57 replies to this topic

[AGrayson]

That's still absolutely amazing Psion! Yeah unfortunately it's quite low to the horizon at this time of year, but come summer, generally, they're dead overhead which is good. Still that looks absolutely amazing and really shows your processing skill! Thank you so much.

I'd love to go to a bortle 1 sky with this scope. I do live 30 or 40 minutes away from a bortle 2, so I might go in the summer to give it a try.

Wow, at that distance from a dark sky I'd go every clear night. My closest bortle 2 is a 5 hour drive away

[Psion]

I think stacking Tiffs from individual nights would also work.

[Brownie2k]

Might be worth a go then i think... Saying that, with the Vespera limited space, it could get a bit monotonous with the continuous FTP'ing and huge file transfers. Still hopefully worth it! Also Psion, would my images be a bit better, nebula wise, when my new CLS filter gets here? These are all taken without the filter in place at the moment.

 

 

Wow, at that distance from a dark sky I'd go every clear night. My closest bortle 2 is a 5 hour drive away

I've just looked at a Bortle Light Map, and it's actually a Bortle 3 site, but still, i've driven down the road many times through the area on the way to see family, and on a dark night, the milky way is literally horizon to horizon clear as you can imagine. Amazing place to be and not a single light to be seen (It's an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK)

[Bayou7]

Might be worth a go then i think... Saying that, with the Vespera limited space, it could get a bit monotonous with the continuous FTP'ing and huge file transfers. Still hopefully worth it! Also Psion, would my images be a bit better, nebula wise, when my new CLS filter gets here? These are all taken without the filter in place at the moment.

 

 

I've just looked at a Bortle Light Map, and it's actually a Bortle 3 site, but still, i've driven down the road many times through the area on the way to see family, and on a dark night, the milky way is literally horizon to horizon clear as you can imagine. Amazing place to be and not a single light to be seen (It's an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK)

Thank you for posting your images. I'm going to give them a try on Siril, LR ++. These provide a good idea of what's possible. I'm thinking of stepping up from the Dwarf , which I've enjoyed for about a year now. The Vespera II looks like a sweet spot for these Smart scopes. The only thing I see so far that's concerning is the storage and transfer capabilities. For, say, a 2 hour session, how much storage is used by the raw tiffs? Also, how long does it take to transfer, say, an hour of such files? thank so much. 

[kannassee]

Well, just a picture of my 1st star with the Vespera II

 

Zubenelhakrabi....γ Librae, a giant star in the constellation of Libra!!!

 

by the way......actually this is the 1st time I heard about it.....!!!!

 

 

Edited by kannassee, 01 May 2024 - 03:26 PM.

[Brownie2k]

Thank you for posting your images. I'm going to give them a try on Siril, LR ++. These provide a good idea of what's possible. I'm thinking of stepping up from the Dwarf , which I've enjoyed for about a year now. The Vespera II looks like a sweet spot for these Smart scopes. The only thing I see so far that's concerning is the storage and transfer capabilities. For, say, a 2 hour session, how much storage is used by the raw tiffs? Also, how long does it take to transfer, say, an hour of such files? thank so much. 

I used to save raw individual FIT files, but i found that it was burning through my storage very quickly. 209 FIT files was taking up around 3.3GB on the Vespera, which might not seem a lot, but when you're doing several targets, it soon adds up, and the transferring isn't fun either. My one gripe with the vespera is that you have to transfer files via wifi. Not sure why Vaonis couldn't give us access to the internal drive via USB which would have made transferring a whole lot quicker! Plus it's the fact you have to FTP transfer them too, if you're not computer savvy, it can be a bit of a headache!

 

 

 

Well, just a picture of my 1st star with the Vespera II

 

Zubenelhakrabi....γ Librae, a giant star in the constellation of Libra!!!

 

by the way......actually this is the 1st time I heard about it.....!!!!

 

 

 

 

Great picture! The first of many i hope! 

 

I've found that the vespera can take some amazing pictures and the covalENS mosaic is brilliant too! I've had some lovely pictures which have been posted here and very very kindly processed by Psion which shows whats possible, even from my bortle 7 back garden! Plus most of these images were shot on evenings where, even though it was clear, it wasn't amazing viewing conditions and there was some very very high, light clouds which crept in.

[Brownie2k]

So we had a clear (and extremely beautiful night) here  in the UK so i managed to get out and get a few pictures with my Vespera II and even some of the northern lights with my phone which put on an absolutely stunning show here. It was the first time i've ever seen them too... literally the most amazing thing i've seen, even if they did kinda invade on my images! It was worth it!

