49 replies to this topic

[nikm]

The November 2022 Challenge is now open. The target is the IC 405 (The Flaming Star Nebula). To reduce the number of stickies, please submit your entry to this thread.

 

The Rules will remain pretty simple:

 

-Your Equipment
-Your Data, Captured This Season
-Your Processing
-One Entry Per Member
-Only post your FINAL image. Please display an image in your post, not just a link!!

NO general discussion in this thread. Your post should only contain your image and appropriate info. There is a separate thread for discussion.

 

To increase participation over such a diverse group, the winner will be selected by random drawing.

 

Entries must be submitted by midnight, eastern time, on November 30, and I will try to announce the winner sometime after December 1.

 

If the selected winner does not reply and pick a target with-in 3 days of the winner being announced, the Mods will then select the next target.

 

There is now a companion thread that runs parallel with the imaging challenge each month. This thread will be for general discussion on the corresponding months imaging challenge target. This thread will be very informal and relaxed and will be treated just like any other thread in the forums. Here is where you can post questions on processing, get help finding the targets location, post a preliminary "final" image to get feedback, etc. The only thing special is that I will be pinning it every month and each months companion thread will be titled in the same way for easy finding and searching. Since this is informal the mods will NOT be starting this thread. We will leave it up to the general membership. So it could take a couple days for someone to start it and for a mod to pin it. So please be patient if you don't see it up day one. Who ever starts this thread please PM me with a link to the thread so I can pin it. 

 

Whoever starts the companion thread should title it to match the following: Target Name - Techniques and Progress Discussion  For example: Rosette Challenge - Techniques and Progress Discussion

 

Once the companion thread is post, please DM me with a link and I will get it pinned.

 

Note: If I am late announcing, gently nudge one of the moderators in a private note, it helps.

 

I hope everyone has fun with this one, and with that,

 

Let The Games Begin

[drotto25]

Thank you for picking a target that fits in basically once field of view for me this month!!!!  PI is still frustrating me a bit.

[crackout]

I'm cheap this time using data acquired this March already (very broad interpretation of this season, lol), but re-processed just now for this months task.



Details:

Capture date: February 23rd – March 8th, 2022
Location: Augsburg, Germany
Bortle class: 5-6

Lights (Gain 100, -5°C, Bin 1×1):
H: 95 x 300s (7h 55m)
Oiii: 112 x 300s (9h 20m)
Sii: 100 x 300s (8h 20m)
R: 20 x 10s (3m 20s)
G: 20 x 10s (3m 20s)
B: 20 x 10s (3m 20s)
Integration: 25h 45m
Darks: 60
Flats: 30 x 10s, 30 x 5s
Flat Darks: 60

Scope: Sky-Watcher Esprit 100ED
Reducer: APM Riccardi 0.75x
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Guide scope: Omegon 50F4
Guide camera: ZWO ASI290MM Mini
Filterwheel: ZWO EFW 7x36mm
Filter(s): Astronomik H 6nm, Astronomik Oiii 6nm, Astronomik Sii 6nm, Astronomik Deep Sky RGB
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Tripod: Sky-Watcher EQ6 Tripod

Control: ZWO ASIAIR Plus


Processed in PI with SelectiveColor adjustment done in PS.
SXT
NXT
Stretch to non-linear
LRGBCombination
Color Adjustment (Photoshop)
Sharpening (MLT)
LocalHistrogramEqualization
Curves

Edited by crackout, 06 November 2022 - 09:32 AM.

[redpine42]

One of my first monochrome pics.

Scope: Williams Optics Redcat 51

Mount: Sky Watcher EQ 6R pro

Automation: ASI Air Plus

Camera: ZWO 294MM Pro - Bin 1x1

Guide Scope : Svbony SV106

Guide Camera: ZWO 183MC

 

Processing - Pixinsight

WBPP

SCNR -Green

EZ Denoise

EZ Soft Stretch

StarNet2

  Curve Transform

  Color Saturation

Pixel Math to recombine images

 

29x300 Antlia Ha

25x300 Antlia OIII

30x300 Antlia SII

20x300 Darks

20x2 Flats

20x2 Dark Flats

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by redpine42, 07 November 2022 - 05:40 AM.

