SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

I always wondered what would happen with a different camera, because with my Nikon D3300 the FOV was so vast objects were minuet.
Last night all the bugs and gremlins were gone after I cleaned all my USB connections and power connections.
So out of curiosity, I centered up on The North American Nebula, always too big for my Infinity camera.
The ASI 1600 Pro opened up like a giant maw and took in the whole thing.
But I found out I need a different program to process the pictures. My outdated Elements 12 sez, "Unh uh honey, that's too big!" Something about it can't handle HDR? (High Dynamic Range) Fiddlesticks.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi SonnyE
What type of file are you passing to Elements. When I use my ASI camera it produces a .fit file with ASI driver. I normally use Pixinsight for processing and it seems to handle the image just fine. However my canon software (used with the DSLR) seems blind to the .fit file type as does the freeware program RawTherpee. However Picture window Pro 64 can process the .fit file without issue. Could the file type be misunderstood by Elements or cannot it not handle the 12 bit data which the AtoD in the ASI1600 produces (maybe that is why it says HDR)? Do you have any programs that can see and or convert the file to a different type?

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

tif files.
I stacked all the R,G,B as separate files and saved them as R.tif, or G.tif, or B.tif, and was seeing if I could proceed.
But Elements 12 just pops up a bubble that directs me you go buy a more up to date program like cc or such.
I have renewed my distaste for fit files.

As far as I know so far, the ASI1600 Pro only saves in fit format. But I'm going to try the Live Stacking (ASILive) and see what that does.
So far all I've been using is the Deep Sky Imaging feature, which runs the filter wheel and programs multiple exposures.
Pretty perfect for a lazy bones like me. I have several huge files I can't do anything with.

I've been trying Deep Sky Stacker, and saving the stacked files as tif format, in the hopes I could process them into color files. Hah! Dream on Sonny!
I'm thinking I should have gotten another color camera. Just be done with it.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

The using of a monochrome camera with filters is a lot more challenging than a full color alright. But I have found some benefits with the mono camera particularly with narrow band filters, also I expect that the image is better since no pixel interpolation needs to be done (which full color cameras that use a Bayer pattern are required to do). Currently I have been using pixinsight to combine the LRGB images to create color deep sky images and winJUPOS to combine LRGB planetary images.
Pixinsight costs a bit but winJUPOS is freeware.

The other day I was trying to take images of the California nebula but the clouds moved in before I got all the data I needed. I did however get a few subs (20 of Luminance (5 minutes each), 15 Greens (5 minutes each) and 5 Ha (10 minutes each) before the clouds shut be me down. Hopefully the sky will clear in the next few weeks so I can get more Ha, some blue and red data and create a full color image. As an example of the benefit of the mono camera I found the that the Ha images although although ~1/2 the amount of data that I got for Luminance showed a lot more of the nebula and the Green showed almost no nebula. (see images below). The only thing done to these images was to stack and stretch them no other processing. (More data on HA will also help reduce the noise). Note the HA didn't have as much of a sky glow gradient as the Luminance and Green filter images.
These where all taken with my ASI camera and a filter wheel attached to a canon 500mm telephoto lens.

Ha filter (50 minutes of total integration time). Although the least integration time it got the most nebula. This sucker is a lot bigger than the Andromeda galaxy which easily fit in the image with the 500mm lens

(Download)

Luminance filter (100 minutes of total integration time).

(Download)

Green filter (75 minutes of total integration time). Almost no nebula visible

(Download)

DickC Loc: NE Washington state

Great photos, thanks!!

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi DickC
Thanks for checking out the images and the comment. I expect it will be at least few weeks before I can get more with the clouds and rain.

DickC Loc: NE Washington state

Your most welcome. I love clouds, back in the darkroom days I used to go all over the West to take photos of clouds, then I'd put them in pics I had that had no clouds!! Have an old ranch house in Colorado with an Arizona desert sundown with sun and clouds!!