20 replies to this topic

[nikm]

The September 2024 Challenge is now open. The target this month is the M74 Phantom Galaxy. 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 September 30 and I will try to announce the winner sometime after October 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 or put in a mod alert and I, or a fellow mod, 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

[acrh2]

This was a tough target because it's positioned in the light dome of my state capital 30 miles to the south. The fact that its opposition is on October 18th only adds insult to injury.
Could we please have a monthly challenge target whose opposition comes within that month? In fact, this should be the rule for target selection, IMHO.
 
The data was collected over 5 nights: 9 hours L and 8 hours RGB.
No Moon, Bortle 5.5, below average seeing + Canadian wildfire smoke.
 
Askar 120 APO, 840 mm focal length, f/7, 0.93 arcsec/pixel.
ASI2600MM Pro, -5C, 0 gain, 30 offset.
Astronomik Typ 2C LRGB filters.
Sirius EQ-G mount, 0.5-0.8" RMS.
120 s subs, dither every 2 subs by max of 8 pixels.
40 flats, 40 darks, 50 biases. 
 
The data was stacked in Siril and processed in PI as a straight up LRGB. Because the target was close-ish to horizon, the brightest 200 or so stars (much fewer in the crop) were corrected for atmospheric dispersion in Startools.
 

[Oort Cloud]

I know we're not supposed to have discussion here, but I want the mods to see that I also agree on the rule of opposition during the challenge month.

P.S.: we should also have a nothern, and a southern hemisphere target.

Edited by Oort Cloud, 11 September 2024 - 05:13 PM.

[Chrisofweden]

I know we're not supposed to have discussion here, but I want the mods to see that I also agree on the rule of opposition during the challenge month.

P.S.: we should also have a nothern, and a southern hemisphere target.

+1

[rkelley61]

RC8@1600/ASI2600MM Pro
Filters: ZWO RGB
Mount: G11T

EGAIN = 0.24
Scale = 0.48

Bin = 1x1
Bortle 4
6 Nights (September 6 - 12)
321 RGB@240 

Hours: 21.4

Processing in PixInsight

 

Workflow

 

Linear: WBPP / DC / GC / SPCC / BX (Correct Only) / BX / MLT (Chrominance and Luminance)

Non-Linear: GHS / SX / GHS / CT / HDRMultiscaleTransform / Recombine stars / NX (background 50%) / UnsharpMask / NX (galaxy 20%) / CT (saturation) / NX (all 20%) / SCNR (background) / Resample (50%)

 

[Oort Cloud]

Here is my entry for this month.

 

I managed to get 5 hours of luminance, and 5 hours of RGB, but I'm not too happy with the end result, given the integration time.  It's deep enough to show a lot of little BG galaxies, but I had to crop most of them off to get it down to 1600x1200.  Back to my narrowband imaging, which I am enjoying far more from my bright suburban backyard.

 

[ngatel]

C8
Celestron 0.63 FR/FF
EQ6-R Pro

 

ZWO ASI533MC Pro
Optolong UV-IR Cut Filter

 

ZWO OAG-L
ZWO ASI174MM mini
Celestron Auto Focuser

 

600 X 60sec @ 100gain/30 offset (10 hours integration)

NINA for acquisition
PHD2 Guiding
Astro Pixel Processor for integration
Post processing with PixInsight

 

Bortle 5

 

[AnneD]

Equipment used:

StarAdventurer GTi

ASIAir Plus

WO 32mm Guide Scope

ASI220MM Mini Guide Camera

ASI533MC Pro Main Camera

RedCat 51

ZWO EAF

 

Data:

Taken over 4 nights

Lights: 131 x 300s and 89 x 180s = ~15 total hours (if I understand how to calculate this correctly....LOL!)

60 each: flats, bias, darks

 

Gain: 101

Camera: -10C

Bortle 6

 

Post Processing Software:

Sirilic to stack

GraXpert: Background Extraction, DeNoise

Siril: Color Calibration, Remove Green Noise, Star Removal using StarNet, Stretch using Histogram Transformation first, then Generalised Hyperbolic Stretch Tranformation, Color Saturation

Photoshop: Level adjustment, Camera Raw edits

Topaz DeNoise: Additional DeNoise (minor noise tweaking)

Siril: Recompose Stars, Stretch tweaking, Color Calibration tweaking, save file as JPG. 

 

 

 

Edited by AnneD, 20 September 2024 - 02:34 PM.

[DanMiller]

Equipment
    Mount: Advanced GT
    Scope: Astro Tech 80ed - No reducer
    Image Camera: ASI 585mc Pro
    Filter: ZWO uv/ir

Sessions:
    Only 3 nights of 1 hour each 30s and the rest of the night of 60s exposures.
        * Was unable to image till after 12:30am due to line of sight.
        * Also had issues with cable drag due to this being South East and South for me.  Of course, our other haunts got
        me also. Smoke, clouds, rain.
    Total exposure time 6.4 hours


Pixinsight:
    WBPP
         * I got hammered with rejects on the 30s exposures, so I have no idea what actual post image time is.
    SPC for Sonly color camera.  Also checked box for neutralization
        * Please note that this is different than how I do SPCC.  I normall run the below prior to SPCC but SPCC
        kept failing, and after a LOT of help from the pixinsight forum.  I found with this target at least I
        had to run SPCC without any prior modifications.
            DBE - Run twice for subtraction and twice for division
            BlurX - I reduce the size of halos by setting the Sharpen Stars to 0 and the Adjust Halo size to -0.50.
                Automatic PSF unchecked.
                * run this twice
           BlurX - Default settings.
          NoiseX - Default settings.
    * Did you know there was a command line in the Display Console of Pixinsight? Never knew that.
    * Please note that in followup posts, they do not recomend running any prior processes to SPCC. 
    This problem ended up explaining a lot to me with regard to post stretch processing. 

    SPC for Sonly color camera.  Also checked box for neutralization
     Now I ran the following as described above. DBE, BlurX, BlurX, NoiseX.

    StarXterminator with default settings.
    Ez Soft Stretch
    CurveTranformation - Mutiple small S curves to remove some of background with RGB/K.
    RangeSelection to create a mask of the galaxy.
    MultiScaleLinierTransformation to bring up chromance
    CurveTransformation - Saturation
    removed previous mask and created a color mask using the Color script.    
     * Note, I did this origionally hoping to bring up the dust.  But the Hue numbers highlighted some bright
      white sections that in the next step I thought really was cool.
    CurveTransformation. - RGB/K
    Removed all masks.
    ArcinhStretch against the previously extracted stars.
    Saved the stretch stars to a tiff file.

GIMP
    Opened the stars tiff file.
    Ran unpruple with default settings which remove the purple halos
    Saved the stars tiff file.
Pixinsight
    Opened the stars.tiff file previously updated in Gimp.
    CurveTransformation.
        RGB/K to brighten stars.
       Saturation to give some color to those stars.
    PixilMath to create a new image where galaxy and stars are combined.
        combine(starless, stars, op_screen())

 

Needs more time. Needs less agrivation.  Needs to not be rainy and cloudy the rest of the month.  Submitting because I don't think I will be able to get more time at it due to long term forcast of weather.

 

Dan

[TelescopeGreg]

Before I forget to post, here's my entry for the month.  The proverbial stars aligned, and I was able to drive out to a dark site, Bortle 2/3, for some imaging.  This is 92 minutes of data, gathered early in the month.  Other than going with 1x1 binning on the imaging camera (usually I do 2x2 for smaller files, and faster downloads), I followed pretty much my normal acquisition and processing steps. 

 

Imaged 9/8/2024 from a dark site in the Sierra Nevada mountains (alt about 4,200 ft).  Bortle 2/3.

-----------------

Telescope:  Stellarvue SVA130EDT, 130mm f/7.  No reducer or flattener.

Camera:  ASI2600MC-Pro.  Gain 100, temp -5C, no filters other than the built-in UV/IR Cut.

