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Galaxies

Two Images from Laptop Test and Guider Testing

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Mirach and his Ghost.  140×30 sec, QHY183c, Gain 20, Offset 42, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6, UHC filter.
M81 & M82. 354×15 sec, QHY183c, Gain 42, Offset 42, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6, UHC filter.

I was testing a used i7 laptop for use with SharpCap 3.2 under a bright moon on Saturday night, Nov 9, 2019 and the session yielded two images so far from the data.  I was also testing a different guide camera.  I switched from the Orion StarShoot mono cam to my Rising Tech IMX224 color eyepiece cam.

I had mixed results in testing. It was promising at first, but after several hours, some instabilities with SharpCap and the guider cam means I still have work to do to debug some possible driver and compatibility issues.   Oh, well.  At least the new laptop seems to be able to stream the camera data better than the old Panasonic ToughBook I was using.

As far as the two images, the top one was the first object I imaged since I used it to do alignment and focusing .  I really wanted to see the “ghost” since I missed out getting it on Halloween.   It is a crop centered around the star and galaxy at 100% resolution.

The second one was in the muck and between the bright moonlight, the LP and the terrible seeing, I thought it would be hopeless, but I managed to pull out some data that at least shows some of the spiral structure of M81.   It is the full field of the camera.  The linked image is at 50% reduction from the full size, 20MP final image.

Pretty clear night but the seeing sucked bad.   The moon, which I did not shoot this night, was at 89%.   Normally, I would not shoot on a night like this, but I had some testing to do, which was a good enough reason to get out.

Moon, Nebulae

6 Minute Veil and the Moon

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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.   🙁

Nebulae

Orion Nebula and The Crab

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M1, The Crab Nebula. 100×30 sec, QHY183c on TV-85 at F/5.6, UHC filter. Gain 25, Offset 31, -23C.
M42, The Orion Nebula. 100×30 sec 15×120 sec and 4×4 sec for the core. QHY183c and TV-85 at F/5.6. Gain 20, Offset 31, -15C.
Lighter Version of M42, The Orion Nebula. 100×30 sec 15×120 sec and 4×4 sec for the core. QHY183c and TV-85 at F/5.6. Gain 20, Offset 31, -15C.

I started this session at midnight on Sat/Sun, Nov 2nd/3rd, 2019.  It was cloudy, but the forecast said it would eventually clear.   I went to bed early and woke up at midnight and checked and sure enough, it was clear.   I managed to get these two objects plus some other stuff that I haven’t had time to mess with.

The seeing was horrible when I shot the Crab and it shows.   I decided to take that data and combine it with previous efforts to see how it would look.    The image below is the result of 3 different sessions, 3 different cameras and 2 telescopes.   Check it out:

The Crab Nebula – Combined Data from a DSLR, Sony IMX224 eyepiece cam and a QHY183c astro-camera.
Nebulae, Star Clusters

Test of Canon 200mm F/2.8 Telephoto with QHY183c Camera

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M45, The Pleiades. 56×30 sec, QHY183c, Gain 20, Offset 31, -15C, Canon 200mm F/2.8.
The North American Nebula. 167×30 sec, QHY183c, Gain 2, Offset 31, -15C, Canon 200mm F/2.8.
The Horse Head Nebula Region. 8×120 sec, QHY183c, UHC Filter, Gain 20, Offset 31, -23C, Canon 200mm F/2.8.

I bought the adapters needed to mate my new QHY183c camera to my Canon lenses.   I tried it out with the 200mm F/2.8 telephoto.   No way to control the F-stop diaphragm, since it needs a Canon camera to do that, so I had to shoot with it wide open.  BTW, this was from the light polluted metro area I’ve been shooting from lately.

Since this is one of the cheaper lines of Canon lenses, it suffers from optical imperfections like astigmatism.   That makes the red focus to a line up and down and blue and green focus to a line left to right.   It really messes up the star shapes and there is no way to fix it except to stop the lens down to F/3.5 or higher.   Oh, well…

Nebulae

Horse Head Nebula Region Composite

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Horse Head Nebula Region. BW 93×30 sec as lum layer on 180×8 sec color composite. QHY183c, Gain 30, -15C, TV-85 at F/5.6.

I’ve been trying to get enough data in one session for a rendition of the Horse Head with my new camera.  Each time, my session was cut short due to trees in the way, the break of dawn or clouds.  This morning was no exception and clouds ruined my session even before the sun could.

No matter.  I took all the short, incomplete sessions I had and combined the data into one composite image.   I even used the BW stuff I had before I got the camera working correctly with the right drivers.   I estimate I have about 70 minutes of time in the above image, with up to 4 separate stacks combined into it.

Galaxies, Nebulae

The Witch’s Broom – Western Veil Nebula and Friends

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Witch’s Broom Nebula – 90×30 sec, QHY183c, -25C cooling, Gain 30, Offset 5, UHC filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.

After a few all-nighters during the recent good weather we’ve been having down here in Cajun Country, I must say I’m worn out.   LoL.   But, I had lots of fun shooting very dim objects through Bortle Red Zone skies that I would have never thought would let me capture what I did.   Modern progress with astro-filters and more sensitive cameras save the day!  Plus, none of the stuff I bought broke the bank.

