431 replies to this topic

[nicknacknock]

Please post post-processed images ONLY in this pinned topic, along with any other NV related images you would like to post which are not post-processed.

 

It is a requirement to:

 

- State what post processing, if any, has been done, in order to separate images that show a representative view from NV devices Vs images that are enhanced to show features viewed to the best possible degree.

 

- Identify the object of interest by name or catalog number.

 

Any posts which do not comply with the requirement, will be removed without warning.

[Oukifrench]

Hello.

19/12/2019

M45 Pléiades 

Objectif lens 80mm F1,7 gen1 cascade P8079 HP  imageur asi zwo 224 with asicap on tablette.

One shoot 0,3 seconde.

 

I know nothing spécial but i 'am beginner on night vision.

 

Edit :

Sorry i foget to do report.

i't's not easy  for a Frenchy but i going to try  .

 

 

We all know the pleiades a target of beginners but always pleasant observed that it is in visual AND  Eaa with its nebulosity but this time for my beginnings in night vision it was a target of first order. 

 

I live in France and in France imagine that the night vision is practically nonexistent.

 

Just 2 specialists including one in the Netherlands.

 

We followed their advice ordered a gen1 P8079 and some very fast optics in Ukraine and Russia because less expensive assembled on  all with Pvc toilet pipes   ..... and finally the French night vision started.

 

  Am I proud of my simple observations of the Pleïades with my DIY Gen1? 

OHHHHHHHH YESSSSSSSSS

Extraordinary AMAZING .....

I could observe it in brilliant details of a thousand lights details never seen unfortunately no nebulosity but a really different vision. What shocked me with the Gen1 is the  LIVE aspect of the target.

 

Really funny......

 

I recognize that there is nothing exceptional in this observation but by dint of reading you to contemplate your observations it was time to participate in the adventure of night vision my Friends.

 

Hoping that google translator didn't make too many mistakes

 

 

Ouki 

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Edited by Oukifrench, 26 December 2019 - 07:38 PM.

[star drop]

I see that you were able to capture the fainter stars at the end of the bent row of stars leading away from Alcyone. Were you able to see any of the reflection nebulosity through your NV device?

[Starman27]

As Ted pointed out you are now able to learn a lot more about an object you have observed. Don't forget to share those observations. The joy of NV.

[Jeff Morgan]

Well, this will give me a little incentive to go through all of my pics, organize, and delete dups ... call it one of my 2020 resolutions 

 

October 5, 2018

NGC 7635, aka the Bubble Nebula

Mod 3C, L3 white phosphor tube

16" f/7 Newtonian using 55 Plossl afocal, 7nm h-alpha

iPhone X, 1/3 second shutter 9.80 second integration, ISO 5000

Original file 4.8mb TIFF

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[MCJ2087]

2/05/2020:  approx. 1 hr. of prime focus NV observing using live stacking, starting at about 8:15pm

 

Bortle 4 observing site, clear skies, good transparency, average seeing
5-10 mph southwest wind, 23 deg F at start / 12 deg F at finish
Celestron C90 (1000mm focal length/F-11), SLT tripod and mount
ITT Model 190 monocular, Gen3 purchased in 2000, has seen lots of use
ZWO ASI224MC with relay lens
SharpCap3.2 – Mono8 colour space, 1304x986, ‘Save exactly as seen, with display stretch’
Targets:  M42 Orion Nebula, M31 Andromeda, NGC2237 Rosetta Nebula, M33 Triangulum

 

I’m just getting started with astronomy.  The previous nights’ session was spent learning how to use a go-to mount, and some time using SharpCap with the telescope set up prime focus NV with a 0.5 focal reducer.  For this session, I used the night vision monocular with a red dot finder during the star alignment (lots of sky glow).  M42 Orion Nebula was about 25 degrees away from the 86% illuminated waxing Moon.  The live stacked NV views seemed to be more detailed than the 25mm Plossl eyepiece view.  I tried for a short time to acquire views of NGC2234 and M33, but no luck so I moved on to M31.  The one live stack was set for too much exposure, washing out much of the faint galaxy detail.  I have included a live stack save for Orion Nebula (260 seconds/88 frames), to demonstrate what I was looking at for an observing viewpoint.  My thanks to Cloudy Nights members who have contributed time, information, and photos to the EAA forum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eddgie]

Nice image!

