6 Minute Veil and the Moon

East Veil Nebula. 6×60 sec, QHY183c, Gain 25, Offset 31, -15C, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
The Moon on Nov 5th, 2019. TV-85 at F/5.6, QHY183c, UHC filter, 200% enlargement.

I am amazed at how much signal is in just 6 minutes of sub-images for this new camera, QHYCCD’s QHY183c.  When you take the shot, there is really not much there  without significant stretching of the image.    But, since the noise is so low with this cam, it can be boosted beyond anything a DSLR image could keep up with.

Now, I did do quite a bit of noise reduction on the Veil image included here, but it had enough signal to preserve enough detail to make the image adequate for a display image.  I reduced it 50% to smooth it out more, but the original size is OK, too, just quite large to be downloading on a mobile phone.

Clouds were why the session was so short.  I was clouded out when it was in a prime position early on, then it went completely overcast at the end.  In between, I manged to get the 6 x 1 minute subs .   I gave up and tore down and stowed the rig after I couldn’t shoot anymore.   Almost as soon as I had put away the last piece of gear, I went back out and it was totally clear, just like when I had started setting up.   Sucker holes and I fall for them all the time.   lol

I was actually just testing some tweaks to my laptop I did hoping that they would improve performance.  I added memory and updated a few drivers. Stability was vastly improved, but the speed of the machine lacked.   I could not do a, “live,” shot of the moon at the lower exposure needed.   It would not stream with the exposure less than 350ms.  Too many frames per second for it to keep up with, I guess.    Means I need another field laptop.   🙁

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