Since it seems many of us were imaging this target I figured I would not wait till I got more data in the Lum, and just process with what I had.

L: 2.8hr @600s
R: 2hr @300s
G: 2hr @300s
B: 2hr @300s

Any and all critique welcome,
Matthew

(Download)

Dust, on part of the imaging train, probably on a lens since the main mirror is quite some distance.

Nice, are you using a tracking mount for these, or just a standard tripod?

Very well done on the PP,
Matthew

Very cool images, make sure you keep your raw files. The only issue I can see is mild color mottling that can be correcting in PP. While looking through your Flicker folder, I love your Rosette image. You really should try doing a mosaic to get the full nebula.

The Infinity looks to be a great little camera, from all the reviews I have read and the images from those like you who are doing stunning work with it.

Matthew

Very nice images, guys.

Brian what type of issues are you having with your guiding, is it with your setup or is the output not consistent. If it is intermittent, have you trained your mounts periodic error correction? Are you using a separate guide scope or OAG? Anytime I have gotten trailing and I cant figure out why, I will take a couple shorter exposures, around 30s and move the mount in the RA axis to see if this is where the drift is occurring, do the same with the Dec if it wasnt in the RA axis, if it appears to not be in either it could be flexure, this happens more often especially if you are using a separate guide scope. It wont be in every image but many of them as the main scope and guide scope shift ever so slightly as the mount tracks the sky. I cured my flexure with doing away with those guide scope rings that have the three locking screws. I measured the outer diameter of my guide scope and got clamshell brackets for it, that and making sure everything was tight. I'm sure with enough time to devote to the issue you will get it resolved, its just hard to give up a night of imaging to trouble shoot a problem that seems to not want to show its head when you want to figure it out.

If it appears in the RA axis and only seems to appear when your exposures exceed a certain length, this is usually cured with good PEC training. I like to train my PEC with double my average imaging focus length, if I'm imaging at 800mm I will train my PEC at at least 1500mm if not able to go higher. The higher your FL when training the more accurate your PEC will be, due to the program being able to see even the slightest bind in the worm gear.

Best of luck, and great images.

And as always, YMMV,
Matthew

In my opinion if you are really interested in astro imaging is to begin with what you have, especially camera and lenses. The D810a is a great camera, but in my opinion it is nothing more than a standard D810 with the IR hot mirror removed, along with added tweaks to the firmware to allow for longer exposures. Since many of the DSOs (Deep Space Objects) are distant and fairly small, crop sensors work well also. Since the majority who stick with the hobby end up ditching their DSLRs in favor of CCD cameras with sensor cooling, If you are looking to purchase a new camera I would start with a monochrome CCD with an automated filterwheel. With a budget of 5k, I would spend 4k on a decent used mount, from a reputable manufacturer, saving a grand for all the extra equipment that you will discover you need to attach what you have to what you got. Leave the camera upgrade for later, after you decide you want to stick with it. You can get cheaper mounts mounts, but this is the most important piece of equipment, hands down. For instance I can put a $200.00 telescope atop of a $7000.00 mount and attain images that far surpass a $5000.00 telescope on a $800.00 mount. While it is possible to get great images from a cheaper mount, as many of us have done and do, but it is a lot of more work and comes with a large amount of time tweaking and dealing with minor frustrations, many of which will end up costing you a whole night of imaging with nothing to show for it.

I would look on Astromart.com for a decent German Equatorial Mount, you will want to avoid the Alt/Az mounts unless focusing on planetary imaging, because of the inherent field rotation.

Hope this helps and feel free to ask us anything on the astro part of this forum, there are many there who are more knowledgeable than I and who are very willing to help.
Matthew

Just confused me more lol

Lol I was wondering I read it three times and couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

Then again it was not designed to do so. The US Constitution, or really any state constitution is not designed to "grant" rights, this is completely the opposite of what was intended, it was designed to limit government. Our rights are not at the whim of the State. If our "Creator" has endowed us with rights, the State has no business telling it's citizens what rights they have.



This initial list of our freedoms, that while many view as part of the Constitution, it really was not, some wanted it in place with the signing of the Constitution, but others though it was inherently evil. I believe it was either Hamilton or Jackson, who fought the adoption of the bill of rights, believing if you have a list of rights, no matter how inclusive, everything not explicitly written within would be subject to the mercy of State. This is the main reason the Bill of Rights took another four or five years to pass. While the founders did not live to see what types of loop holes lawyers and politicians would wordsmith into existence, all by changing the definitions of words, it's odd that this exact thing was a feared course of government encroachment.

Throughout most of American history this process of erosion was on a more generational progression, taking decades for the real effects to be felt by the general populace. Now that the government takes up a considerable percentage of the people either though direct employment, owning or working for a business whose sole prosperity depends upon sales to the State, those who get all there earnings and income from the vast services, we as a first world populace think we can afford to grant. Now the laws are changing and being exposed as quickly as we are advancing at an ever increasing pace.