 

Did you use an H-alpha filter?  A 12nm or 6mm-7nm filter will typically bring out a lot more detail than this.. Even in real time, you should see more than this image shows.

[Gavster]

As this thread is a bit quiet, I’d thought I’d start posting a few images and hopefully others will do so as well.

I’ve decided to start with some old ones from back in August 2018 when I’d just got my huawei smart phone. In pro mode this phone can do up to 30 seconds exposure and also has a nice separate mono lens. I noticed an immediate improvement from my previous smartphones. 
These were taken through a 72mm f6 altair refractor with a 55mm plossl in afocal mode. They are with a pvs-14 with a photonis intens 4g tube. The 72mm was part of a quest of mine at the time to get a very wide field of view and I was quite happy with the results (stars seem reasonably well corrected across the field of view). I have to say I don’t think I’ve used this scope since these photos were taken - I ended up preferring slightly larger refractors like the Tak fsq85.

In order these are North American, heart and soul and California nebula (old stalwarts!!). 30 second exposure with 50 iso and 6nm astronomik ha filter.

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[Gavster]

One of my favourite ‘smaller’ nv observing objects is the Crescent Nebula. This smartphone image was again taken in August 2018 but this time with my then newly acquired 11 inch sct from my back garden in London (sky quality meter reading 18). I used a 55mm Televue plossl afocally with a 6nm ha filter and a photonis 4g pvs-14.

 

I remember being surprised at the time about how well the sct worked with night vision. It’s since become one of my favourite and most used scopes. The two brightest stars within the nebula are double stars - I think it’s impressive that the night vision showed the separation between the double stars well. 

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[Wildetelescope]

Those images are fabulous! Are they a single 30 second exposure, or averaged? They seem to have very low noise!

Jmd

[Gavster]

Those images are fabulous! Are they a single 30 second exposure, or averaged? They seem to have very low noise!

Jmd

They are single 30 second exposure, no averaging - just straight off the phone. The very low iso helps with reducing the noise.

[Gavster]

As I purchased my nv monocular new in Europe it is not subject to itar so I’m able to take it abroad (I live in the UK). The first time I did this was in September 2018 when I took my photonis 4g pvs-14 Monocular and Televue tv 85 scope to Tenerife for a few days. My family stayed by the beach while for a couple of evenings I headed up Teide to Vilaflor, the highest village on Spain (apparently!).
I had to deal with some moonlight and also village lights which meant that the sky quality meter reading was only around 20, but I still got some lovely views of objects I’d never seen before, and also some great ones of objects I had seen before in the UK but quite low down.
The little tv85 worked really well in conjunction with the 55mm plossl and 6nm ha filter. It was a very enjoyable couple of observing sessions on the rooftop of a little guest house.
Here in order are:
1) Lobster nebula
2) Cat’s paw nebula (a lovely one, does look just like a paw imo!)
3) Prawn nebula (got to love these names 😀)
4) Lagoon nebula with trifid nebula above it (and a very bright blob called Saturn to the top right!)
5) Eagle and Swan nebula
6) Veil nebula (framed fantastically well by the tv85)
7) North America (yet again!) and pelican nebula
 

This has so far been the only time I’ve ever viewed the lobster, prawn and cats paw- I’d love to see them again....

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Edited by Gavster, 07 April 2020 - 05:46 PM.

[Gavster]

Images 5, 6 and 7 below.

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Edited by Gavster, 07 April 2020 - 06:03 PM.

[Forward Scatter]

Images 5, 6 and 7 below.

Absolutely incredible images!

 

Thanks for sharing!

[Wildetelescope]

Images 5, 6 and 7 below.

