The only serious image out the bunch was the Soul Nebula. It was the only one I planned for and was my main target. I managed to get 3.8 hours on it, with .8 hr on one side of the peer and the other 3 hrs on the other. BTW, all images were taken with a QHY294c, a UHC-S filter and a AT60ED on a SkyWatcher GTi goto mount in Bortle 7-8 skies.
Soul Nebula – 76x180sec,Gain1600
The rest of the images were mostly done with 30 sec exposures at high gain (i.e., 3000. I normally keep it at 1600.) Like I said, I was sightseeing and doing an EAA experiment.
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula area was the longest of the 30-sec shots, 240 x 30 seconds. I still had to combine it with about 30% blend of a 90 minute exposure taken with another camera, but the same scope. It was still too noisy even after 240 subs.
So, the 30 sec high gain experiment for EAA type imaging is not up to par with what I could do with the QHY183c camera. It did well on open clusters, at least. Oh, well. Live and learn, as they say.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks on Nov 19, 2023. 50×30 sec, QHY294C at -10C, UHC-S filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks on Nov 19, 2023. 50×30 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Gain 3551, Offset 50, UHC-S filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
It was the first clear night since the last session on Nov 3rd. I wanted to see this comet and try to get images of the Heart Nebula. The comet was first in line since it was already getting low in the west after sundown. I forgot to adjust the gain down and shot it at the highest gain setting I usually use when focusing and star aligning. Surprisingly, I was able to salvage the sub-images and get a usable image from them. BTW, the comet seems to have a tail, but it could be an artifact of the gain setting or something.
The Orion Nebula Region. 7 x 180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, UHC-S filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.M46 and M47 on Nov 19, 2023. 5×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, UHC-S filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
Next up, I did a quick look see at M42 and the M46/M47 Open clusters area. I wasn’t planning on keeping these, but the data on my main target of the night, the Heart Nebula, was horrible. So, I thought better of just ditching these sub-images.
Cone Nebula Area. 10×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S filter, AT60ED at F/4.8M78 in Orion. 7×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S filter, AT60ED at F/4.8M44 in Cancer. 4×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S filter, AT60ED at F/4.8
I also did a short run on the Cone Nebula/Christmas Tree Cluster area of 10 x 3 minutes, plus I got a few frames of M78 and M44. The Cone area is not too bad considering it is only 30 minutes of time. M44 was a very quick look and I just wanted to see how it would fit with this rig I was using. But, M78 needs a couple of hours to even begin to look nice and I only got 21 minutes worth. Oh, well… next time.
The Heart Nebula. 56×180 sec (nebula,) 18×180 sec (stars,) QHY294C at -10C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, Baader UHC-S filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
And, finally, here is the salvage job on the Heart Nebula, of which I had two sets of data. One was slightly out of focus, the other had a terrible gradient from an IR source that was pointed right at the lens and I think some of it got through the UHC-S filter, or it was a reflection off the front glass.
What I ended up doing is taking the slightly out of focus stars and removing them totally, then taking the good stars from the data that had the bad gradient and combining them. Still noisy and not that great, but reducing it to 33% smoothed it out enough to pass as a display image.
Oh, well. Another reshoot for this one is in order and also for its close neighbor, the Soul Nebula.
Veil Nebula Complex – 18 x 180 sec, QHY294C, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8, Optolong L-eNhance filter.
Well, it was clear on Friday evening for a while when I started shooting the above. The forecast was for it to remain clear. I had setup and planned go the distance all night. But, before too long, high cirrus clouds came in and parked over my location. It was during the first exposure run on the Veil. I took 40 shots and between clouds and guiding issues, only 18 were any good.
I took this small amount of L-eNhance filtered data and tried to combine it with the previous UHC-s filter data and the image below is what I got. I was hoping for 3 hours worth, but it was not to be.
Veil Nebula Complex – Previous UHC filter data and L-eNhance data combined.
Not satisfied with the above image, I recombined the 18×180’s with the starless data I had from the previous session and came up with this rendition:
Veil Complex, 18×180 sec with L-eNhance filter and 58×180 sec with UHC-S filter.
With Halloween just passed, I was reminded that I haven’t checked out my old friend the Ghost Nebula since last year. So, I gave it a whirl when the clouds gave me a break for about an hour.
Ghost Nebula and Gamma Cas – 14 x 180 sec, QHY294C, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8, Optolong L-eNhance filter.
Unfortunately, the clouds came back and the only thing left to shoot was the moon rising in the east. It was boiling and unstable low in the muck, but I got a shot of it regardless.
I called it a night after that and packed it in and went to bed. But, wouldn’t you know it? I woke up before dawn the next morning and went outside and looked at the sky. It was crystal clear. D’oh!
The Full Hunters’ Moon of October 28, 2023. 10 frames, AT60ED at F/4.8, QHY294c, UHC-S filter. 1.5x Drizzle processing.
A full moon night, but it was clear and relatively transparent. I needed to test some scope adjustments anyway, so I figured I would just do a few of those things, get a shot of the moon and call it a night. I ended staying up all night and shooting a variety of objects, even with a full moon from the metro.
