102 replies to this topic

[Alien Observatory]

I did a very poor job in describing Stephenson 1.  It is a very small open cluster located in Lyra.  It is very close to a massive red giant, Delta 2 Lyra.  Pat Utah

I was wrong on this post "clarifying" Ste1.  It is not a very small cluster, but a larger open cluster.  It contains Both a massive red giant and the smaller blue star and several others surrounding the area.  After a lot of looking I found 2 related images to verify the size of Ste1.   Apologies to all for the miss-information...

 

Stellina Image, 2 minutes, 10 sec subs, Bin 1, Gain 20 db.....Pat Utah

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[Alien Observatory]

M57 in a massive star field.  Stellina, Bin 1, 10 minutes, 10 sec subs, 20db gain.   Pat Utah

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[steveincolo]

Thanks Pat for the challenge!  Had a great time last night with the objects I'm able to see from my deck (house and tree obstructions) at 40 degrees N latitude.  C8 at 793mm, 0.63x x 2 (79.5mm backfocus), ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGBSHO, ASI290MM at 300 gain.  10 second subs for LRGB filters, 30 second subs for SHO filters.

 

M5

 

M57 (second time, I viewed it in the early hours of May 1).

 

M82

 

NGC 5466

 

Stephenson 1.  Some nice chains of fainter stars here, not sure if they're part of the OC.

 

Bonus images:  M82 and M57 in LSHO.  SII maps to red, Ha to green, OIII to blue.

 

M82.  The active Ha area (in green) is pretty obvious.

 

M57.  Obvious Ha and OIII regions.

 

 

 

 

[SC_astro]

All images taken in my driveway with Bortle 5 sky with Celestron C8 Edge / .7 Celestron FR / Asi294mc / AVX mount / Sharpcap 4 Pro / Phd2 using flats and darks. Cropped

 

M82 - 29 frames @ 25 sec

 

M57 - 31 frames @ 8 sec

 

NGC4490 - 74 frames @ 20 sec

 

NGC5466 - 22 frames @ 25 sec

 

M94 100 frames at 12 sec

 

M5 47 frames @ 8 sec

 

[MarMax]

I was wrong on this post "clarifying" Ste1.  It is not a very small cluster, but a larger open cluster.  It contains Both a massive red giant and the smaller blue star and several others surrounding the area.  After a lot of looking I found 2 related images to verify the size of Ste1.   Apologies to all for the miss-information...

 

Stellina Image, 2 minutes, 10 sec subs, Bin 1, Gain 20 db.....Pat Utah

OK, based on now finally having a clue regarding what Ste1 is, I'm attaching a new crop. EDITED for specs, same as before, C11 f/2, QHY183C with IDAS-LPS-D3 filter, dark and flat applied, gradient removal, 10" / 5'.

 

A 2nd EDIT added to say that the two red/blue pairs of stars are really interesting. The main giants and then the smaller pair on the left.

 

Edited by MarMax, 26 May 2022 - 08:37 PM.

[russ75]

(10) Hygiea
28 May 2022 04:30UT

 

First light with my ZWO ASI482MC, lashed to an Orion ST-80 (80mm f/5), with 2x Barlow spaced to approximately 1.5x, and Baader Fringe Killer filter. This screenshot was taken while capturing a one-hour long sequence. It is a live-stack of 11 fifteen-second images. Gain 400.

 

I'm working on getting the color balance right with this combo. Lots of green coming through. Darks and flats obviously need work too. The Minor Planet Center ephemeris for this asteroid put it at magnitude 9.9 and moving (slowly) at 18 arcseconds per hour.

 

 

The image below is the same screenshot as above with Lowell Observatory finder chart for (10) Hygiea superimposed and alternating with the captured image to confirm the asteroid identification. The green shape is from the Lowell Observatory's finder chart. It shows the amount of movement, and direction of movement, of the asteroid over a one hour period.

 

Edited by russ75, 28 May 2022 - 12:51 PM.

[BrentKnight]

Not making great progress on the excellent list this month, but I did grab another capture of M82 with the C8, ASI294MM-P and the F6.3 FF/FR.

 

15"/34'/G:200.

 

I just got the Optolong 7nm H-alpha filter and I'm wondering if it would work on this galaxy to bring out all that explosive detail coming out of the center?

[steveincolo]

 

Not making great progress on the excellent list this month, but I did grab another capture of M82 with the C8,ASI294MM-P and the F6.3 FF/FR.

