12663 replies to this topic

[steveincolo]

I could not resist seeing Comet C/2023 A3 along with the Tweedledee and Tweedledum clusters.

 

AM5 unguided, ACL200, ASI2400MC-Pro with Baader UV/IR cut filter

 

Comet C/2023 A3, IC 4796 and NGC 6633, [ 15" / 30.5' ]

 

TweedleDeeDumbA3crop_acl200_2400b1_g200_br60_buvir_122F_1830S_NoEdit_11082024s1.jpg

Great shot!!  Is this from home or dark sky?

Edited by steveincolo, 09 November 2024 - 10:14 AM.

[MarMax]

Great shot!!  Is this from home or dark sky?

Thanks Steve, this is from home. I did not measure SQM-L but I'd say it was 17.90 ±.

 

I've also started using combined Enhancements since Robin made the changes to select multiple. This is with Gaussian blur and color noise reduction.

 

EDITED too add a link to the full size post-processed version of the same image using the 32-bit FITS.

 

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) with Tweedledum and Tweedledee Clusters, [ 15 ' / 31']

 

You can click and zoom and move around for full size.

Edited by MarMax, 09 November 2024 - 01:36 PM.

[GazingOli]

Two nights - one sole object. The last two nights turned out to be much worse than the forecast promised!

 

 

M 45 Plejades 19 x 32s resized

 

 

Equipment
TS-Optics PHOTOLINE 102 mm f/7 FPL53 Triplet-Apo
Starizona ApexED reducer / corrector -> f/4.55
on iOptron HAE 29 mount unguided
ZWO ASI 533 camera, Optolong L-Pro filter
images captured and stacked with SharpCap 4
flats & darks applied, gain 300, offset 30

 

 

CS.Oli

Edited by GazingOli, 10 November 2024 - 03:17 AM.

[FrankG]

M27 last night (Nov. 8) with 15" Starstructure dob, ASI2600MC, twenty15-second subs (although did not  improve much after three or four subs) with gain at 400. No post-processing except cropping and reducing for CN

 

Edited by FrankG, 09 November 2024 - 08:30 PM.

[RodgerDodger008]

Good long session last night, paying for it today. Was planning on going right through and grab my first Mars of the season but with Jupiter only reaching 35 degrees here and seeing not being great I decided that staying up for Mars also only around 33 degrees would not be worth it this time. Still only got into bed around 3am.

 

Jupiter Live stack, below avg. seeing - ASI585MC + 3x Xcell Barlow + 12 inch dob @ F15

Snapshot of 01_36_53_Jupiter_00005 01_39_29_WithDisplayStretch

The post processed planetary version was slightly better than this live stacked version, first Jupiter of the season so not unhappy considering the low elevation.

 

<Click for larger view>

 

ASI2600MC - Starizona Nexus - 12 inch dob @ F3.7

 

M74 (NGC 628,Phantom Galaxy)_2024-11-09T20_55_27_Stack_88frames_704s_WithDisplayStretch

NGC0613_2024-11-09T21_36_49_Stack_22frames_176s_WithDisplayStretch

NGC1763_2024-11-09T22_06_17_Stack_77frames_616s_WithDisplayStretch

 

NGC1763_2024-11-09T22_06_17_Stack_78frames_624s_WithAnnotations

 

NGC1787_2024-11-09T21_55_11_Stack_75frames_600s_WithDisplayStretch

NGC1787_2024-11-09T21_55_11_Stack_76frames_608s_WithAnnotations

C103 (NGC 2070,Tarantula Nebula)_2024-11-09T22_20_14_Stack_92frames_736s_WithDisplayStretch

 

NGC0908_2024-11-09T22_58_42_Stack_82frames_656s_WithDisplayStretch

 

NGC 1313_2024-11-09T23_34_02_Stack_80frames_640s_WithDisplayStretch

 

IC0434 (Horsehead Nebula, Orion B)_2024-11-09T23_49_23_Stack_90frames_720s_WithDisplayStretch

M42 (NGC 1976,Great Orion Nebula)_2024-11-10T00_03_45_Stack_90frames_720s_WithDisplayStretch

 

NGC1977 (the Running Man Nebula)_2024-11-10T00_20_19_Stack_79frames_632s_WithDisplayStretch

 

NGC1073_2024-11-10T00_50_04_Stack_80frames_640s_WithDisplayStretch

[MarMax]

One more from 11/7 that I forgot to post. This is the first look at Orion for the season. Always nice to check out M42 and the surrounding area.