Mount:  Celestron AVX

Guider:  ZWO 60mm f/4.6 guide scope, ASI174mm Mini camera.  CCDciel internal guider software

Computing:  Raspberry Pi 4b, Astroberry distro.  CCDciel Session Manager, ASTAP plate solving

 

23 x 4 minutes Lights, 20 each Darks, Flats, Dark-flats

Stacked in ASTAP, processed in StarTools 1.7

 

[AngryBear]

 

AstroBin link to better size

https://www.astrobin.com/igil9d/

 

Askar 103APO

No Filters

140 Subs @ 60” over 2 nights on Sept 5-6 2024

 

Processed in PixInsight with all the usual suspects. 

 

 

 

[khursh]

I have larger telescopes, but I wanted to see how this looked with 92mm aperture.

 

I used an Astro-Physics Stowaway on a Mach2 mount. 

QHY268C with UV/IR cut filter at -10C.

21ish hours of varying quality over 5 nights throughout September. Seeing is not great here. 

 

 

 

I used FBPP in PI

SPCC, BlurXTerminator, Gradient correction, Statistical stretch, NoiseXterminator, Curves. Gimp

 

CS

[osbourne one-nil]

First entry for a while and I shot this earlier in the month when the Moon was playing ball. 

 

100x180" frames using an ASI2600MC Pro attached to a Vixen SD115SII refractor at its native f7.7 (890mm FL). 

 

 

It's off-centre because a nearby star was causing some weird "ampglow" type effect, but I didn't want to zoom in too much. 

[Chrisofweden]

 

Captured:
September 27, Bortle 4-ish, Outside temperature: +8 Deg C, Seeing: Good (< 2.0)
Scope: Askar 130PHQ APO refractor (1000mm, F7.7)
Imaging camera: ASI 294MC Pro @-10c, Gain 120, Bin 1
Guiding: ZWO OAG-L with ASI174MM mini
Focus: ASI EAF
Filters: UV/IR Cut
Mount: EQ6R Pro
Control: ASIAir+
Integration: ~2hrs 20mins (this was all I could get... )
- 70 x 120s subs 
- Calibration: Darks, Dark Flats, Flats

Software/Processing in PixInsight including:
Blink
WBPP including Auto pedestal, Cosmetic Correction, Local Normalisation, Drizzle x 2, Autocrop
Gradient Correction
RC BlurXterminator

SPCC
RC NoiseXterminator
GAME scripts (Luminance)
GHS Arcsinh
RC StarXterminator
Curves
LocalHistogram
Pixelmath rescreen combination for stars
Integer resize

Crop

/Chris

Edited by Chrisofweden, 30 September 2024 - 09:03 AM.

[Der_Pit]

Here's my take.  Taken last two nights (and a quick processing today).  Wind was quite strong, I had to throw away quite some data.

 

TSApo 140 (F6.6, 928mm FL) on CEM60EC

ASI2600MM Pro with 7x36mm EFW and Astronomik DeepSky filters (R,G,B)

Gain 100, Offset 15, T -15⁰C, 90s, R:130, G:143, B: 127 frames, 10h total

Acquisition with KStars/EKOS

 

Stacking/initial processing in IDL, Starnet++, final retouching in GIMP.  Image is cropped 50% (i.e., FOV is ca. 45x30 arc min).  Will have to re-do it with more patience, but the month is running out....

 

 

 

[dswtan]

Ultimately ~14hrs rather than the 20 I'd hoped, but will try to add some Ha after the challenge and the moon returns. 4hrs added since my draft in the progress thread, so just a little more on the notably extensive arms that you can see on a long L integration. Happy with the outcome, and much better resolution than my 8" effort last year.

