SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Yeah, it's a song, but last night was really cool in the South/Western Sky for me.
The night before had been plagued with anomalies of the camera and what ever's. But I finally, apparently, found the missing setting. So Last Night, was a grand one.
Just 4 subjects, The Dumbbell Nebula, The Eagle Nebula, The East Veil Nebula, and The Lagoon Nebula were my chosen targets.
I typically shoot 5 sequences of any given object, and most often at one time setting. Last night 60 second (60s) was the king, with some 120s exposures, and one series of 25s.
Attached are the raw, or as shot, images (no "w"), and the same with my dabbling's (-w).

Download and play at your own risk. These may lead you into spending large sums of cash pursuing Astrophotography.

Dumbbell Nebula 20 - 60s - 1200s

(Download)

Dumbbell-Nebula--20---60s---1200s-w

(Download)

Dumbbell-Nebula--20---60s---1200s-w2

(Download)

Eagle Nebula 30 60s-1800s

(Download)

Eagle-Nebula-30-60s-1800s-w

(Download)

East Veil Nebula 20 - 120s - 2400s

(Download)

East-Veil-Nebula-20---120s---2400s-w

(Download)

Lagoon Nebula 35 - 60s - 2100s

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Lagoon-Nebula--35---60s---2100s-w

(Download)

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Very nice. Looks like your tracking was bang on. What type of equipment where you using? Have you tied stacking any of the images?

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Hi Ballard, Thank You.
I'm using my Celestron AVX mount, and an Orion ED80T CF telescope with an Atik Infinity color camera.
The Atik Infinity does the stacking in it's program. So no, I haven't needed to try stacking.
I'm a Post Processing minimalist who wants to get it right in the camera and it's control program.
I've spent literally years getting this equipment to work for me. I might be getting close.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Recently I've been using my DLSR with the freeware program deep sky stacker for stacking deep sky objects and regiStax 6 for planetary images. (Here are some links in uglyhedgehog to some of the shots.) https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-604855-1.html
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-600633-1.html
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-600510-1.html
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-600370-1.html
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-599872-1.html
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-598763-1.html

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

You're getting many Great images!
I never had much luck trying to stack on my own. So I removed the programs.
A very good Friend watched my struggles trying to get my equipment to work properly. He offered to loan me the Infinity I now own. I was very reluctant. But he was confident in me. Then sold me the camera. But from the very first night on, the Infinity camera has been great. There was one hickup when Atik released a bad update, then their software engineer insisted it wasn't their update.
I eventually found others who experienced the same problems after updating, and eventually after removing and re-downloading the program the problem magically disappeared.
(I tend to think he was an ex-Microsoft programmer.)

The only way possible was what Matthew (Okanoder) called Stacking with Time. If I took extremely long exposures, enough light piled up to create an image.
But first I had to get my guiding on a gnats butt to get smaller stars.
But I was out there doing 30 minute exposures as a routine. My longest was something around 90 minutes, a single long continuous exposure.

The Infinity software stacks the images as they arrive. I just choose my time for each exposure.
Longer times, like 120s (2 minutes) bring in the faint Nebula. But when too bright, lesser time frames work the image out.

But I didn't want to damage my DSLR learning how to capture DSO's.
LOL! As it was, I almost wore it out doing Star Trails, and time lapse images overnight. Some over 3,000+ images.
It's been quite a long road, but now is really fun. The only consistency I've found is that everybody does things differently, with different equipment.

OK, going hunting. It's finally dark here.
Keep up the great images!

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Now that I recently got the setup to work fairly well we have a bit of rain to deal with so I have to wait a couple of more days before I can try again. The canon DSLR can be controlled remotely over wireless or USB which makes it fairly easy to use for long exposures and in live view mode I don't get the shutter and mirror vibration when shooting plus it allows me to use a large computer screen to focus along with the 10x digital magnification. However the DSLR starts showing a bit if noise even with the addition of dark frames after about 3 minutes, so I take a lot of 1-3 minute exposures at ISO 1600 and stack them to get the best results so far. I will eventually add in some flat frames to see if that makes any difference in the picture quality. For stacking the deep sky images I convert the raw images to tiff files and stack them (both for light and dark frames). For the planet images I convert 4K video into Jpegs since regiStax is only a 32 bit programs and runs out of memory fairly quickly with tiff files, but it still works pretty well.

J-SPEIGHT Loc: Akron, Ohio

Nice set.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Sounds nice. I found tiff formats would eat up RAM, too. But back in the 1990's I concluded that no matter what, the biggest, fastest RAM was what I wanted in my computers. Still today it holds true.
I'm not a Gamer, but I still think that Gamers demands tend to lead the development of our computers.
My first Astronomy camera was quite a trial. This one is quite a dream.
Since jpg are pretty much what works with the Internet, I just surrendered to collecting and using jpg format image files.
In this age, with cell phone cameras, and everybody doing display viewing, well, I can't see me printing any of my images. (Actually, I just replaced my printers with a single mono laser printer. So I'm really not going to print pictures.)

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Thank You, Jack!
I have more, but have a run to do that is going to bind me up for most of the day.
So I'll be out in the truck in L.A.'s wonderful traffic, dragging a trailer.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

In my case it was the 32 bit RegiStax application that was the limiting factor for the planet shots. I recently upgraded my system with an ASRock gamer board, a 16 core processor and 64 gig of RAM. With this new system and the 64 bit freeware version of Deep sky stacker I use tiff files when stacking without any issues. I still like to print some of my pictures for hanging on the wall and use a high end canon photo printer that I have been making 16x20 prints with that common out really nice.

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

Sonny, those are fantastic, I’m glad you are back at it and having fun.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Thank You Brian!
Well, after yesterday afternoon and the new W. O. scope rings arriving, I think things are going to get better yet. Thanks to You and your advice about them with your ED80T CF.
I only decided on two "keepers" last night, but I'll poke those into another post.
Thanks for the advice about the scope rings.

(The fact that I'm typing this shows the CFO hasn't cut my fingers off.. yet...)

stepping beyond Loc: usa eastcoast

That CCD Atik is the real deal Sonny , that was one of my choices when getting a deep space camera but, it wasn't cooled and in the allotted range for me . Your images are amazing . kudos

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

Hahaha, just checking...count your fingers today 😂🤣😂☺️

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

I think she's given up on me. Stuff arrives, she just brings it in and sets it on my desk.
She hasn't brought up my "limit" in a long time.
Let's see 1,.... ....10. Yep, still all here.