 

AM5 guided, RASA8, ASI2600MC-Pro with Astronomik L-1 UV/IR cut filter

 

M42 and friends, actual size crop reduced to 864x864, [ 30" / 55' ]

 

 

 

With the RASA8 I'm limited to 30 second subs to not completely blow out the core. It's blown out but was much worse with 60 second subs. This is also with a gain of 120. I'm enjoying the ability to use multiple Enhancements together and find color noise reduction to be much more tolerable when used with Gaussian blur. With a longer soak (>40 minutes) I can usually go without color noise reduction which is best for star colors.

 

EDITED to add the full size post-processed version of the same M42 stack.

Edited by MarMax, 11 November 2024 - 02:55 AM.

[Bob Campbell]

One more from 11/7 that I forgot to post. This is the first look at Orion for the season. Always nice to check out M42 and the surrounding area.

 

AM5 guided, RASA8, ASI2600MC-Pro with Astronomik L-1 UV/IR cut filter

 

M42 and friends, actual size crop reduced to 864x864, [ 30" / 55' ]

 

M42crop_rasa8_2600b1_g120_br25_l1uvir_110F_3300S_NoEdit_11072024s.jpg

 

 

With the RASA8 I'm limited to 30 second subs to not completely blow out the core. It's blown out but was much worse with 60 second subs. This is also with a gain of 120. I'm enjoying the ability to use multiple Enhancements together and find color noise reduction to be much more tolerable when used with Gaussian blur. With a longer soak (>40 minutes) I can usually go without color noise reduction which is best for star colors.

Very nice image! Have you tried histogram stretch '5'. I think it was built for M42 and the nebulosity comes out without the blowout, trapezium resolved. Since read noise is so small for your camera, why not try 10sec subs at a gain of 101 (just above low noise transition). Also for blowout, I have discovered the pre-process step of 'mask overexposed pixels = on' can help.

 

The RASA 8 should have a great resolution to bring out even more detail, and higher altitude later should certainly help as well.

 

Bob

[Bob Campbell]

Scottsdale, SQM < 17.99, half moon, Nov 9, 2024

 

AT80ED(450mm)/asi294mc-pro(0C)/uv-ir/az-gti(eq)/guided Sharpcap 4.1 flats and darks, 8sec sub/200 gain

 

Horsehead/Flame  1704 sec gallery view; click image/filename/options/Large

 

 

 

Bob

Edited by Bob Campbell, 10 November 2024 - 09:11 PM.

[dob45]

Samyang 135mm f/2 lens, ASI 178 MM, Bortle 7/8, h-alfa filter, Moon at 68%.

 

ic 1396: 75x8s = 10 min

 

 

 

[dob45]

Samyang 135mm f/2 lens, ASI 178 MM, Bortle 7/8, h-alfa filter, Moon at 68%.

 

ic 1805: 105x8s = 14 min

                          

ic 1848: 75x8s = 10 min

[dob45]

Samyang 135mm f/2 lens, ASI 178 MM, Bortle 7/8, h-alfa filter, Moon at 68%.

 

ngc 1499: 101x8s = 13.4 min

 

[Bob Campbell]

Scottsdale, SQM < 17.99, 60% moon, Nov 10, 2024

 

Very fine haze, and poor seeing. I never considered that poor seeing could impact DSOs non-trivally. I was always focused on seeing for planetary lucky imaging. The fine haze appears as a very faint red glow in the images, which makes H-alpha nebulae a bit harder to see, especially the Heart.

 

AT80ED(450mm)/asi294mc-pro(0C)/uv-ir/az-gti(eq)/guided Sharpcap 4.1 flats and darks, 8sec sub/200 gain

 

 

Misc captures, well positioned. Longer total exposure time 30-60 mins typically. Gallery images. click/click filename/options/Large

 

Bubble Nebula 3032 sec

 

Fireworks galaxy 1944 sec

 

Heart Nebula 2120 sec

 

M45 3280 sec

 

Bob

 

 

 

Edited by Bob Campbell, 11 November 2024 - 02:33 PM.

