I've wrapped the three projects I've been working of for the month.  I'm really loving how well NINA automates capturing multiple targets a night.  I like to keep my imaging within an hour or two of the meridian, so picking targets separated by a couple hours or so let's me use the scope the whole night in an optimal way.  The Flaming Star and the California Nebulas are somewhat close to each other, so it wasn't as optimal as I wanted.  I would image the California right up to where it hit the meridian, and then moved east to the Flaming Star and imaged that for the rest of the time so I wouldn't have to do an extra meridian flip.

First up is a target I shot last year - the Flaming Star and Tadpoles Nebulas.  I originally imaged just the flame, and later added a panel made it a mosaic to pick up the Tadpoles.  Even with two panels, it was tight and part of the Tadpoles got chopped off.  This year I decided to redo it as a four panel mosaic and pick up more of the surrounding nebulas including the Spider.  

https://www.astrobin.com/41hbld/B/

My next project was CTB1/Abell 85.  I've seen it referred to as the popped balloon nebula.  This is a dim sucker, so a fair amount of imaging time was needed, especially the OIII.  I've seen some images done in a SHO pallet, but I didn't see anything in a test SII image, so I stuck with a HOO pallet.  I did a fair amount of careful masking in order to brighten the main object relative to the background nebulosity so it stands out better.

https://www.astrobin.com/hj08gk/

And finally, I redid the California Nebula as a two panel mosaic.  I did it as a single panel last year, but it was a bit tight.  I also like the rainbow gamut in Chris's California he posted here a while back, so I went that way as well.  Normally I tend to severely reduce the green in my SHO images, but it works well in this one. 

https://www.astrobin.com/v7lcjn/

I have an issue with my Astrodon OIII filter where it produces an asymmetric set of spikes off of bright stars, similarly looking like what you get using a Bahtinov mask, just more of them.  I had this issue in the California image. I used a 70/30 blend of my Ha and SII to create a lum, so when I did the LRGB combine, it diminished the rays as they aren't present in those filters, but the darker blues remains where the rays were, so I was determined to take care of them.

After messing around with various things in PixInsight, I ended up taking my starless OIII into Affinity Photo and using it's content aware fill to nuke them.  As the OIII is pretty smooth with no real visible structure in this nebula, it ended up looking pretty natural. 

Alex


Alex

I've wrapped the three projects I've been working of for the month.  I'm really loving how well NINA automates capturing multiple targets a night.  I like to keep my imaging within an hour or two of the meridian, so picking targets separated by a couple hours or so let's me use the scope the whole night in an optimal way.  The Flaming Star and the California Nebulas are somewhat close to each other, so it wasn't as optimal as I wanted.  I would image the California right up to where it hit the meridian, and then moved east to the Flaming Star and imaged that for the rest of the time so I wouldn't have to do an extra meridian flip.

First up is a target I shot last year - the Flaming Star and Tadpoles Nebulas.  I originally imaged just the flame, and later added a panel made it a mosaic to pick up the Tadpoles.  Even with two panels, it was tight and part of the Tadpoles got chopped off.  This year I decided to redo it as a four panel mosaic and pick up more of the surrounding nebulas including the Spider.  

https://www.astrobin.com/41hbld/B/

My next project was CTB1/Abell 85.  I've seen it referred to as the popped balloon nebula.  This is a dim sucker, so a fair amount of imaging time was needed, especially the OIII.  I've seen some images done in a SHO pallet, but I didn't see anything in a test SII image, so I stuck with a HOO pallet.  I did a fair amount of careful masking in order to brighten the main object relative to the background nebulosity so it stands out better.

https://www.astrobin.com/hj08gk/

And finally, I redid the California Nebula as a two panel mosaic.  I did it as a single panel last year, but it was a bit tight.  I also like the rainbow gamut in Chris's California he posted here a while back, so I went that way as well.  Normally I tend to severely reduce the green in my SHO images, but it works well in this one. 

https://www.astrobin.com/v7lcjn/

I have an issue with my Astrodon OIII filter where it produces an asymmetric set of spikes off of bright stars, similarly looking like what you get using a Bahtinov mask, just more of them.  I had this issue in the California image. I used a 70/30 blend of my Ha and SII to create a lum, so when I did the LRGB combine, it diminished the rays as they aren't present in those filters, but the darker blues remains where the rays were, so I was determined to take care of them.

After messing around with various things in PixInsight, I ended up taking my starless OIII into Affinity Photo and using it's content aware fill to nuke them.  As the OIII is pretty smooth with no real visible structure in this nebula, it ended up looking pretty natural. 

Alex


Alex

Alex, where to start?!? WOW! Love them all! Can't pick a favourite. Kudos!!!

Stuart Heggie

http://www.stuartheggie.com/

On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 at 20:07, Alex <groups@...> wrote:

I've wrapped the three projects I've been working of for the month.  I'm really loving how well NINA automates capturing multiple targets a night.  I like to keep my imaging within an hour or two of the meridian, so picking targets separated by a couple hours or so let's me use the scope the whole night in an optimal way.  The Flaming Star and the California Nebulas are somewhat close to each other, so it wasn't as optimal as I wanted.  I would image the California right up to where it hit the meridian, and then moved east to the Flaming Star and imaged that for the rest of the time so I wouldn't have to do an extra meridian flip.

First up is a target I shot last year - the Flaming Star and Tadpoles Nebulas.  I originally imaged just the flame, and later added a panel made it a mosaic to pick up the Tadpoles.  Even with two panels, it was tight and part of the Tadpoles got chopped off.  This year I decided to redo it as a four panel mosaic and pick up more of the surrounding nebulas including the Spider.  

https://www.astrobin.com/41hbld/B/

My next project was CTB1/Abell 85.  I've seen it referred to as the popped balloon nebula.  This is a dim sucker, so a fair amount of imaging time was needed, especially the OIII.  I've seen some images done in a SHO pallet, but I didn't see anything in a test SII image, so I stuck with a HOO pallet.  I did a fair amount of careful masking in order to brighten the main object relative to the background nebulosity so it stands out better.

https://www.astrobin.com/hj08gk/

And finally, I redid the California Nebula as a two panel mosaic.  I did it as a single panel last year, but it was a bit tight.  I also like the rainbow gamut in Chris's California he posted here a while back, so I went that way as well.  Normally I tend to severely reduce the green in my SHO images, but it works well in this one. 

https://www.astrobin.com/v7lcjn/

I have an issue with my Astrodon OIII filter where it produces an asymmetric set of spikes off of bright stars, similarly looking like what you get using a Bahtinov mask, just more of them.  I had this issue in the California image. I used a 70/30 blend of my Ha and SII to create a lum, so when I did the LRGB combine, it diminished the rays as they aren't present in those filters, but the darker blues remains where the rays were, so I was determined to take care of them.

After messing around with various things in PixInsight, I ended up taking my starless OIII into Affinity Photo and using it's content aware fill to nuke them.  As the OIII is pretty smooth with no real visible structure in this nebula, it ended up looking pretty natural. 

Alex


Alex