[gsaramet]

My first entry, 15 hours of broadband:

 

Scope: 8" TS Photon Newtonian f4 with CC

Mount: iOptron CEM 40 NUC with iGuider (30mm aperture 120mm focal length guide scope and 3.75um pixel camera)

Automation: NINA on Windows 10 NUC

Camera: ASI 533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: L-Pro

 

Lights:  15h integration Bortle 8/9, 1h at 120 seconds, 14h at 90 seconds, 4 nights between 29 Sept and 2 October, moon illuminated between 15 and 43%

Flats, dark flats, darks

 

Pixinsight processing:

 

WBPP

DBE

Photometric color calibration

GHS stretch

ACDNR

SNCR 

Starnet 2

 Unsharp mask on nebula, arcsinh color saturation, further histogram and curves adjustments 

 Deconvolution on stars, arcsinh color saturation

Images merged by Pixelmath

Resize in Photoshop, bicubic smoother. 

 

 

[const]

I captured the Flaming Star during three nights, November 4 thru 6. It was a side gig, so framing is pretty random.

In the discussion thread somebody mentioned that a pure narrow band image would miss the reflection portion of the nebula. So after two nights with the Ha filter I switched to the blue filter. Overall it is an HHB palette with a touch of color mixing. Stars are from the Ha image only.

 

Celestron Edge HD 8" on AVX with an OAG.

ZWO EAF, EFW 7×36, ASI2600MM Pro (main), ASI432MM (guider).

Astronomik MaxFR 6nm Ha and Deep-Sky Blue filters.

Captured with KStars/Ekos. Processed in PixInsight.

 

52×120s Ha

41×120s B

 

[osbourne one-nil]

This has been a weird one, as it looks like I've got some weird light stuff going on around the nebula, but the grey glow is there whether I add in the callibration frames or not, so I'm going with it. 

 

This was taken last night, and comprises 40 x 180" exposures, inc flats, darks and bias frames. 

 

Show using a Vixen SD81S with a Vixen HD flattener and reducer on a Vixen SDX2 mount with a ZWO ASI533 MC Pro camera and off axis guiding. 

 

 

 

 

 

[JayRuhMe]

This is my first entry in quite some time, and I'm not totally unhappy with it. I cooked my luminance subs and had to drop them. It's a shame as I really wanted to see the results of my new CLS-CCD filter. 

 

Equipment: ASI1600MM main camera | GEM-28 | AAP | EFW | EAF | ASI129MM & F30/4 guiding | Astronomik 6nm filters

Processing: HaRBGOS | AstroPixelProcessor | Photoshop | Lightroom

 

Bortle 9 | 7 hr integration

 

 

Edited by JayRuhMe, 17 November 2022 - 07:25 PM.

[khursh]

I really like this nebula. It looks like it has curls. 

This is a very basic HOO blend.

A-P Stowaway with 92TCC for an effective focal length of 495 mm

ASI294MM @ -10C

A-P Mach2 unguided

4 hours of 5min subframes O3, 7 hours of 5 min subframes Ha

 

Processing in Pixinsight

WBPP

Copious use of StarXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator

 

 

Thanks for looking

[Chrisofweden]

 

My first image using a Mono camera and filters - ever!

 

Capture:
11/11 under Bortle 4 sky, Seeing: "bad"  
Scope: Askar FRA600 quintuplet refractor (600mm, F5.6)
Imaging camera: ASI 2600MM Pro @-10c, Gain 100
Guiding: ZWO F4 scope + ASI 120 MC Pro
Focus: ASI EAF

Filters: ASI EFW SHO + RGB 
Mount: EQ6R Pro
Control: ASIair Plus
Integration: 4hrs 30min comprising 60 x 30s each with R,G & B for the stars and reflection nebula + 20 x180s each with S,H & O. All dithered. 
Calibration: Bias, Darks, Flats

 

Software/Processing in PixInsight:
Blink
WBPP
Crop
ABE, DBE, BN
Photometric CC

LinearFit
GHS
RC NoiseXterminator
RC StarXterminator

MLT

HT

Local Histogram
GAME
Curves, Saturation
Pixelmath for combination(s)

/Chris

Edited by Chrisofweden, 20 November 2022 - 09:19 AM.

[pedxing]

Pardon the diffraction spikes, turns out it's a bad idea to try to hand-cut an aperture mask out of gasket material

I'm happy with the way the reflection nebula came out.

 

Capture: November 16/17 2022 Juneau, Alaska - Bortle 4
Scope: TSAPO80Q f/7
Imaging camera: ASI 2600MM Pro @-10c, Gain 100
Guiding: ZWO OAG-L, ASI 174MM-mini, PHD2
Focus: ASI EAF

Filters: Astrodon Tru-Balance RGB
Mount: Avalon Linear
Control: N.I.N.A
Integration: 90x120s R/G/B
Calibration: Bias, Darks, Flats

Software/Processing in PixInsight:
LinearFit

Channel Combination

RC StarXterminator

 

Stars -

Saturation Curve

HT

 

Starless -

EZDenoise

HT

ADCNR

LHE

 

Pixelmath op_screen() for combination

Crop

 

[highdesertastro]

I'm not liking this, but here it is

 

 

ES FCD100 127 Carbon fiber ota and ES reducer

Qhy 168c

Optolong L-Ultimate filter

Skywatcher EQ6rpro

Evoguide 50 including flattener with zwo 290

Optec DirectSync focuser

PHD

SGP

Pixinsight

Photoshop

300 sec exposures

Attached Thumbnails

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[Ar3s701]

Out of days for the month. Here is my 2 panel mosaic.