 

 

15"/34'/G:200.

 

I just got the Optolong 7nm H-alpha filter and I'm wondering if it would work on this galaxy to bring out all that explosive detail coming out of the center?

 

Worth trying!  That active Ha region is pretty bright, I have an LSHO view above and the green really stands out. 

[BrentKnight]

Worth trying!  That active Ha region is pretty bright, I have an LSHO view above and the green really stands out. 

Clear skies this evening, and the filter is still mounted from last night.  I'll post results...

[MarMax]

 

Not making great progress on the excellent list this month, but I did grab another capture of M82 with the C8, ASI294MM-P and the F6.3 FF/FR.

 

 

15"/34'/G:200.

 

I just got the Optolong 7nm H-alpha filter and I'm wondering if it would work on this galaxy to bring out all that explosive detail coming out of the center?

 

Brent, I'd say it's definitely worth a try. I just picked up the Antlia ALP-T Highspeed and I'm dying to try it out but since I got it the clouds have rolled in. After making many bad decisions in my EAA quest the one thing that always seems to work is some reasonable experimentation. I tend to get wrapped up in researching and fail to try new things that are not backed up by the research.

 

My latest experiment is adjusting the white balance (R-G-B) of the QHY183C with the ALP-T filter to be something close to normal when taking flats. The one thing you can spend time on when it's cloudy is taking flats . . . lol. Anyway, with my LED flat panel and a 2s exposure I end up with Red=91, Green=99 and Blue=165. Some crazy numbers for sure. But the histogram is much closer to balanced. This may end up being a complete fail but I'm going to test it out.

 

Normally with the 183C I'm running it at Red=127, Green=100 and Blue=127. So next time out under the stars I'll be ready with a set of flat and darks for both scenarios. If the 91-99-165 ends up a fail, I can switch over to the proven setting of 127-100-127.

[BrentKnight]

Well...my flats (and especially darks) were a fail this evening on M82.  I let the exposure run very long because I kept trying different settings to fix things on the fly.  I started out with the offset way up there around 40, and it just smacked my flat.  It was the very first time I've seen amp glow with this camera.  I had time already invested so I didn't want to waste it, so I dropped the offset back down to 20 and I was doing 60 second subs.  Anyway, the H-alpha makes M82 into a completely different object.  This is a second try with this filter, so I'll be making some changes and trying again, but this is what I got...

 

 

Maybe the cropped original capture looks a little better.  Or the link to a larger version.

[steveincolo]

 

Well...my flats (and especially darks) were a fail this evening on M82.  I let the exposure run very long because I kept trying different settings to fix things on the fly.  I started out with the offset way up there around 40, and it just smacked my flat.  It was the very first time I've seen amp glow with this camera.  I had time already invested so I didn't want to waste it, so I dropped the offset back down to 20 and I was doing 60 second subs.  Anyway, the H-alpha makes M82 into a completely different object.  This is a second try with this filter, so I'll be making some changes and trying again, but this is what I got...

 

 

 

 

Maybe the cropped original capture looks a little better.  Or the link to a larger version.

 

This shows the Ha starburst region really well!  

[Alien Observatory]

Have a difficult time with NGC5466, but after an hour of failing I was able to get 5 minutes of stacking.  Its position in the sky and poor skies contributed to the difficultly in getting an image.  Stellina, 10 sec subs, 20db gain.  Pat Utah

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[MarMax]

 

Well...my flats (and especially darks) were a fail this evening on M82.  I let the exposure run very long because I kept trying different settings to fix things on the fly.  I started out with the offset way up there around 40, and it just smacked my flat.  It was the very first time I've seen amp glow with this camera.  I had time already invested so I didn't want to waste it, so I dropped the offset back down to 20 and I was doing 60 second subs.  Anyway, the H-alpha makes M82 into a completely different object.  This is a second try with this filter, so I'll be making some changes and trying again, but this is what I got...

 

 

 

 

Maybe the cropped original capture looks a little better.  Or the link to a larger version.

 

I like it. So much different than without the filter.

 

I had an unexpected difference with brightness (offset) with the 533MC at the dark site. So far I've only used one setting with the 533MC for flats which is gain = 101, offset = 10, Red = 50 and Blue  = 50. For some reason up in Darwin, CA the offset of 10 was not enough and I had to go up to 30 to not clip the histogram on the left. Based on my one data point it seems like the darker your skies the more offset you need to not clip the histogram. Home is SQM-L of around 18 and Darwin is 21.75.