[bigbangbaby]

Scope: 8" f4 Newtonian

Camera: ASI294MM Pro @ 200 gain; 0 deg C

Mount: AM5

Guiding: PHD2

Captured in NINA

Live viewed in Canisp

 

89% Moon, seeing good, transparency fair. Captured a small portion of the huge California Nebula, NGC1499, in SHO. 

10 x 120 sec each of SII, Ha and OIII; 60 min total

 

 

 

[mgCatskills]

Two nights ago I had a marathon with the November Challenge using my EdgeHD with 294mc-pro.  Last night, with the moon even brighter,  I wondered what to do.  Should i switch back to a wide field?  On a nearly full moon night?  I decided, instead, with Saturn and Jupiter both reasonably high, to return to SharpCap's planetary live stacking.

 

I went down a very tough learning curve towards the end of last year, and managed one capture of Jupiter in January.  It had been a little traumatic getting that far, so I'd put off the return engagement for 11 months until last night.  Luckily I took pretty good notes.

 

Still, Saturn, which I'd never imaged, was up first and a struggle.  Half of me was happy to achieve anything, half of me disappointed.  A bunch of details didn't work as I played around with getting SharpCap's contrast focusing to work, tracking, and managing the ROI.  I learned there's an art to making the ROI neither too big nor too small.

 

Eventually I got here, with relief....

 

 

I took a break, made myself dinner, and waited for Jupiter to get above 30°.  With Saturn learning under my belt, it went smoothly.  Still a little disappointed with what it looked like, then realized I could control the number of stacked images.  Duh.  i should have done the same to Staturn (live and learn).  So, with Jupiter, I went from like 200 to 1,500 and got to this image:

 

 

Then discovered that I could see stuff moving on the surface!! Wow.. the red spot was rotating, and I could actually see bands of clouds moving.  I'd always thought about still pictures not observing.  That opens up a whole new thing!!!

 

Now looking forward to doing this more and using the ADC I'd ordered and a 2x barlow.  Can't wait.

Edited by mgCatskills, 14 November 2024 - 04:50 PM.

[OregonSky]

Then discovered that I could see stuff moving on the surface!! Wow.. the red spot was rotating, and I could actually see bands of clouds moving.  I'd always thought about still pictures not observing.  That opens up a whole new thing!!!

 

Now looking forward to doing this more and using the ADC I'd ordered and a 2x barlow.  Can't wait.

 

How many Frame per Second were you set at  ? 

Thanks  

Mike in Oregon 
 

[mgCatskills]

How many Frame per Second were you set at  ? 

Thanks  

Mike in Oregon 
 

OK... not quite sure how to answer that.  Exposures were set between 20 and 33 msec, and the camera was set to capture at its maximum rate.  Since the region of interest was only about 640px x 640px, it captured very quickly, close to full speed, I think.

 

The red spot moves at the speed of rotation, and it's motion is barely perceptible.  But if you're spending an hour trying to optimize the sharpening options, you do notice it and (while it might be confirmation bias) does seem to creep slowly if you watch it carefully.  The clouds appeared to move more quickly at times, though it might have been an optical illusion as seeing improved and worsened.

 

Illusion or not, the effect on your perceptions is to help you key onto different features.

 

Seeing really wasn't very good last night and Saturn (which was well past the meridian) was bouncing around a fair amount.  The tracking does a pretty good job of keeping it still.  But if I set the ROI too tightly, it would sometimes bounce partly out of the frame and tracking would lose it.  Set the ROI too loose, and tracking would complain that there wasn't enough contrast, and shut down.  So the hardest part for me last night was figuring out how to set the ROI to optimize the experience.

 

Another "breakthrough" for me was to discover that you could adjust the ROI on the fly, and if the tracking lost the planetary disc, you could grab the little diagram of the ROI in the camera controls and drag it around to recenter it over the disc manually.

[Bob Campbell]

mgCatskills, on 14 Nov 2024 - 08:52 AM, said:

Two nights ago I had a marathon with the November Challenge using my EdgeHD with 294mc-pro. Last night, with the moon even brighter, I wondered what to do. Should i switch back to a wide field? On a nearly full moon night? I decided, instead, with Saturn and Jupiter both reasonably high, to return to SharpCap's planetary live stacking.