 

Equipment

• Scope: TS-Optics 80/352 APO f/4.4
• Mount: EQ6R-Pro
• Camera: Ha Modded T3i
• Guide Scope: SV198
• Guide Camera: ASI290MM-mini
• Filter: 2" L-Extreme and no filter

Acquisition

• NINA, PHD2, GSS
• RGB LIGHT Panel 1: 171 x 90s
• RGB LIGHT Panel 2: 119 x 90s
• LX LIGHT Panel 1: 96 x 300s
• LX LIGHT Panel 2: 78 x 300s
• Dark: 50
• Bias: 50
• Flat: 50 (RGB and L-Extreme)

Processing

• Stacked and processed in Pixinsight
• WBPP x 4
• Dynamic Crop x 4
• ABE x 4
• Photometric Color Calibration x 4
• PhotometricMosaic x 2
• Dynamic Crop
• StarAlignment to get both matched up
• Bill Blanshan HT_Stretch_Unlinked script to stretch both mosaics
• NoiseExterminator at 0.6 for each mosaic
• This method to bring Ha and O3 data over to RGB data: https://drive.google...V_BkYjmpvA/view
• StarExterminator
• Create mask from O3 (remove stars, histogram transform)
• Curves on nebula to bring in the blue and brighten the red
• Combine stars and nebula in Pixelmath (Blanshan method RGBStars_to_NB_V11)
• NoiseExterminator at 0.5
• Reduce stars with Bill Blanshan method
• Save as TIF, open in Photoshop
• CameraRAW (adjust color levels slightly)
• Export as JPG

 

[Alex Ranous]

For once I'm not waiting until the last day to post this.  I shot the Flaming Star twice last year.  First time was just the Flaming Star, and then I made it a two panel mosaic and squeezed the Tadpoles Nebula in there.  That mosaic was a bit tight, and part of the Tadpoles got cropped, so for this year I decided to go all in on a four panel mosaic and capture the greater area.

 

Gear

• Telescope:  AP 130GTX
• Mount: AP 1100GTO-AE
• Camera:  QHY268M
• Filters:  Astrodon
• Software:  PixInsight, NINA, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator

Data

• Astrodon H-alpha 5nm 36 mm: 56×600″(9h 20′) (gain: 56.00) -10°C bin 1×1
• Astrodon OIII 3nm 36 mm: 47×600″(7h 50′) (gain: 56.00) -10°C bin 1×1
• Astrodon SII 5nm 36 mm: 58×600″(9h 40′) (gain: 56.00) -10°C bin 1×1
• Astrodon E-series Blue 36mm: 24×180″(1h 12′) (gain: 0.00) -10°C bin 1×1

 

Processing

 

I used PI's PhotometricMosaic script, which handled joining the 4 panels without any issues.  My usual SHO workflow is to do a modified HOO combine while linear and remove the stars, which I stretch separately to add back at the end.  I find a HOO combine gives me more RGB like colors.  I use pixelmath to do this, and do a 80/20 blend of OIII and Ha for the green channel.

 

After dealing with the stars, remove the stars from each master and separately stretch each one, tweaking each filter in curves to get the relative brightnesses between them where I want them to get the SHO color pallet I'm aiming for.  I also created a lum from a 70/30 blend of Ha and SII.  I used LocalHistorgramEqualization and DarkStructureEnhance to get the finer structure to pop.  After some more tweaks with curves, I did the LRGB combine and folded in the stars.

 

One thing that bugged me about a NB rendition of the Flaming Star is that you loose the ribbon of reflection nebula.  I wanted that, so I shot some blue to pick that up, and I then blended it into my OIII.  It took a fair bit of masking and the like to isolate out just the reflection nebula.  When using the blended OIII in my SHO image, the initial attempt had the reflection nebula coming out purple.  I wanted it on the more blue end, so I subtracted something like 40 percent of just that ribbon from the blue from the SII, which reduced the SII in the region I was adding the reflection nebula enough so that when combined, it was more blue that purple.  It's still not great to my eye, but I was pretty burned out on this project by then, so I'm sticking with it.

