCap 2.9 and post processed in Photoshop.

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[Stargazer3236]

Here are a few more images, taken with a Ha 12 nm filter, attached to a Revolution Imager onto my Celestron 6SE OTA, iOptron ZEQ 25 mount, working at f/3.7, post processed in Photoshop.

 

They are:

 

NGC 6818, the Little gem planetary nebula in Sagittarius

NGC 6781, planetary nebula in Aquila (shows up better in Ha than in OIII)

NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball planetary nebula in Andromeda

NGC 6888, the Crescent nebula in Cygnus

NGC 281, the Pacman nebula

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[Stargazer3236]

And a few more:

 

M 8, the Lagoon nebula

M 16, the Eagle nebula

Portion of the Pelican nebula

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[Stargazer3236]

And a few more:

 

NGC 6888, the Crescent nebula

M 17, the Swan nebula

M 20, the Trifid nebula

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[Stargazer3236]

And a few more:

 

NGC 7635, the Bubble nebula

IC 1318, the Gamma Cygni, nebula complex around Sadr

NGC 6992, portion of the Eastern Veil nebula

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[Stargazer3236]

And a few galaxy pics thrown in for good measure, minus the Ha filter.

 

M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy

NGC 891, the Needle Galaxy

NGC 7331, the Deer Lick Galaxy

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[calan]

I'm so jealous of all of your skies and skill.  

Here are a few images I captured last weekend with my MC X2, through thick haze, high clouds, and my orange LP skies just outside of Oklahoma City. (See the screen grab of the satellite image). During the best conditions, I could just barely make out Kochab, and unfortunately most of these were around 20-30* above the horizon and in the muck when I got around to actually taking some pics. Still shows what the venerable Xtreme X2 is capable of though I think.

All shots were around 15-20s, single shot, direct capture with Miloslick V3 using a diamond VC500 grabber. They were taken with my unguided LXD75 6" newt and IR cut filter. No post processing at all; just some stretching in Miloslick before saving the capture. (I had to bump the black point quite a bit to make them presentable, although I lost a little detail). I also played around some with the new image enhancement tools on a couple of them.

EDIT: Just realized I didn't change the label on M20. Yes..that last image is M20...not M8.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by calan, 04 August 2016 - 11:50 PM.

[Don Rudny]

Hi Calan,

 

You have shown that even with all the new cams out now, the venerable MC X2 is still a great one for EAA.  Ken down under has shown what it can do in dark skies, but your captures show what it can do in tough seeing with single short exposures.  Excellent job!

 

Don

[calan]

Hi Calan,

 

You have shown that even with all the new cams out now, the venerable MC X2 is still a great one for EAA.  Ken down under has shown what it can do in dark skies, but your captures show what it can do in tough seeing with single short exposures.  Excellent job!

 

Don

Thanks Don. Much appreciated!

I've been a computer geek since 1980, but I'm still a newb at all this fancy astro-imaging stuff.  

[Robrj]

M23 - Orion 50mm Guidescope (21x2s, 390 gain)

 

The following were with the Ultrastar-C and an Optolong CLS CCD filter on the 130 SLT (on an AVX mount):

 

M92 - 5x16s

 

M9 - 6x16s

 

M10 - 6x16s

 

M12 - 6x16s

 

M56 - 6x16s

 

M52 - 6x16s

 

M71 - 6x16s

 

[Rich_B]

Here are a few more images, taken with a Ha 12 nm filter, attached to a Revolution Imager onto my Celestron 6SE OTA, iOptron ZEQ 25 mount, working at f/3.7, post processed in Photoshop.

 

They are:

 

NGC 6818, the Little gem planetary nebula in Sagittarius

NGC 6781, planetary nebula in Aquila (shows up better in Ha than in OIII)

NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball planetary nebula in Andromeda

NGC 6888, the Crescent nebula in Cygnus

NGC 281, the Pacman nebula

 

Nice images but I'm confused, how did you get GREEN thru a H-a filter ? Was the camera color balance that far off or was the light passing thru the H-a filter really green ? I've never experienced this but read that some filters get detuned at very fast F ratios . Was your filter placed in front of the reducer and therefore receiving the f/10 light cone or between reducer and camera, working in the f/3.7 light cone ?

Edited by Rich_B, 05 August 2016 - 04:28 PM.

[Relativist]

Color balance, or lack thereof is my prediction lol.

[39.1N84.5W]

Mallincam extreme, 8" f4 Newt, uv/ir and uhc filter, agc set to 4, white zone, one 35s image. In miloslick: despeckle and enhance filters were on. Not entirely sure what they do...

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[mclewis1]

Nick,

 

Very nice (see, it was worth it).

 

Despeckle is reducing some of the random read noise in the background (often shows up as little subtle red/green dots, kind of like really faint warm pixels). I'm not sure about the Enhance filter but I'd guess it's bringing out more faint nebula details but may also be "enhancing" the dark halos around the brighter stars.

 

There are two types of artifacts from your frame grabber showing up too. The horizontal "bands" visible in both images are likely 60hz AC noise. I'd take a look at your cables, I'd try a different video cable (even if it's too short for normal usage, just to try) and also go over the routing of the cables to further separate any AC cables from your DC and video cables.

 

There's also a little color ghosting (faint violet/blue image to the right of the brighter stars). It's usually caused by the frame grabber but I don't know specifically how to deal with it other than to reduce the blue channel slightly.

[larryjh]

Hi all.  Here are some images I captured while on vacation in Naples, FL.  I got one clear night out of the week we were there.  I concentrated on Sagittarius because it's higher in the sky there than back at home.  All images were taken with my Skywatcher pro 80ED, UV/IR cut filter and 0.5x focal reducer.  The AVS MKIV was set to x512 and 2x in camera stacking then live stacked in Sharpcap for 1-2 minutes.  Thanks for looking!

 

Omega Nebula

 

Lagoon Nebula

 

Trifid Nebula

 

M22

[Don Rudny]

Before our regular evening session of outreach for the visitors at the Mauna Kea VIS we captured a few images of Jupiter and the moon.  Used a 50mm mini guide scope and Touptek 5.1mp cam.  Single short exposures.

 

[Stargazer3236]

Here are some images taken Friday night, 6/5/2016, using a Celestron 6SE OTA, iOptron ZEQ25 EQ mount, Revolution Imager Mark 1, no filters, AGC medium, Sense-up x256/x512, DNR 4 Brightness 40, SharpCap 2.9 Live Stack. These are Edge on Galaxies with the exception of M 81, M 51, M 63, M 64. Also, two planetary nebula, NGC 6905 and M 57.

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[Stargazer3236]

And some more:

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[wrpspeed16]

And some more:

I see you are using the R1 with sharpcap. I was wondering how long your stacked exposures were?

BTW great work.

Terry