 

Equipment:

Celestron EdgeHD 11"
iOptron CEM70G

ZWO ASI294MM Pro, ZWO ASI174MM Mini
Astronomik Deep-Sky RGB & L-2 · Celestron 0.7X Reducer, Off-Axis Guider · MoonLite CHL focuser · ZWO EAF, EFW
   

Capture:

NINA

Sept. 7 - 10, 13 - 14, 27 - 28, 30, 2024 · 120g 0°C bin 2×2
Blue: 73×120″(2h 26′) · Green: 67×120″(2h 14′) · Red: 75×120″(2h 30′) · L-2 : 214×120″(7h 8′)

 

Process:

WBPP

RGB - LF to green, CC, BXT correct only, GXT, SPCC, BXT gentle, NXT gentle, EZ soft stretch, SXT to split. CT separately. NXT to finalize.

L2 - BXT correct only, GXT, BXT gentle, NXT gentle, EZ soft stretch, SXT, NXT, CT to finalize.

LRGB, BN, SCNR, LHE gentle (a few times).

Add stars back, final tweaks (had a residual large ring requiring special attention), Bill Blanshan star reduction.

 

Full resolution: https://astrob.in/8po8kk/B/

 

 

[av8or]

Wow! Lots of stunning images! Congrats to all who submitted an image to this month's challenge. Here's my crude attempt on imaging the phantom galaxy. I drastically overestimated the ability of my 127 mm achromat (non-ED), so this submission is mostly for the sake of completeness. The chromatic aberration (CA) really constrained my already limited processing skills, but I'm actually fairly happy with the results. The overall image is quite a bit softer than I anticipated, and I suspect this is due to CA. Obviously the stars were completely bloated in the blue channel, but even the galaxy arms were much softer relative to the red and green channels. I actually contemplated tossing the blue channel entirely and merging the red and green channels into a greyscale image, but that's no fun!

 

Equipment

• Explore Scientific AR127
• Celestron CGEM DX
• QHY 183C
• SBIG ST-i with 50 mm Astromania guide scope

Acquisition

• Sequenced and captured with N.I.N.A.
• 144 x 300 sec (12 hours total) light frames between September 25 and 27
• Calibrated with dark, flat, and flat dark data

Processing

• All processing was performed in Siril
• Star extraction via StarNet, and independent stretching of the starless and star mask images during recomposition
• Selective color saturation (avoiding violets)

 

Edited by av8or, 30 September 2024 - 07:44 PM.

[jssimon]

I got it done just in time:

 

Equipment:

 

LX200 8 inch on a wedge

Lepus Reducer

Askar OAG

ASI174 mini guide camera

ASI533MC Pro

ASI533MM Pro

 

Acquisition:

PHd2 and Sharpcap Pro Sequencer

ASI533MC: 7 hours, 3 minute subs, Gain=100, Temp=0, Dithered

ASI533MM: 4.7 hours, 3 minute subs, Gain=100, Temp=0, Dithered

Darks and flats created in Sharpcap

 

Processing:

Stacked in DSS

Processed in Pixinsight

I created a super luminance using both mono and OSC data 

 

Taken last week of September, Bortle 4.5

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by jssimon, 30 September 2024 - 11:01 PM.

[timothystraub]

This will need to do for this month.  We have either had smoke and/or cloud cover.  30 x 5 min light frames (2.5 hours integration time), 30 darks, 30 dark flats, and 30 flats.  Astro-tech CFT 90 on an AM5 mount.  2600 mc camera (-10C, gain 100, no filters), 60 mm guide, 462 mc guide camera, ASIAIR plus for control of the mount, EAF, and capture.

For this, I did WBPP and separated the RGB channels during WBPP, I performed a 3x drizzle integration for each cannel, and then recombined the RGB drizzle masters into a single master.  After DBE, BX, and SPCC, I did a dynamic crop to 2400 x 2400 pixels.  Stars and Starless were processed separately.  The starless image was stretched by GHS, and the I used the NBtoRGB script to get better colors on the stars and stretch them.  The stretched starless and NBRGB stars image was recombined using pixel math.  Finally, I used Adobe photoshop Camera RAW smart filter to do final processing.  The image was saved to jPG for posting here.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[nikm]

Thanks everyone for participating this month! 

The winning post is post #6 by member Oort Cloud! 

[nikm]

New challenge is up!