I went down a very tough learning curve towards the end of last year, and managed one capture of Jupiter in January. It had been a little traumatic getting that far, so I'd put off the return engagement for 11 months until last night. Luckily I took pretty good notes.

Still, Saturn, which I'd never imaged, was up first and a struggle. Half of me was happy to achieve anything, half of me disappointed. A bunch of details didn't work as I played around with getting SharpCap's contrast focusing to work, tracking, and managing the ROI. I learned there's an art to making the ROI neither too big nor too small.

Eventually I got here, with relief....



I took a break, made myself dinner, and waited for Jupiter to get above 30&deg;. With Saturn learning under my belt, it went smoothly. Still a little disappointed with what it looked like, then realized I could control the number of stacked images. Duh. i should have done the same to Staturn (live and learn). So, with Jupiter, I went from like 200 to 1,500 and got to this image:



Then discovered that I could see stuff moving on the surface!! Wow.. the red spot was rotating, and I could actually see bands of clouds moving. I'd always thought about still pictures not observing. That opens up a whole new thing!!!

Now looking forward to doing this more and using the ADC I'd ordered and a 2x barlow. Can't wait.

In the sharpcap live planetary stacking tool there are sharpening and noise reduction sliders on the left of the live stack panel and color balance on the right. That should improve your image a lot.

Good job Bob

[RodgerDodger008]

Seeing is EVERYTHING in plantetary imaging, being live stacked or traditional. Neither images are bad, they just look as if the seeing was average. In bad seeing sacrifice some fps for a larger image scale. Same way with visual you sacrifice maginfication for a clearer view and most importantly keep trying. Seeing changes multiple times over the course of a session even.

Edit: and +1 on bobs comment. Jupiter for example looks quite good and a little bit of sharpening plus hitting the auto colour balance would do wonders. Not sure I like how the latest version of sharcap luve stack also boosts brightness when I hit colour balance, but that is a easy fix with the reset button on that slider.

Edited by RodgerDodger008, 15 November 2024 - 05:33 AM.

[mgCatskills]

Seeing is EVERYTHING in plantetary imaging, being live stacked or traditional. Neither images are bad, they just look as if the seeing was average. In bad seeing sacrifice some fps for a larger image scale. Same way with visual you sacrifice maginfication for a clearer view and most importantly keep trying. Seeing changes multiple times over the course of a session even.

Edit: and +1 on bobs comment. Jupiter for example looks quite good and a little bit of sharpening plus hitting the auto colour balance would do wonders. Not sure I like how the latest version of sharcap luve stack also boosts brightness when I hit colour balance, but that is a easy fix with the reset button on that slider.

What does "sacrifice some fps for a larger image scale" mean?  Are you suggesting binning the camera?  How does that impact FPS?

 

I struggled with all of the settings,,, mostly the sharpening settings which are still mysterious to me.  I got this far just by trial and error, testing extreme settings for each slider and then cutting them back.  Other than the visual, I had no "theory" of how this should work to guide me.

 

Color is more understandable but the Auto Color Balance setting was useless...  it completely blew out the color settings, making it look like a Peter Max poster (for you Gen X'ers and younger: an American artist who more or less introduced psychedelic colors to to the art scene in the 1960s).
 

[RodgerDodger008]

What does "sacrifice some fps for a larger image scale" mean? Are you suggesting binning the camera? How does that impact FPS?

I struggled with all of the settings,,, mostly the sharpening settings which are still mysterious to me. I got this far just by trial and error, testing extreme settings for each slider and then cutting them back. Other than the visual, I had no "theory" of how this should work to guide me.

Color is more understandable but the Auto Color Balance setting was useless... it completely blew out the color settings, making it look like a Peter Max poster (for you Gen X'ers and younger: an American artist who more or less introduced psychedelic colors to to the art scene in the 1960s).

Setting a smaller ROI gives you higher fps, in planetary this is generally considered good, which it is. So all I am saying is use a larger ROI which will make the planet appear smaller but fps will be lower.

