Hello everyone!
Actually, in continuation of the topic of building a remote observatory in Cyprus, which has become irrelevant due to the lack of the required minimum level of illumination, I am opening this topic.
While searching for places for the Cyprus observatory, an idea came to shoot a survey of the entire sky in narrowband. To begin with, this will be hydrogen and oxygen in order to search for new previously undiscovered planetary and other emission nebulae and to obtain images with a wide field for gradient alignment on longer-focus images (analogous to MARS from PixInsight). In the future, sulfur/LRGB/IR (for IFN) will probably be shot in parallel for the above-mentioned purposes of gradient alignment and not only.
The plans include shooting both the northern and southern hemispheres completely, with an accumulation of 30+ hours per frame. Yes, I know that there is MDW Sky Survey and similar ones, but their accumulation is an order of magnitude smaller, their light intensity is lower and only hydrogen, or there is no full view and only the Milky Way region is captured (99% of space telescopes, and even then not always in narrowband).
The locations for placement are preliminary Spain, Western Andalusia/Chile, Atacama.
First stage: both hemispheres in Ha/OIII 10 hour sums for the following equipment:
1. Sigma 135/1.8@2.8-3.2 or Canon 200/2.0 IS II@2.8-3.2
2. mono camera on the IMX455 sensor Moravian C3-PRO-61000EC with a filter wheel
3. Chroma filter 50x50 LRGB+3nm SHO F3 (still in question)
In order to speed up the process, I think to assemble four such tubes into one device, which will have the ability to adjust the telescopes relative to each other in order to have the same field of view on all four cameras. Item 2 and 3 will be the same in the following stages and in all planned setups, perhaps somewhere the camera will be replaced with a QHY600M (first of all, this concerns setups not on photo lenses, which I will tell you about later).
Second stage: both hemispheres in Ha/OIII with 10 hour sums for the following equipment:
1. Replaced with 4xFSQ106EDXIV with F3 reducer (yes, the same one I used to shoot Sivan2 last year). Or it will be Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM, will be decided after testing one experimental lens. In theory, I don’t need point stars for starless review.
In parallel, we increase the accumulation for the first stage setups to 30+ hours.
Third stage: both hemispheres in Ha/OIII with 10 hour sums for the following equipment:
1. Replaced with 4xEpsilon E-160ED.
In parallel, we increase the accumulation for the first and second stage setups to 30+ hours.
Fourth stage: we continue to increase the accumulation for the first-second-third stage setups to 30+ hours. It is possible to increase the accumulation to 100+ hours.
In parallel with all stages, we shoot something interesting/rare/newly discovered on longer focal length setups.
P.S.: I do not exclude that help may be required with sending data to some registration authorities about discovered objects, so any feasible help is welcome, as well as help with automatic identification of objects in photos and searching for new ones.
P.P.S.: I might also need help with a script to automate calibration in PixInsight per my requests (WBPP is not offered) and resources for storage/calibration/integration.
Edited by sl-he, 11 January 2025 - 08:54 AM.