IMHO, we have come so far, and taken on so much water, I am unsure if we haven't already past the point of no return. The decline seems to be gathering steam and growing exponentially, and lately the strides that are made, either end up being bold faced lies, laws worded to sound like they are to benefit, when in fact they are quite detrimental. I am not saying all are bad or anything so morose, but it seems like Congress, at least in my adult life time, has been producing gainful progress in diminishing returns with no end in site.

Matthew

That is very cool. I have played only briefly with Autostakkert, I was not able to get much out of it, sad to say. I'm sure it's great but I kept hitting the memory limit, cause my files were too large. Maybe Juan will get off his ass and add Planetary to Pixinsight, he has said its on the agenda. The ability to utilize 32 CPU cores, 128g of RAM all while compressing the data in 64bit xisf or fit files allows the user to keep and work with the widest range of data within the image, more so that all of the other programs can't even begin to compete, at least at this stage. Top three things on my wish list for that program is;
1) OpenGL acceleration
2) Planetary processing
3) Alignment and stacking for normal images. I would never open PS or LR again.

I hate having to throw away so much detail just to post online, it's kinda sad.

Sorry I was so long winded. One of the best images, of Jupiter, I have seen on here.
Matthew

While ISPs have been able to collect and sell data, as was mentioned above, I do not think they were able to actually attach your identity to the data. The ability to collect your meta data from your mobile devices, ISPs, and hell pretty much every thing you own from you car, via OnStar, to your smart TV, has become all encompassing. I was amazed recently when visiting Denver, although I am sure most larger cities are the same, by the amount of cameras. I do not believe there is more than two square blocks that don't have at least some form of coverage.

Add all this together and I have to chuckle at the how the founding fathers did not think it necessary to include privacy in the mix. We all have heard, "we get what we pay for" we are beginning to see the government we have been paying out the rear for.

I see so many people complain about politics and how the government is either too idiotic and bungling to accomplish anything, or they seem to be too busy butting heads with the opposition.

Chew on this, what if it is all misdirection, and in fact we, the serfs are the opposition. George Orwell may not have been that insane after all.

Matthew

If you plan to use this as a hot swap for your drives, whether SSD or HDD, make sure you turn off file cache so windows will not use it as a cache or pagefile. Otherwise you have to make sure you safely remove drive, if Windows happens to be writing to the drive and you unplug it, it tends to corrupt the directory, which breaks your partitions.

I must say it is nice to be able to swap drives without having to dig into the case and fumble with the wires.
Matthew

Might want to look into shooting it as a mosaic, as it is a quite large subject. Really depends on the amount of resolution you desire and your ultimate composition. I know I had all sorts of issues getting them to merge seamlessly, I now will shoot each section on separate days, so that each of the sets are as close to each other, in terms of time of night and the sets have roughly the same RA. It has made merging them and being able to remove all the background gradients much easier. It tends to take a lot of the trial and error out of the final processing, which already stretches into hours of work.

Matthew

This was my original goal, a certain number of exposures. Now I simply look at time, culling images as quick as possible to cover any possible loss of data.

I learned by losing 80% of all my blue subs due to the Northern Lights, but since I did not scan all the images I didn't notice until the subject had passed its prime elevation and decided to hide behind the house. I guess I will have to add to it next year. This also taught me the filter order I now utilize. Since it is possible to synthesize the green channel, green is now the final color I shoot, and I finish off the subject with the Lums. I can now assemble the RGB data and see if it is even worth continuing on with the Lum or Ha, or if I need go back and get more data in the RGB spectrum.



Jesus, don't jinx him. I truly think that, stacking will cure the issues he has with his magical sprinkles. I think now that he has gotten the majority of his equipment gremlins in order, this is the most logical step. Especially considering he is able to get insanely detailed accurate tracking for times I am only now able to achieve with my newer mount. With my AVX it was almost pointless to expose around the 10min mark, because with the tracking errors I was throwing away 40-50% of all my subs, and that to me seemed like a grand wasted endeavor, when I could image comfortably at 5min keeping almost every image.

As a side note I mentioned in your Leo image about odd stars in your lower right corner, not sure what it could have been as it does not seem to be apparent in this image. Not sure if your Leo image is a single sub and since this is fairly large stack the aberration is averaged out. I guess it is just one of those things to make you scratch your head and wonder about. Oh well at least it isn't a reoccurring issue.


I have been debating either the RASA, or an 11' EdgeHD with a Hyperstar setup. Right now I am leaning towards the Edge due to the flexibility of being able to shoot at F/10 normally, F/9 with the reducer and F/2 with the Hyperstar. Its hard because I have been drooling over the RASA since I began, it was the sole reason of upgrading to the Mach1

Very nicely done,
Matthew

Very nice, this is the subject I am currently working on. I think I have 2-3hrs of each filter, I would like to get a couple more hours of Lum data, just to clean up the noise and bring out the minute detail. Is this image cropped? Just curious because it appears like you have perfect pinpoint stars, except in the lower right corner. If it was apparent in all four corners I would blame field curvature, but if it's not cropped it might be a slight collimation error.

Matthew