With sharperning it is tricky to explain, I am not great with the sc livestack tools I must be honest. I use registax 6 in post but the principles are the same.

The top two sliders, one is denoise and the other sharpening. I go maybe 0.5 on each and the a little bit on the 3 below that and dont touch the rest but it is trail and error. If the planet starts looking like a cartoon you have sharpened too much is the best way to explain.

[FrankG]

Helix (Nov. 2), with ASI2600MC, RASA8, ZWO AM5, no darks, no flats, IDAS NBZ filter - no post-processing except to downsize for CN. Six one-minute subs gain at 400

 

Edited by FrankG, 15 November 2024 - 06:55 PM.

[Bob Campbell]

Two nights ago I had a marathon with the November Challenge using my EdgeHD with 294mc-pro.  Last night, with the moon even brighter,  I wondered what to do.  Should i switch back to a wide field?  On a nearly full moon night?  I decided, instead, with Saturn and Jupiter both reasonably high, to return to SharpCap's planetary live stacking.

 

I went down a very tough learning curve towards the end of last year, and managed one capture of Jupiter in January.  It had been a little traumatic getting that far, so I'd put off the return engagement for 11 months until last night.  Luckily I took pretty good notes.

 

Still, Saturn, which I'd never imaged, was up first and a struggle.  Half of me was happy to achieve anything, half of me disappointed.  A bunch of details didn't work as I played around with getting SharpCap's contrast focusing to work, tracking, and managing the ROI.  I learned there's an art to making the ROI neither too big nor too small.

 

Eventually I got here, with relief....

 

 

 

I took a break, made myself dinner, and waited for Jupiter to get above 30°.  With Saturn learning under my belt, it went smoothly.  Still a little disappointed with what it looked like, then realized I could control the number of stacked images.  Duh.  i should have done the same to Staturn (live and learn).  So, with Jupiter, I went from like 200 to 1,500 and got to this image:

 

 

 

Then discovered that I could see stuff moving on the surface!! Wow.. the red spot was rotating, and I could actually see bands of clouds moving.  I'd always thought about still pictures not observing.  That opens up a whole new thing!!!

 

Now looking forward to doing this more and using the ADC I'd ordered and a 2x barlow.  Can't wait.

So I just realized that you were using a asi294mc-pro at f10. You will get a *much* better result at f20, right now you are undersampled. Considering you have a nice image livestacked and no sharpening or color balance at f10, you have a lot of headroom to really up your game. I never really got better results with an ADC, but I think that was my problem. Which one are you going to get?

 

Bob

[MarMax]

So I just realized that you were using a asi294mc-pro at f10. You will get a *much* better result at f20, right now you are undersampled. Considering you have a nice image livestacked and no sharpening or color balance at f10, you have a lot of headroom to really up your game. I never really got better results with an ADC, but I think that was my problem. Which one are you going to get?

 

Bob

Great points Bob. For anyone wishing to go down the rabbit hole a bit further with planetary imaging using SharpCap, I'd recommend reading this topic first.

 

https://www.cloudyni...september-2024/

 

You do not need to do it all but for a quick and dirty "best" effort with SharpCap you'll need to follow some of the recommended practices. Camera settings and camera/scope resolution are very important. The SharpCap planetary live stack tool spares you from much of the pain but you need to start off with the basics.

 

Lastly, as mentioned already . . . good seeing is the key to good results. If the seeing is poor then it's not worth doing planetary imaging.

 

If you really want a good planetary session you'll not be doing double duty with your scope and hopping back and forth between DSO's and planets.

[Bob Campbell]

 

If you really want a good planetary session you'll not be doing double duty with your scope and hopping back and forth between DSO's and planets.

Exactly. That's why I have a dedicated OTA/camera each for DSO (wide field) and planets (C6/678). I do no swapping other than the whole assembly. I tried my first shot of Jupiter and it was a disaster. I can't get even a tiny bit of good tracking/alignment, so shapcap livestack is a non-starter. Must be something I forgot from last season. No matter, I'll figure it out eventually. February is when it is at its largest as I recall.

 

Bob

Edited by Bob Campbell, 16 November 2024 - 12:24 PM.

[BrentKnight]

Moderator Warning

 

Folks... we are straying a bit off topic for the EAA Image Gallery.