 

 

You can see the full resolution version by clicking on the following to see it on astrobin.  I also have the variation w/out the reflection nebula blended in as well.

 

 

[Jasev]

As usual, I am humbled by the work many of you have produced.  This target is a real challenge.

 

I finally had one clear night which was also dark sky, so I figured I'd try straight OSC, with no filters.  Not so sure it was my best route, as I have no PI or any type of star terminator to reduce that gumball field of stars.

 

AT60ED, Asi 183mc-pro, 0.8xFF

EQ6-R mount, Phd guiding

5hrs.21min exposure w/ 180sec. subs, and 180 gain

Sharpcap, DSS, Star Tools

Attached Thumbnails

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[jml79]

Last month my image was all about the deep red, so this month I decided to go with an HHO palette to bring out what detail I could and to do something different. My biggest challenge has been the weather. Living on the shores of lake Ontario, the weather this month has been awful. I have learned a great deal about seeing and how it affects imaging and guiding. I have experienced some of my best guiding this month at 0.70" rms and some of my worst at almost 2.0" rms. Even as I type this it is a perfectly cloudless, clear night with seeing so bad I can barely make out Cassiopeia or Orion, usually easily visible from my bortle 5 backyard. Luckily my rig is very tolerant of bad seeing and guiding at 3.01"/pixel. Very under sampled. First light for my new ZWO EAF that I was lucky to find before they all went out of stock in Canada. I also tried a new noise reduction program called AstroDenoisePY. Very impressive. After fighting for 6.5 hours of integration, here is the result;

 

 

Sony A7R Full Spectrum
SharpStar 76EDPH, 0.8 Reducer
IDAS NBZ Filter, Bortle 5/6
Sky Watcher EQM-35 Mount, SVBony 105 guide camera, SVBony 165 Guide Scope, Nina plus PHD2
134x180s Lights, 30 Flats each nights, 30 Darks, 30 Bias. 6hr 42min integration.
Stacked in Siril. Processed in Siril, StarNet++, AstroDenoisePY and Affinity.
Taken on the nights of Nov 18 and 23.

[SETXSky]

- Skywatcher Esprit 120ED scope

- Skywatcher EQ6R-Pro mount

- ZWO ASI6200MM camera

- Antlia 3.5mm narrowband Ha, Oiii, Sii

- 2 panel mosaic (left and right)

- 20 subframes of 300 seconds each in Ha

- 19 subframes of 300 seconds each in Oiii

- 19 subframes of 300 seconds each in Sii

-  Processed in PixInsight, Photoshop, Topaz Denoise AI

 

 

[DirtyRod]

About 12 hours of data on each captured in November 2022. Bortle 7.

 

Gear

• Redcat 71 on a CGEM2 Mount
• ASI071MC Pro on the wide view and ASI533MC Pro on the single. 
• Optolong L-Enhance Filter

Processing

• Sharpcap
• DSS
• Gimp
• Starnet ++

 

Edited by DirtyRod, 26 November 2022 - 09:44 AM.

[unitron_man]

Hi

 

Gear

    AstroTech AT102ED Doublet Refractor
    Classic SBIG ST-8300 Mono CCD Camera

    Celestron CGEM Equatorial Mount Hypertuned
    DIY Automated Filter Wheel
    Dew Controllers

 

Acquisition

   5h40m Ha 7nm 12/12/21 & 11/18/22 Bin 1

   90m OIII 9nm 11/18/22 BIN2

   90m SII 7nm 11/18/22 BIN2

   15m ea RGB for Stars 11/18/22

   Grand total of 9h25m

 

Software

    APT
    PHD2
    SIRIL
    GIMP
    Celestron CPWI
    Teamviewer
    Topaz Denoise

    Starnet++

 

Misc

    Bortle 5 sky in the front yard, central Massachusetts
    File reduced/compressed to host on CN

 

 

 

Astrobin Link

 

 

[acrh2]

As there's barely any Oiii signal in this target, you could call that an SHB composition.
 
Total integration time: 20 h over 3 nights.
6.5 h Sii,
6.5 h Ha,
5 h Oiii,
2 h B.
240 s 100 gain subs for narrowband, 120 s 0 gain subs for B.
Bortle 6, 0% Moon.
30 flats, darks, biases.

Askar FRA400 @ 400 mm, F/5.6.
3 nm Antlia Pro SHO, Astronomik B filters.
ASI2600MM Pro, -5 C.
The rest of the equipment in signature.
 