Again!  Very nice.  So out of curiosity, how close does what you see looking through the eyepiece with the NV come to your image.  I understand you will see scintillation, but can you make out close to the same level of detail that you see in these pictures?    I am on the verge of springing for a PVS 14, and your pictures are reinforcing my urge to try this.   This technology has certainly come a long way since I first started looking at this stuff some 20 years ago.  Very impressive.

 

JMD

[Gavster]

Again!  Very nice.  So out of curiosity, how close does what you see looking through the eyepiece with the NV come to your image.  I understand you will see scintillation, but can you make out close to the same level of detail that you see in these pictures?    I am on the verge of springing for a PVS 14, and your pictures are reinforcing my urge to try this.   This technology has certainly come a long way since I first started looking at this stuff some 20 years ago.  Very impressive.

 

JMD

I think the images give a good representation of the actual eyepiece views I see. For some objects eg the lagoon and m42, the live nv views are better since the eye adjusts to the brighter cores whereas these blow out in the images. For other objects eg the Veil, I think the phone image shows the fine nebula filament more clearly.

 

However, I would say that I have optimised my nv setup over the last few years to enable similar visual views by the following:

 

1) use of very fast effective f ratio setups using the afocal approach to nv (rather than prime), typically I run at an effective f2.5 or lower. This allows more light to enter the nv monocular and gives brighter views.

2) use of very narrowband 3nm ha filters. These work very well with fast effective setups to give high contrast detailed views of emission nebulae. Most nv users seem to use wider ha filters (6 to 12nm) but my experience has been that a high quality 3nm really punches out much better contrast.

3) use of manual gain control. This allows me to dial the views to reduce scintillation to my preferred level to be able to draw out the fine detail.

4) observing from dark sites (sqm 21 plus if possible). Dark sites are much better even with nv and narrowband filters. The sky background is inky black (rather than greyish from a lp site) enabling the nebulae to pop out that much clearer.

5) I generally prefer flatfield apo refractors than reflectors for widefield nebulae observing. The views just seem a bit sharper and more constrasty to me. I had a Tak Epsilon 130d which worked pretty well for nv but I sold it last year as my preference is for refractors.

Edited by Gavster, 08 April 2020 - 06:43 AM.

[Wildetelescope]

I think the images give a good representation of the actual eyepiece views I see. For some objects eg the lagoon and m42, the live nv views are better since the eye adjusts to the brighter cores whereas these blow out in the images. For other objects eg the Veil, I think the phone image shows the fine nebula filament more clearly.

 

However, I would say that I have optimised my nv setup over the last few years to enable similar visual views by the following:

 

1) use of very fast effective f ratio setups using the afocal approach to nv (rather than prime), typically I run at an effective f2.5 or lower. This allows more light to enter the nv monocular and gives brighter views.

2) use of very narrowband 3nm ha filters. These work very well with fast effective setups to give high contrast detailed views of emission nebulae. Most nv users seem to use wider ha filters (6 to 12nm) but my experience has been that a high quality 3nm really punches out much better contrast.

3) use of manual gain control. This allows me to dial the views to reduce scintillation to my preferred level to be able to draw out the fine detail.

4) observing from dark sites (sqm 21 plus if possible). Dark sites are much better even with nv and narrowband filters. The sky background is inky black (rather than greyish from a lp site) enabling the nebulae to pop out that much clearer.

5) I generally prefer flatfield apo refractors than reflectors for widefield nebulae observing. The views just seem a bit sharper and more constrasty to me. I had a Tak Epsilon 130d which worked pretty well for nv but I sold it last year as my preference is for refractors.

Thank you for that very informative description.   I have an F6 80 mm Triplet that I think would work well, based on what I see from your TV85.  Not too much I can do about light pollution at this time, although our club has a darkish site that we go to.   I will look in to the whole Narrow band end of things.  First step is assemble enough pennies for the NVS:-).    

 

Cheers!

 

JMD

[Eddgie]

Thank you for that very informative description.   I have an F6 80 mm Triplet that I think would work well, based on what I see from your TV85.  Not too much I can do about light pollution at this time, although our club has a darkish site that we go to.   I will look in to the whole Narrow band end of things.  First step is assemble enough pennies for the NVS:-).    