 

One thing i'm confused on, even though the sky conditions were great tonight, my V2 seems to be introducting a lot more noise it seems, and i'm not sure why that would be as all i've done is updated to v2.25 (is it?) and i enabled expert mode but haven't used it so i don't think it affects anything. Still, i'm confused as to why my images appear to be so so much noisier than before! Maybe someone has an answer?

 

So tonight, and last night too for a short while, i got IC1795, M99, M13, M53 and M66. Split over two posts as per image max sizes and TIFS included too, but if anyone has any idea as to why they're noisier, i'd be very appreciative of the answer!

 

M13 (v2) TIF - https://1drv.ms/f/s!...w7v6Qw?e=QFEMoh

M66 TIF - https://1drv.ms/i/s!...F61Mow?e=uVGB4G

M53 TIF - https://1drv.ms/i/s!...t__aEw?e=RVXNdY

M99 TIF - https://1drv.ms/i/s!...jJxppA?e=22z1oW

 

IC1795 was too big of an image to upload on this post so i'll upload following this

 

 

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[Brownie2k]

Looks like M99 turned out horrible with the image compression so i imagine this one will too, but here goes

 

IC1795 TIF - https://1drv.ms/i/s!...gfLfNg?e=E9wG7l

 

 

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[Brownie2k]

Is there anywhere i can upload pictures too on here where i can upload full size jpg's rather than the resized lower quality ones? Not sure how it's done but everytime i resize the bigger images, they turn out horrible!

 

Also how can i get rid of the white gradient noise from the bigger images, i'd love to see what information is in my M99 image without all the noise etc

[AGrayson]

Is there anywhere i can upload pictures too on here where i can upload full size jpg's rather than the resized lower quality ones? Not sure how it's done but everytime i resize the bigger images, they turn out horrible!

Also how can i get rid of the white gradient noise from the bigger images, i'd love to see what information is in my M99 image without all the noise etc

Can't help you with noise, but there is a limit to publishable file size at 500kb. Any image above that size has to be resized to be posted.

[Psion]

So we had a clear (and extremely beautiful night) here  in the UK so i managed to get out and get a few pictures with my Vespera II and even some of the northern lights with my phone which put on an absolutely stunning show here. It was the first time i've ever seen them too... literally the most amazing thing i've seen, even if they did kinda invade on my images! It was worth it!

I have the same problem. The cause is the Sun's activity and the aurora borealis, which are invisible to the eye but affect the photo. These days, there is a lot of noise in the images due to this phenomenon and the Sun's activity. My photos are completely unusable on some days. Friday and Saturday are terrible, Sunday is okay, and Monday is terrible.

[Brownie2k]

I have the same problem. The cause is the Sun's activity and the aurora borealis, which are invisible to the eye but affect the photo. These days, there is a lot of noise in the images due to this phenomenon and the Sun's activity. My photos are completely unusable on some days. Friday and Saturday are terrible, Sunday is okay, and Monday is terrible.

That makes sense! The noise on a lot of the images looked quite colourful, but i didn't see any aurora visible to the naked eye when i was imaging. I didn't know it could be invisible. Hopefully future pictures will look a look better. 

 

Psion, is there any reason why when doing a mosaic, i get a lot of white noise looking interference even though there is no light present which could be affecting it? Is that airglow?

[Psion]

This noise affects the mosaic a lot; it's spotty. The high cloud cover that occasionally passes over the object also greatly affects it.

[Brownie2k]

I'm guessing in that case the only thing to do is make several passes to replace the affected images? I've noticed in my M99 image, there seems to be lots of straight lines goind around the image, almost like a square if that makes sense. I had to stop in the end due to the aurora which was severely affecting it, so i didn't even manage to get one full pass.

[Psion]

I'd scrap such damaged images altogether.

[Brownie2k]

I think at the moment i'm just excited to get any images that i can. Not fully knowing how to process and the sorts, it's nice just seeing what i can get. I'm sure as i get better, i'll learn what to keep and what to bin. I'm just trying to get the most out of what i've got whilst the clear nights come (which is rarely atm)

[jprideaux]

The nice thing about amateur astronomy is that there is a lot of room to grow into the hobby with getting better and better images. Even with using the same equipment, the sky conditions and how long you integrate play a huge role. By all means, enjoy your scope from home on less than ideal nights. As you want better and better images, you can start to be more finicky on when and where you image. Of course the best images will be from driving to a darker site with no moon up on a clear night with good seeing, low wind, and no aurora, or high altitude clouds where you pick a target and stay on it for as long as you can (but not too low in altitude).