Stacked in DSS on the same Ha sub as a reference frame. S, H, O, and B were stretched in Siril, destarred with Starnet++, and denoised with Topaz.
SHO were combined as LRGB with Ha serving as the L in Siril. The color image was then processed in Startools - HDR, Sharp, Decon. 
Starless B was used as a mask in Gimp to add in the reflection nebula. 
Stars was composed as LRGB from Ha and B (as HaHaBB) in Siril, and were then processed in Gimp to adjust the hue to give them a natural (more or less) RGB look.
Stars were then added in Gimp, and final touches to the image were done in Gimp.
 
P.S. These Antlia SHO filters produce zero halos with mag 5 stars. I was surprised to see fairly big halos with the Astronomik Typ 2c Blue filter. 
 

Edited by acrh2, 26 November 2022 - 08:38 AM.

[NorthJersey]

Ic 405 In Hoo

 

Gear

Redcat 51, asi294mc Pro , 120 mm guide camera, asi290 mm mini, eq6r-pro,L-Ultimate filter

 

 Acquisition

153 300s subs,300gain, Bin2, 50 darks, 50 bias, 50 dark flats, 50 flats, Dithered and drizzled,

 

Software

Nina, App, RC_Astro NoiseXterminator and StarXTerminator, PHD2

This month with the Optimum L-Ultimate filter  i tried my hand with 300s subs. Ic 405 I focused on detail in my Grey files and getting the right shades where i wanted them. I did make i synthetic Sii of Ha*.6 +Oiii *.4 but through it out. It blew out the flaming star in the nebula.
Done with Nina,APP, RC_Astro NoiseXterminator and StarXTerminator .I have Topaz DeNoiseAi but it made  the image worst.
Background neutralization,color calibration, ABE, StarXTerminator, NoiseXterminator on each set of stacked subs (Ha,Oiii,RGB) trashed the stars from HA and Oiii. Kept stars from RGB and worked on stars with GHS, curves, histogram ,morphological Transformation, localhistogramequalization, extractwaveletlayers, NoiseXterminator.
Ha and Oiii .GHS, curves, histogram , localhistogramequalization, extractwaveletlayers, NoiseXterminator , darkstructure enhance. Kept playing the the greys until i could get as much detail before looking weird. Tried multi-pal Pixenmath numbers but none i thought where right. Again it hid the star with the background color. So i did plain HOO.
Combined Ha and Oiii , adjusted sat in curves, NoiseXterminator then added stars

 

Edited by NorthJersey, 26 November 2022 - 10:38 AM.

[Ginnungagap42]

After a cloudy, rainy beginning to the month, 5 glorious clear nights in a row!

Captured between 11/19/2022 and 11/24/2022.

 

iOptron CEM40

William Optics GT71

ASI1600MM Pro

-10C

Gain 139

Offset 50

 

NINA, PHD2 

 

108 x 600s Ha

101 x 600s Oiii

100 x 600s Sii

 

Preprocessed and stacked in Astropixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight, using the standard Hubble palette. 

 

 

Full image here:

https://www.astrobin.com/k0jwmd/

Edited by Ginnungagap42, 27 November 2022 - 12:40 PM.

[SteveL42]

Took this one last night after doing testing on a new motorized focuser that went well - I was all setup, and the weather looked good, so shot this for 5 hours.

 

ED80T-CF on a Losmandy G11, Canon D60 (IR modded) 149 x 120sec @ 800ISO, no filters.  New MyFocuserPro2 setup did autofocusing runs about once every 60 min.

NINA for the capture, PHD2 guiding/dithering.

Siril stacked and drizzled, Photoshop for final processing.  

 

Haven't had much time for astrophotography this year, so kinda learning all over again.  

 

 

[hmrphoto]

Revisiting one of my first astrophotography targets. This time with narrowband.

 

 

Imaging Telescopes 
Stellarvue SVX080T-3SV
Imaging Cameras
ZWO ASI6200MM Pro
Mounts
Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Filters
Optolong H-Alpha 3nm 2"  · Optolong OIII 3nm 2"  · Optolong SII 3nm 2"
Accessories
ZWO ASIAIR Pro
Software
Phase One Capture One Pro · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight
Acquisition details
Dates:
Nov. 9, 2022 ·  Nov. 10, 2022 ·  Nov. 17, 2022 ·  Nov. 19, 2022
Frames:
Optolong H-Alpha 3nm 2": 39×300″(3h 15′) (gain: 100.00)
Optolong OIII 3nm 2": 44×300″(3h 40′) (gain: 100.00)
Optolong SII 3nm 2": 44×300″(3h 40′) (gain: 100.00)
Integration:
10h 35′
Avg. Moon age:
20.09 days
Avg. Moon phase:
64.56%

[highdesertastro]

Yippie 

Attached Thumbnails

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