 

Cheers!

 

JMD

One of the great benefits of NV is that you can actually see a lot of these things even from a white zone.

 

I live in a red/white zone (depending on the season and dust levels) and I can see the Horse Head nebula from my light polluted back yard.  I have seen the Pillars of Creation on nights with a half moon in the sky.  I can see Globular Clusters even with very small telescopes from my yard.

Because these devices are most sensitive in the red and near infra-red wavelengths, a simply $75 IR pass filter becomes a powerful light pollution filter that kills 90% of all man-made light. LED, Sodium, whatever.  Put on your long pass filter and the sky gets very dark, but since most stellar targets emit a lot of energy in red, you still see them.  Galaxies that you you would have needed to go to darker skies to see well would usually be easily in reach with NV.  Not always... Some face on galaxies will still not be great, but for most others, you can see amazing detail even from the city.

[Gavster]

To give a comparison with my photonis 4g, here are some of the first short exposure phone images I took with my harder gen 3 white phosphor pvs-14 in October 2018.

This was using my Astro Physics 130gtx with a 40mm plossl afocally and ha filter. 
Three very well known objects for night vision, horsehead, rosette and California.

 

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[SMark]

I'm a pretty exclusive two-eyed observer. I have so many floaters in both of my eyes that I tend to get a really big boost from using both eyes together over using either one alone. So I will typically use a binocular as my scope of choice. My NVD is an older ANVIS type binocular with class A objectives having 625nm filters, which I will use with my binocular of choice. And I typically add a pair of H-alpha filters and use the NVD afocally in front of the binocular eyepieces. My favorite binoculars for this purpose are a Bushnell 7x60 and an APM-100 ED binoscope with 40mm eyepieces. I like to take pictures of what I can actually see through the binoculars, so these pics are just iPhone snaps at the eyepiece.

 

The fist pic is M42 taken through the Bushnell 7x60, and the final three pics are the Horsehead & Flame Nebulas, the Rosette Nebula, and then M42, all taken through the APM-100...

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Edited by SMark, 12 April 2020 - 12:58 AM.

[Gavster]

With my c11, 0.75x reducer and 55mm plossl (afocal) I really enjoy observing brighter galaxies. Here are some smartphone images of my favourites, 6 second exposures and unfiltered from an sqm 21 site.

Here are m51 (whirlpool), needle galaxy (with ngc4562 also visible), m81/82 and the Leo triplet (with lovely dark lane visible in the fainter third galaxy).

 

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[Jeff Morgan]

OK, this thread is good incentive for me to go back and document my images. I will start contributing my images in chronological order.

 

This image was my very first attempt at NV cell phone photography. Not very good by current standards, I really did not know what I was doing. (Look at the exposure information!)

 

But for those of you thinking about trying it out - even someone with ten thumbs (me!) can do this.

 

 

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[Gavster]

Here are some objects that are not often observed by night vision since they are Southern Hemisphere objects. I was lucky enough to see them in Argentina last summer just a few hours after I’d observed the total solar eclipse. My European nv monoculars are itar free so I’m able to travel with them overseas (but not to the USA!).

These were taken with a Baader 95mm refractor, 41mm panoptic and pvs-14 afocally. 15 secs exposure for eta carinae and running chicken nebulae and 8 seconds exposure for omega Centauri globular. A day I will never forget!

 

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[Jeff Morgan]

My very second NV cell phone shot, globular cluster M80. Very high ISO for the target, so still learning. Also, I was not using frame averaging so the appearance is a bit grainy.

 

Globulars are an excellent target for NV. With my 16" scope even the Intergalactic Wanderer (NGC 2419) resolves into individual stars under SQM 20.5 skies. I'll probably have to get into the Palomar and Terzan list before I find ones that don't resolve. This season I will endeavor to photograph more of them.

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[Jeff Morgan]

Another early effort, the Whale Galaxy. Some smaller faint galaxies visible on the full-res file.

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