[Brownie2k]

So i tried my hand at NGC 7000 the other night, which is actually my second attempt at doing this nebula, and i'm so so so pleased with it! It's my absolute best image to date and i've tried a little processing in Lightroom on my phone, but i've included the TIF file as i would absolutely LOVE someone to see what they can do with this image! It's my best by far and i'm seriously thinking i'm going to get it processed as best i can and print it out for a picture for my wall - the first image i'm truly happy with!!

 

Link to TIF file - https://1drv.ms/i/s!...ExadDA?e=WTJf3y

 

NGC 7000 - North America Nebula

Mosaic mode

2hrs 20 mins data

CLS filter fitted

 

I posted this in the Vespera Owners group on FB along with my first attempt as i really am proud of them!

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[kannassee]

Well actually I observed Ceres earlier today.

The colors in the pic are off, at the beginning there was a lot of light around, maybe that's why!!!

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Edited by kannassee, 21 June 2024 - 10:48 AM.

[Brownie2k]

So i finally bought Pixinsight and i'm slowly learning how to process images using Youtube videos and a lot of experimentation and trial and error. I've tried to process some of the images i've managed to catch and i'm really quite happy with them! I've just got to learn how to properly process nebulas, as they seem to be quite hard to process, but i'm getting there slowly.

 

I've got a few images i'm working on, but it's just finding the correct settings to get the background looking nice. Any tips would be fantastic, but i've attached some of my better attempts

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[Wildetelescope]

You are definitely progressing:-).  Learning the processing stuff just takes time and practice. These last two attempts are really quite nice.   Keep going.   These little robo scopes are quite nice in that they DO generate data that is good enough to learn the processing techniques.   Their only real limitation is aperture, but you won’t start noticing that until you have really become proficient with the processing.  I like these last two images quite a lot!

 

JMD

[Brownie2k]

You are definitely progressing:-).  Learning the processing stuff just takes time and practice. These last two attempts are really quite nice.   Keep going.   These little robo scopes are quite nice in that they DO generate data that is good enough to learn the processing techniques.   Their only real limitation is aperture, but you won’t start noticing that until you have really become proficient with the processing.  I like these last two images quite a lot!

 

JMD

Thank you so so much!

 

I'm really, really enjoying playing around with Pixinsight, and at the moment, the only thing limiting me is the data that i have which is quite flawed and heavily gradiented. Still, i'm loving learning and just experimenting with different things. I'm trying to learn GHS now until we have another clear night here in Manchester haha! But i'm still messing with what i have, and it's incredible how different you can make the same data look just by what you change! 

 

Also i've been messing wtih my cluster pictures and tried to process my Double Cluster picture, which i've included too. I'm just looking forward to getting more data and learning more things. I must say, Pixinsight might have been expensive, but it's worth every single penny!

 

I've included a couple of my recent processes, i'm quite proud of them!

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brownie2k, 24 July 2024 - 03:19 PM.

[Brownie2k]

Absolutely loving Pixinsight haha! Learning more and more every day and discovering how to use masks and the sorts. 

 

I recently discovered Bill Blanshans Pixelmath GHS Script and tried it out on my NGC7000 with the colour masks etc. This is my best attempt at processing yet! Just need to get some fresh data now... need some clear nights here in the UK!!

 

 

[rxpc]

Absolutely loving Pixinsight haha! Learning more and more every day and discovering how to use masks and the sorts.

I recently discovered Bill Blanshans Pixelmath GHS Script and tried it out on my NGC7000 with the colour masks etc. This is my best attempt at processing yet! Just need to get some fresh data now... need some clear nights here in the UK!!

Beautiful images, great work with Pixinsight!

[Brownie2k]

Finally got a nice clear night last night, with the moon rising quite late, so i got about an hour and a bit of data,

 

Seem to be having a lot of rejected subs it seems, as out of 2 and a bit hours of imaging, i had a total of 1hr 17 mins of data, which is a bit odd, but it is what it is.

 

Last night i images NGC 6914 and surrounding area. Tried to elevate the scope above the LED light noise on the floor, and it did make quite a difference. I think the difference when i get into my new bedroom in the attic will be incredible, but still a little bit of time to wait yet. So heres my latest picture, pre and post processed:

 

Pre-Processed straight from Vespera 2:

 

 

Post-Processed in Pixinsight:

 

 

Bortle 6/7 back garden with CLS filter fitted

 

(Edited to replace with better processed picture)

Edited by Brownie2k, 28 July 2024 - 02:09 PM.