Not only was it a full moon, it joined Jupiter for a conjunction, and I got a shot of that plus a few others:
The Moon and Jupiter. QHY294c, UHC-S filter, AT60ED at F/4.8.North America Nebula. 20×180 sec, QHY294c, UHC-S filter, AT60ED at F/4.8.The Rosette Nebula. 30×180 sec, QHY294c, UHC-S filter, AT60ED at F/4.8.The Flaming Star Nebula and the Tadpoles area.. 60×180 sec, QHY294c, UHC-S filter, AT60ED at F/4.8.
Horse Head Nebula on Oct 21, 2023. 29×180 sec, QHY294c at -20C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S, AT60ED at F/4.8.Quickie Orion Nebula area. 8×180 sec, QHY294c at -20C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S, AT60ED at F/4.8.M31 on Oct 20, 2023. 45×180 sec, QHY294c at -20C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S, AT60ED at F/4.8.Frame 1. Veil Nebula Complex on Oct 20, 2023. 58×180 sec, QHY294c at -20C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S, AT60ED at F/4.8.Frame 2. Starless Version – Veil Nebula Complex on Oct 20, 2023. 58×180 sec, QHY294c at -20C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S, AT60ED at F/4.8. Starnet++Frame 3. Starless Plus Enhanced Version – Veil Nebula Complex on Oct 20, 2023. 60×180 sec, QHY294c at -20C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, UHC-S, AT60ED at F/4.8.
I had a new astro computer I built from scrap to test this night and also it was a test of the AT60ED and QHY294c with the ultra-mini guider and IMX224 camera on the new SkyWatcher GTi mount. The above equipment was 7.5 lbs, well within the 11 lb limit of the GTi mount and I had great guiding for the most part.
I bagged the four objects above on this night. A Baader UHC-S L-Booster filter was used to block the horrendous LP, which worked pretty well with the QHY294c.
The three versions of the Veil Complex were, for frame 1, essentially the 60 frames stacked and processed normally. Then, that result was put through Starnet++, which removes all the stars and leaves just the nebula, which is frame 2. I boosted that to bring out more nebula and then recombined it with the original to obtain an enhanced version in frame 3.
Dumb Bell Nebula on Oct 14, 2023. 12×300 sec, QHY183c at -20C, Gain 11, Offset 30, UV/IR, TV-85 at F/5.6.Crescent Nebula on Oct 14, 2023. 23×300 sec, QHY183c at -20C, Gain 11, Offset 30, UV/IR, TV-85 at F/5.6.
I left the scope setup after the eclipse and took these two images with just the UV/IR filter I used on the camera side for the eclipse.
Best 20frames of 87, 1 ms each, stacked with AutoSkakert. QHY183c at 0C cooling, gain 11, offset 50, UV/IR filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
This session was also a test for a new SkyWatcher GTi mount with EQMOD software, which worked right out the box, since I’ve been using it with my Atlas EQ-G for years. I didn’t have to reconfigure anything for it to work, which was great.
After the moon, I did some guiding tests and took some 60 second images with only a UV/IR filter, despite the heavy LP at my location. Not too bad, but definitely harder to process out. I tested on the Crescent Nebula and the M22 globular cluster. 11×60 for the Crescent and 30×60 for M22:
Crescent Nebula. 11×60 sec, QHY183c, AT60ED at F/4.8.M22 Globular 30×60 sec, QHY183c, AT60ED at F/4.8.
The Rosette Nebula on March 15, 2023. 20×180 sec, QHY294C-Pro at -10C, unity gain, offset 60, Optolong L-eNhance filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
It was the first time using my new camera in heavy LP from the metro area where I have been staying. I went with the L-eNhance filter and picked the Rosette Nebula to test it. The Rosette was just crossing the meridian when I started imaging it. Also, I was troubleshooting the issues I have with flats, which this camera seems to be very sensitive about and worked on that during this session.
I also tried something new for me in processing the image. A relatively new (2017) sharpening procedure called Absolute Point of Focus (APF or APF-R) was done on the image. You can read about it and see two videos on how it is done at this link.
In this case, I had already ran the image through Starnet++ to cleanly remove all the stars. I then used the APF-R method to enhance the nebula only, blending in the stars afterwards. I must say the sharpening seemed superior to most other techniques I’ve used.
Starless version of the image before sharpening.
Anyway, the camera performed well with up to 3 minute exposures. An hour’s worth of data with the L-eNhance filter looked as good as anything I’ve done with the UV/IR filter from a darker site. There was too much LP to go with 5 minute subs, like I used to do with the QHY183c camera and that same filter, however.
As far as the flats, I used my laptop with a blank notepad screen up to illuminate the sensor while having a cheap white-light diffuser taped to the front of my scope. I used 2 second exposures and the resulting flat seemed to work for the most part. Good. I definitely need a way to create flats at night and this method is easy to do with what I already have.
Using all the other data taken that night and adding it together, I came up with the image below. It was the original 20 x 3 minutes, an additional 10 x 3 minutes, 21 x 2 minutes and 8 x 1 minute or a total of 140 minutes or roughly 2.3 hours.
The Rosette Nebula on March 15, 2023. 8×60 sec, 21×120 sec and 30×180 sec, QHY294C-Pro at -10C, unity gain, offset 60, Optolong L-eNhance filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
It was a Friday night, March 3rd/4th, clear and cool. The Moon was out at 83% full. So, I thought it would be a perfect night to test the Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter in moonlight conditions to see how bad that would affect it and to get an update on how Comet C/2022 E3 was doing.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). 32×120 sec, QHY294C-Pro, Unity Gain, Offset 60, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
Well, the comet’s photogenic appearance has diminished quite a bit since I last imaged it in mid-February. The filter I used probably attenuated the brightness, but by the size in this full field image you can see the comet is much further away from us and receding into the distance fast. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.
Next up, I did some EAA-type imaging to test short exposures with the filter on a bright object like M42. It worked pretty good for such a short time (83×15 sec or 20 minutes) of exposure. But, it would need quadruple that time to get right and I was more interested on using longer exposures that would bring out dimmer nebulae better.
So, I switched to the nearby Horse Head Nebula and Flame to test the filter with one minute exposures. I refocused first since M42 looked out of focus and glad I did since it was way off.
The Horse Head and Flame were a better choice for the amount of moonlight out and a better test of the filter’s ability to pick up H-Alpha nebula light. I thought it came out good for only 40 subs:
Horse Head Nebula. 40×60 sec, QHY294C-Pro, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
When Orion and all the good objects there got out of position and got into the power lines, I moved further east to get more of the Rosette Nebula, which I imaged a few weeks prior. It was also closer to the moon and had a strong gradient due to moonlight and the vignetting my imaging train has. I managed to minimize it in post processing, but it was not exactly easy. After processing, this is the 60 x 60 sec of exposure with the Triband filter I managed to get:
Rosette Nebula with Triband Filter. 60×60 sec, QHY294C-Pro, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
I combined that with the data I previously had that was taken with just a clear UV/IR cut filter:
Rosette Nebula, 10×180 sec plus 60×60 sec, QHY294C-Pro, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
Not too bad of a mixture. After these runs, I moved to the east and tried imaging a few things there, but the moonlight and LP on that side was more than what the filter could deal with, it seems.
I imaged M101, but the gradient was severe and the image was very difficult to flatten all of that gradient out and preserve the dim areas. By the time I got rid of it all, the colors were drained out and no amount of saturation adjustments were going to bring them back.
So, tried my luck on the M13 Globular Cluster, which was a good test for the Antlia. Still had a strong gradient to deal with, but since it has no nebula parts, it was much easier to get rid of:
M13 Globular Cluster. 75 x 60 sec, QHY294C-Pro, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.M13 Globular Cluster. 75 x 60 sec, QHY294C-Pro, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6. Full field.
C/2022 E3 (ZTF on Feb 18, 2023, 01:09 to 03:36 UT. 12×300 sec plus 40×120 sec, QHY294C-Pro at -10C, Unity gain, Offset 30, UV/IR filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.C/2022 E3 (ZTF on Feb 18, 2023, 01:09 to 02:30 UT. 40×120 sec, QHY294C-Pro at -10C, Unity gain, Offset 30, UV/IR filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.C/2022 E3 Comet-Only after stacking in IRIS.
Another comet image to add to my collection. This is perhaps the last image from me of C/2022 E3 ZTF for perhaps the next 2 weeks. Weather forecast is nothing but clouds next 10 days or more. By that time, the moon will getting full and the comet is rapidly shrinking in size and fading in brightness. It will still be around, just not as photogenic as it is now.
Also on this night, I tried out a new filter – the Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter. Boy, that’s a weird one, let me tell you. Blue as blue can get. lol. But, a stack from SharpCap color balances out in IRIS when setting the blackpoint, so I don’t know? SharpCap refuses to color balance it and leaves it too blue, however. lol So, I just stack and then process first in IRIS for initial color.
This object(s) below was the second or third test subject. Perfect, since this is in strong LP on the north to northwest side. If it can block that, great! And it seems to have blocked it:
M81 and M82 galaxies. 42 x 3 minutes, QHY294C-Pro at -10C, unity gain, offset 60, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6. New filter test: Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter.
Yes, it has funky colors, but they’re mostly there, instead of that dull pasty look from duo-band filters. I don’t know? I’ll have to do more testing.
Thor’s Helmet was the first object I used it on. I shot it with a UV/IR then with the Antlia Triband with roughly the same framing. This is just the subs-images using the Antlia. It is about 33 minutes of combined exposure:
Thor’s Helmet. 11 x 180 sec, QHY294C-Pro at -10C, Antlia Triband filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
Finally, after experimenting with Thor’s Helmet, I went to one of the tougher targets – the Virgo Cluster. Its always either not enough exposure or the wrong colors with duo-band and UHC filters for this cluster. But, does this filter have the blue and enough other colors to give it what it needs? Well, here it is:
Virgo Cluster 29 x 5 minutes, QHY294C-Pro at -10C, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter, unity gain, offset 60, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
Images of Comets, Nebulae, Galaxies and Star Clusters