 

We are going out to the desert tomorrow night for the Tau Herculid and it looks like tonight will be clear at home so I'll be able to give the ALP-T a try. I can't stay up late but I can do a short session with M82. If there is another good Ha object in the North to East sky that will be above 40 degress Alt let me know and I'll make it a two object session.

 

EDITED to say the Iris Nebula would be fun to try since it's part of the challenge but that pesky Ash tree is in the way. 

Edited by MarMax, 29 May 2022 - 10:24 AM.

[MarMax]

Here is M82 with the ALP-T Highspeed filter. This is the first time I've used it and this is with the C11, f/2, QHY183C, gain 11, offset 20, WB(Red) 91, WB(G) 99, WB(B) 165, dark and flat applied.

 

M82 tight crop, 10" / 31.8' 

[alphatripleplus]

Moderator Note:

 

A reminder to everyone - Please do not post off topic images that are not included in the Challenge list, as they will be removed. Thanks for your co-operation.

[roelb]

M 5

Evo 8 @ F/3.8

ASI533MC  MONO  BIN 1

90 x 2 s

 

M 57

Evo 8 @ F/4.7

ASI290MM

113 x 1 s

CROP

 

Evo 8 @ F/5

ASI533MC

16 x 15 s

CROP

 

M 82

Evo 8 @ F/4.7

ASI290MM

65 x 5 s

 

Evo 8 @ F/5

ASI533MC

30 x 15 s

 

[roelb]

M 83

 

Altitude = 9°

 

Evo 8 @ F/5.3

ASI533MC   MONO  BIN 1

11 x 30 s

 

COLOR

28 x 30 s

[roelb]

NGC 40

 

6 SE @ F/5

ASI290MM

80 x 2 s

CROP

 

Evo 8 @ F/5

12 x 5 s

CROP

 

NGC 5466

 

Evo 8 @ F/5.4

ASI290MM

19 x 3 s

 

Evo 8 @ F/5

ASI533MC

20 x 15 s

[roelb]

NGC 7023

 

Evo 8 @ F/4.7

ASI290MM   cropped FOV

35 x 15 s

 

Evo 8 @ F/5

ASI533MC

30 x 30 s

 

Stephenson 1 - del Lyr

 

6 SE @ F/5

ASI290MM

30 x 3 s

 

 

 

 

[MarMax]

Last chance to post up NGC 7023 so here it is with the 92mm Stowaway and QHY183C. We were in Yucca Valley for the Tau Herculid meteor shower, which was fabulous and I'll post something separate on it in an appropriate forum , and I was also set up for some EAA with the G11G and small refractor. I measured an SQM-L of 21.37 at midnight.

 

No filter (mistake on my part), dark and flat applied (using WB of 127-100-127 R-G-B).

 

NGC 7023 (Iris Nebula), 10" / 17'

 

[bmcclana]

I have had scopes out several times this month, but havent compiled all the challenge objects until now. 

 

I used several different scope setups this month on the nice variety of targets. 

 

none of these setups are really optimized, just a lot of fun playing.

 

May 9th - 80EDT with 0.8x and Mars-C on AZGTI

May 10th-24th AT60ED with and without 0.8x and Mars-C on AZGTI

May 29th Meade 8" SCT with Optec 0.33x and Mars-C on Evolution

 

I got all the objects in some form or another except for NGC40.  It was always behind a big tree and I never stayed up long enough for it to clear. 

 

 

images and capture details in the gallery.

 

Album: May2022 EAA

20 images

0 comments

 

 

 

[SC_astro]

One last one for me from last night, All images taken in Bortle 5 sky with Celestron C8 Edge / .7 Celestron FR / Asi294mc / AVX mount / Sharpcap 4 Pro / Phd2 using flats and darks.

 

M83 66 frames at 12 sec

 

Edited by SC_astro, 01 June 2022 - 10:54 AM.

[SchoolMaster]

One last one for me from last night, All images taken in Bortle 5 sky with Celestron C8 Edge / .7 Celestron FR / Asi294mc / AVX mount / Sharpcap 4 Pro / Phd2 using flats and darks.

I have an annoying 'tree nebula' that blocks that target.

 

[Alien Observatory]

And one last try at M83, STellina 30 minutes, 10 sec subs, 20 db gain, Crop of full size original...Pat Utah

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