TheSkySearchers

Hi Everybody,

I wondered if anybody was observing tonight? I have my CPC-800 with an Altair Astro 294c out in the UK. The temperature is 4.4 C

I didn't let the scope cool down, so this is going to be interesting. Anyways, here is my first shot of the evening, M42.

Altair Astro 294c 10s x 103 frames 901gain with background subtraction, Weiner Deconvolution 5.5, Bilateral Filter 1.17, 0.34. Using SharpCap and Stellarium.

Once you start looking at the Orion Nebula it is hard to take your eyes off it! I just let the stack keep running for 41 minutes, stretching the histogram as it went. All the other settings are as the post above. Spotify is playing some Instrumental Night-time Jazz, very relaxing.

10s x 246 frames 2460s gain 901 etc.

Nice shot. I didn't set up last night but enjoyed some great views of the nebula through binos. It was too windy for a scope.

Thanks Michael,
I am just imaging the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1977) right now. The temperature has dropped to 3.9C, thankfully no wind! M42 is full in your face and then you switch to something dimmer and you really need your camera to suck up some more photons

Here is my first shot 65 frames x 10 seconds gain is still 901 (not sure why its not 900!). Same Sharpcap enhancements as above. I am getting some reflections from stars off shot.

The Running Man Nebula after a 30 minute soak. 10s x 180 frames gain 901 with background subtraction, Weiner Deconvolution 5.5, Bilateral Filter 1.17, 0.34. I can't quite get the colour balance right! EAA is amazing. I am sitting in the warm and seeing details in objects I never saw at the eyepiece. Still love those eyepiece days but EAA adds to the enjoyment.

The Horsehead, the first time I saw the Horsehead was when I started EAA! Tonight, with a 72% moon, 28 degrees away, it is still visible but not impressively so. I got buzzed by a Starlink satellite on frame 35 but the sigma clipping in SharpCap took care of the interloper. The Sigma Threshold is set to 2 and the Sigma lower limit is set to 0.1% and initial frame count is 10. I saw it coming in Stellarium but wanted to see what Sharpcap would do.

10s x 100 frames gain 901 etc (as above)

Beautiful shots!

Thanks for sharing!

Moved onto M67 (open cluster) and NGC2903 (barred spiral galaxy). Temperature has dropped to 2.8 deg. Getting late in the UK.

I really like the new deep space annotation functionality in SharpCap. I added the pgc catalog from Martin on Cloudy Nights https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/8069 ... p=11671699 It adds a larger number of objects than the built in NGC catalog. It adds an extra dimension while you watch the image form on your screen.

M67 10s x 71 frames 901 gain SharpCap enhancements Bilateral filter 1.2 radius, 0.2 tolerance, Weiner Deconvolution 6 NGC2903 10s x 206 frames 910 gain with SharpCap annotations and custom PGC catalog.
Moving onto the planetary nebula NGC2392 in Gemini. Quite small at f6.3, so the image is cropped.
10s x 90 frames gain 901 - all enhancements as described before.

very very nice , thx .

I was getting very tired at the end of the session. So, I didn't post the last few images.

M81 10s x 240 frames gain 901 with all the usual SharpCap enhancements as used above. NGC2537 10s x 102 frames
A blue compact dwarf galaxy in Lynx (left). NGC2841 Spiral Galaxy 10s x 123 frames The Twin Quasar PGC 2518326 - 10s x 60 frames
To finish of the observing session The Twin Quasar, the first identified gravitationally lensed object at a distance of 8.6 billion light years
That is some object to finish the night off on. Using SharpCaps new deep sky annotation made it a breeze to locate (marked in yellow). That was a really enjoyable observing session. Thank you for the support during the session. I really like my colour 294c camera but my guess is that a mono camera would give me 3 times the light gathering capacity over the same exposure period. When finances allow I might need to go mono for those faint fuzzies.

My immediate concern is the wicked internal reflections! I will try and change the relative spacing between the camera, prism and focal reducer.

Have fun.

I know that you had fun!

I did too watching your images.

Amazingly nice feature of Sharpcap. I bought Sharpcap many years ago for polar alignment. Haven’t used it in quite some time since I use N.I.N.A. now.
EAA looks like fun! Maybe I will hang on to Sharpcap in case I ever get the urge to try this.
Thanks for sharing!

Very nice, quite a good session.
Thank you for posting those

Incredibly-sharp, Pete. And thanks for recommending this forum. I already love it and feel "at home." First post.

Xio1996 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 10, 2022 9:52 pm Once you start looking at the Orion Nebula it is hard to take your eyes off it! I just let the stack keep running for 41 minutes, stretching the histogram as it went. All the other settings are as the post above. Spotify is playing some Instrumental Night-time Jazz, very relaxing.

10s x 246 frames 2460s gain 901 etc.

Stack_246frames_2460s_WithDisplayStretch.png