Since I shot the Eastern Veil with the new setup, I had to try the western part, aka the Witch’s Broom.   It was easy with the QHY183c and a cheap UHC filter.  I got 45 minutes worth of 30 second sub-images and they stacked automatically in SmartCap 3.2.  Star colors could be better, but this is about normal for a UHC filter shot.  The red channel was not quite in focus, however.   I fixed it after acquiring the data for the above image.

I shot 3 other objects on  this night, Gamma Cas, M33 (again) and the Horse Head Nebula,  with 2 of them completed.  I got clouded out during the last session with the Horse Head.   Below are the results:

Gamma Cas – 75×30 sec, QHY183c, Gain 30, -25C, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M33 – 10×120 sec, QHY183c, Gain 30, -25C, UHC filter, TV85 at F/5.6.

 

Galaxies, Nebulae, Star Clusters

Great Night for EAA and Imaging with New QHY183c Camera

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M27 – 90×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M27 – Close Crop Detail at 100% Res. 90×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC, TV-85 @ F/5.6.
Eastern Veil Nebula – 103×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, Offset 25, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M31 – 90×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M33 – 30×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M45 – 100×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M42 – 40×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.

What a night!  My new QHY183c astro camera worked really well once I had it hooked to a computer that could handle the 20MP downloads and live stacking requirements of SharpCap 3.2.  I used my older  Panasonic ToughBook for controlling the scope and the guiding while another laptop, a Toshiba i7-based unit, was used for image acquisition and live-stacking.  I was able to bag six objects with this setup before I had to turn in and get some sleep.

(BTW, EAA is Electronically Assisted Astronomy.  It is a way to “observe” from a light-polluted metro area with real-time captures and strong LP filters on a computer using highly sensitive astro cameras.)

SharpCap 3.2 works really well on the faster machine but not on the ToughBook.  The USB 3 port and it’s 2.5Ghz processor are just not powerful enough, I guess.  I will have to tuneup the Toshiba to do all the stuff the ToughBook was doing and live-stack with SharpCap, all at the same time.  Hopefully, I’ll take care of that soon.

Moon, Nebulae

First Light – The Moon with a New QHY183c Camera

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The Moon on Oct 19, 2019. Stack of 30 frames with QHY183c, UHC filter and a TV-85 at F/5.6

I finally did it.  I bought a new camera for imaging (and Electronically Assisted Astronomy or EAA for short) that has a cooler and is dedicated for astrophotography.  It is a QHY183c from QHYCCD.   It is a 20MP, Sony IMX183 BSI CMOS-based camera with electronic refrigeration to cool the CMOS chip and reduce noise.

I chose a color camera since I shoot comets and it is easier to do those with a one-shot-color (OSC) camera vs. a mono camera needing filters and a filter wheel.  Plus, it was cheaper by far for the color version ($699 vs $999 or $1199 w/filter wheel) since Sony sells and produces lots more of them than the mono version of the chip.  And, you don’t need a set of filters and the filter wheel, which adds to the cost considerably.

The moon image  above was shot when it was still low in the sky and reddish in hue.   I shot a short video of it with 61 frames.   I used SharpCap 2.9, since the newer SharpCap 3.2 version did not want to work for some reason.   I opened the .SER video file it produced in AutoStakkert and stacked half the frames with the default AutoStakkert settings.   Some sharpening and other enhancement was done in PS.

I had a few problems with the laptop not handling the amount of data that the 20MP cam produces at it’s full resolution and highest bit-depth settings.   I could get it to work in mono mode but not in color mode reliably.  Later, I tried the camera with a much more robust and newer laptop and it seemed to work much better.   Looks like I will need to upgrade my field laptop, which is an older Panasonic ToughBook with an i5 processor.

EAA was a blast with this camera.   I was in the middle of the city and was picking up the Veil Nebula and the Horse Head Nebula with no problems.   I was using a cheap UHC filter that had sharp cutoffs for H-beta/OIII and H-alpha wavelengths and that helped with all the LP.  I did more EAA than trying to get data to produce finished images.   I kept a few that I will tack on to the end of this post.

M42. A single 20 second mono image taken through a UHC filter and TV-85 at F/5.6 with the new QHY183c.
Horse Head Nebula. 93×30 sec subs live-stacked with SharpCap 2.9, QHY183c, UHC filter and a TV-85 at F5.6.

 

Moon

Full Moon October 12, 2019

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Full Moon, Oct 12, 2019
The Full Moon on Saturday, October 12, 2019. 1/500th sec @ ISO 100, Canon T3, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS.

I got a chance to do an equipment shakedown imaging session on Saturday night, Oct 12, 2019.  It was my first one this season.   I thought I would run into numerous problems, but it was not as bad as I thought it might be.   Only a few things were not working and needed fixing or replacing.   It was all small stuff, like a busted dew strap and broken focus mask, which I was able to glue back together. The main thing I was able to fix were some issues with my mount’s declination axis and backlash settings.   It had been needing some adjustments since before the last time I imaged and I finally got it done.

The weather was nice, at least at first.  We had a cold front pass through the night before down here in Cajun Country – the first significant front of the season and it brought the temps down into the 50’s.    It was very clear at the start of the night and cool.  But, clouds eventually came in and spoiled everything as the night wore on, unfortunately.   By 2:00 AM, I was completely clouded out, so I packed it in and called it a night.

Here’s another version of that moon image, which being a Hunter’s Full Moon, made it a worthwhile keeper:

The Full Moon on Saturday, October 12, 2019. 1/500th sec @ ISO 100, Canon T3, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS.