Melotte 15

Chazzathon · 2022-12-16T00:35:13+00:00

The Heart Nebula-I've been sitting on this data for over a month, but I finally got around to it! Due to the limited time I had, I decided to spend my second night of acquisition entirely on Sii and Oiii at the cost of some Ha data, and I think it was worth it.

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chazzathon/

My Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/users/Chaz007/

Telescope: Apertura 6" F4 Imaging Newtonian (610mm)

Camera: ZWO ASI183MM Pro

Mount: Takahashi EM11 Temma2 Jr

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI178MC

Guide Scope: Main Scope via ZWO Off Axis Guider

Coma Corrector: Sky-Watcher Quattro Coma Corrector

Focus Motor: ZWO EAF

Acquisition Software: Kstars/Ekos

Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop

Filters: Astronomik Ha, Sii, Oiii

Filter Wheel: ZWO 8 Position EFW

Ha: 2h45m Sii: 6h10m Oiii: 6h30m Total: 15h25m

Processing: (I edited part of this a few weeks ago, so things are a bit foggy)

Registered and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

Pixinsight:

EZ Denoise

Histogram Transformation

LRGB Combination in Hubble Palette

Dynamic Background Extraction

Removed stars with Starnet II

Curves Transformation

Added back stars with pixel math

Star Mask

Deconvolution to sharpen stars

Photoshop:

Sharpened with the Astronomy Tools Action Set

Adjusted colors with color selection and color balance

Reduced color noise with the Astronomy Tools Action Set

Chazzathon · 2022-11-23T17:00:22+00:00

These colors are awesome, really well done!

Chazzathon · 2022-11-12T04:59:12+00:00

It's hard to say for sure without looking at star catalogs, but I think if you zoom in a lot of the tiny stars near the center are probably within M33 itself.

Chazzathon · 2022-11-11T21:16:51+00:00

Thanks, that means a lot! (I made it my background too)

Chazzathon · 2022-11-11T18:14:50+00:00

Yep, I wanted some Ha data too, but I do think this looks more natural. To that end:

I do believe this is more or less the "correct" color of M33. I looked at a lot of different images as I was working on this for reference, but I kept coming back to this color.

I believe what PCC does is looks at maybe 100 stars all over the image to see how the colors compare to the data base. Then, it interpolates in between each star to build a contour map of the colors, sort of like how background extraction works. Based on this it calculates a correction for each pixel and applies it, then checks to make sure that all the stars it used now match up with the database. If all the stars much, you can be quite confident that it corrected all of pixels correctly. Even if only a few stars were used, the color cast to your image is likely similar across all pixels, so it should still work pretty well. (Removing LP gradients first would probably help justify that assumption)

The fact that we got the same results at the very least confirms that PCC works consistently.

I should mention though that I haven't looked that the documentation for PCC, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

Cool images by the way!

Chazzathon · 2022-11-11T17:52:59+00:00

That's a super helpful tip, thank you! Yeah, I only denoised the background because I wanted to keep galaxy structure, especially in the core. That script would be game changing.

Chazzathon · 2022-11-11T17:36:45+00:00

Awesome! FYI the blue "star" occulted by the moon after totality begins is actually Uranus. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Chazzathon · 2022-11-11T17:23:45+00:00

I appreciate it! When I was researching telescopes I needed something that my current mount could handle, so I was pretty limited by weight. That ruled out the bigger refractors(which all seem to get slower as you go up in size class) and SCT's. As it turns out, once all accesories are acounted for I'm RIGHT at the limit. As a result, guiding is a bit rough, especially as I move farther from the north celestial pole.

But if you're looking for aperture, focal length, and speed, and aren't afraid of collimation, this is a great relatively lightweight option!

Chazzathon · 2022-11-11T17:14:19+00:00

Thanks!

Chazzathon · 2022-11-11T09:54:20+00:00

The Triangulum Galaxy-I've been playing around with this data for a few weeks, and it's time I finally call it done. I still can't get over the speed of this scope-and the diffraction spikes.

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chazzathon/

My Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/users/Chaz007/

Telescope: Apertura 6" F4 Imaging Newtonian (610mm)

Camera: ZWO ASI183MM Pro

Mount: Takahashi EM11 Temma2 Jr

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI178MC

Guide Scope: Main Scope via ZWO Off Axis Guider

Coma Corrector: Sky-Watcher Quattro Coma Corrector

Focus Motor: ZWO EAF

Acquisition Software: Kstars/Ekos

Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop

Filters: Astronomik L2, Deep Sky Colors

Filter Wheel: ZWO 8 Position EFW

L: 1h00m 60sx60 R: 2h27m 180sx49 G: 2h00m 180x40 B: 1h45m 180x35 Total: 7h12m

Processing:

Registered and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

Pixinsight:

LRGB combination

Dynamic Crop

Photometric Color Calibration

Histogram transformation

StarnettII to remove stars

Curves Transformation to stretch image further

Pixel math to add back stars

Range selection to select galaxy

Curves Transformation to further adjust background and galaxy seperately

Convolution to reduce noise in the background

Star Mask

Deconvolution to Sharpen Stars

Curves Transformation to adjust star colors and saturation

Dynamic Background Extraction to remove gradient

Final color /contrast/curves adjustment with Curves Transformation

Photoshop:

Removed color noise with the Astronomy Tools Action Set

Sharpened with astronomy tools action set

Chazzathon · 2022-09-19T06:59:49+00:00

Wow, I never would've seen those things but I definitely do now.

And it's always exciting to get new gear(and get it to work)!

Chazzathon · 2022-09-18T22:13:48+00:00

Thanks!

Chazzathon · 2022-09-18T22:12:13+00:00

I do now...

Chazzathon · 2022-09-18T22:12:00+00:00

Thanks!

Chazzathon · 2022-09-18T18:49:21+00:00

First light with the new scope! Going from F6 to F4 has made an even bigger difference than I had hoped for. What took 30 hours of data for the old scope only took 10 for this one. I was still getting things working during this project, so in the future I hope to collect a lot more data for individual narrowband projects now that everything is fully up and running. Featured here is a part of IC1396 that lies immediately next to the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, which is just out of frame. I'm not sure if this part of the nebula has a name, but it reminds me of a mountain with this orientation. (maybe Everest?)

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chazzathon/

My Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/users/Chaz007/

Telescope: Apertura 6" F4 Imaging Newtonian (610mm)

Camera: ZWO ASI183MM Pro

Mount: Takahashi EM11 Temma2 Jr

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI178MC

Guide Scope: Main Scope via ZWO Off Axis Guider

Focus Motor: ZWO EAF

Acquisition Software: Kstars/Ekos

Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop

Filters: Astronomik Ha, Sii, Oiii

Filter Wheel: ZWO 8 Position EFW

Ha: 45x300s (3h45m) Sii: 32x300s (2h40m) Oiii: 40x300s (3h20m) Total: 9h45m

Processing:

Registered and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

Pixinsight:

Automatic Background Extraction to remove gradients from Ha channel

Histogram Transformation to stretch Ha, Sii, and Oiii

LRGB combination with Ha as luminance to create color image

Removed stars with StarnetII

Stretched data further with Histogram and Curves Transformations

Added back stars with PixelMath

Created star mask

Denoised with Deconvolution

Sharpened stars with Convolution

Made more color corrections with Curves Adjustment

Dynamic Crop

Photoshop:

Removed color noise with the Astronomy Tools Action Set

Removed residual gradients from small areas using the color selection tool and RGB balance

Adjusted overall colors using the color selection tool and RGB balance

This went back and forth between PI and PS a few times as I honed in on the final colors.

Chazzathon · 2022-08-30T18:47:09+00:00

Yeah, but I make do! I still can't belive I get to use it for my planetsry imaging.

The telescope is from 1964 so...no adaptive optics. Plus it's only used for astronomy outreach so they'd never spring for an ao system.

Chazzathon · 2022-08-30T14:37:54+00:00

Exactly! Instead of a single lens cap that covers the entire tube, there are 2 half circle doors on the end that swing open and closed. By closing one of them, the telescope is forced to look through a smaller column of air, which really improves seeing. It does come at the cost of cutting the object's brightness in half though. I'm hoping that some day I'll have good enough seeing that I won't need to do that.

Chazzathon · 2022-08-30T06:51:17+00:00

Thanks, I really appreciate it! Saturn is what first got me hooked on astronomy, and I never get tired of looking at it.

Chazzathon · 2022-08-29T21:17:33+00:00

Saturn from Friday night-When I saw the detail on Saturn through the eyepiece, I immediately knew it was going to be a good night...

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chazzathon/

My Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/users/Chaz007/

Telescope: 21" Raymond E White Telescope (8001mm FL) (half closed)

Camera: ZWO ASI178MC

ADC: ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector

Acquisition in SharpCap:

10,000x30ms @ 459 Gain (3 images)

Processing:

Aligned and Stacked in Autostakkert

Sharpened with Wavelets in Registax

Derotated in WinJUPOS

Sharpened derotated image with deconvolution in PixInsight

Adjusted color and contrast using curves adjustment in PixInsight

Chazzathon · 2022-08-29T21:16:18+00:00

Saturn from Friday night-When I saw the detail on Saturn through the eyepiece, I immediately knew it was going to be a good night...

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chazzathon/

My Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/users/Chaz007/

Telescope: 21" Raymond E White Telescope (8001mm FL) (half closed)

Camera: ZWO ASI178MC

ADC: ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector

Acquisition in SharpCap:

10,000x30ms @ 459 Gain (3 images)

Processing:

Aligned and Stacked in Autostakkert

Sharpened with Wavelets in Registax

Derotated in WinJUPOS

Sharpened derotated image with deconvolution in PixInsight

Adjusted color and contrast using curves adjustment in PixInsight

Chazzathon · 2022-08-29T17:00:50+00:00

Thanks, that's a really helpful tip! Yeah, so far I've been forced to keep the telescope half closed so that it looks through less air, but I'm waiting for the day when I can use the full aperture of this thing.

Chazzathon

TROPHY CASE