Rokinon/Samyang 135mm discussion

[patent dove]

three nights should be plenty

even at f2.8

[mystic loom]

sweet

this will be a cool project

[patent dove]

yeah, orion mosaics are so sick

[mystic loom]

If I go aps c route this looks like the way

https://www.astrobin.com/1evmfl/?q=Orion mosaic canon t5

This guy did it in 9 panes, just 2.5 hours a lane

B3

[shell wasp]

I feel like a 2x2 mosaic on orion would be sick

[chilly ingot]

what is this mosaic planner btw?

[mystic loom]

Sky guide for iOS

[chilly ingot]

needs a sub

[mystic loom]

It’s a worthy one though I will say

[mystic loom]

aside from some very normal - looking tilt that should be easy enough to shim out, I think I finally got a good copy!

this is not wide open because didn't want to waste a rare clear night during the arizona monsoon season but is at f2.8

I am happy with these stars. No idea what they look like on an aps-c FOV but even with the 533's small pixels they look good enough for me to enjoy using it which is all I need

slightest bit of coma at the corners (this is top right) but probably nothing I couldn't buff out shooting at f4 for stars on narrowband projects

this doesn't bother me too much though even at 2.8 tbh

[chilly ingot]

you did it

have you given it a name already? a good copy roki is a family member now

im gonna try my 135 with 533 too i guess

[mystic loom]

I'm so so so stoked

This one looks so good

it was sold for a bit cheaper than I think it would have otherwise because it has a dust mote in the lens assembly somewhere that is visible when you look down the tube

but I couldn't even see it in the uncalibrated subs let alone after calibrating and stacking with flats

so I think I got it for a steal on top of it

[chilly ingot]

Well done

[mystic loom]

will have to see how it performs wide open at f/2 but if this is what it's doing with the 533 tiny pixels at 2.8 I bet I could do fine with nonstellar structures at f2 with it, they'd still be sharp enough (at least enough for blurxterminator to tame)

[chilly ingot]

so far my canon 200 looks like garbage

Maybe i need to tinker with backlash settings so the eaf works better

shapes are ok. Red fringing is a total apocalypse

i did starx and killed all star colour off

… should have gone with Askar ACL200

processed this 5min single sub

didnt get much else with the gap in the clouds

[mystic loom]

now that i've finally settled on one of these and am not giving up on the samyang dream I just ordered that mod to remove the bayonet and have a screw in mount

hopefully this irons out most of the remaining tilt

[mystic loom]

Who here got the bayonet adapter thing from FLO in the UK? How does it change back focus?

Measure 44ish mm from the shoulder of it, or count it’s thickness?

[solid raptor]

I did, it states in the comments of the product that it doesn't contribute to Backfocus

[mystic loom]

Oh cool so basically just measure from its shoulder

[chilly ingot]

I have one

[solid raptor]

Yeah, the base of the thread basically

[mystic loom]

Okay so I think I have this right—

6.5 for the recess in the camera
11 for the tilt plate
6 mm spacer
21 for the filter drawer
= 44.5, which is about 0.1mm short of what it “should” be given a 1.85mm filter adding 0.61 additional back focus need

I think this seems right

(This would be without the bayonet and bayonet Zwo drawer)

[patent dove]

that 0.1mm difference could make or break having good stars at f2 but stopped down it should be fine

[mystic loom]

I have been mostly out of cowardice shooting f2.8 but I also have a 5mm ring and a bunch of 3d print spacer shims at 0.6,0.4,0.3,and 0.2mm so I bet I could cobble something together to make 1.1

If I were that 0.1mm off but threw away my stars at f2 would the nonstellar be noticeably impacted by the backfocus discrepancy?

Say I knowingly shot at f2 but starxterminator the stars out and reshoot them anyway at f4 and combine them with pixel math — is my nebula going to suffer considerably?

[gleaming flare]

nebula suffers just as much as the stars

though it is less noticeable without zooming

[smoky salmon]

Nice guide cam

[shell wasp]

lol?

[short charm]

That's a 533mc, very much an imaging camera

[smoky salmon]

but i thought

[shell wasp]

i mean some people do use it for guiding lmao

[short charm]

Those people scare me

[smoky salmon]

some day. my 6 inch newtonian is becoming a guide scope

[shell wasp]

sometimes they have like 16" scopes and so they pair a 533 with like a redcat to get good guiding for that scope

[short charm]

That's fair but at 16" I usually see an Orion 80, and bigger sensor like 4/3

[shell wasp]

thats true

[tardy epoch]

Im probably going to use a dslr for guiding

[mystic loom]

I think I got the tilt dialed in!

[chilly ingot]

Damn

well done again

now add a shim and the adjustments are all gone

[shell wasp]

did you use the tilt adjustment plate on the cam?

[chilly ingot]

533 does not have one. The 2600 does

zwo sells a t2 tilt plate for planetary cams, 1600, 533 etc that have the 11m t2 in the front

[mystic loom]

Yep tilter

[mystic loom]

yeah I think I'm pretty happy now with this camera! This is at F2. just what looks like a little back focus to work out, but not too much

some fringing at F2, not sure if y'all would say to use it and just reshoot stars or always stop down to 2.8

2.8 has the fringing too but less so

I know I'm a pinch too far in and need to shim out the tiniest bit for back focus but it looks reasonably uniform to me, at least for this lens

[mystic loom]

added back a 0.1mm shim to the train and will see how that impacts backfocus

also have a 0.2mm one so can go 0.1-0.2-0.3 to see what plays best

[chilly ingot]

Yeah not enough backfocus. You can try ur luck and add the shim after filter drawer and hope the tilt was in cam and not in lens

[mystic loom]

i am pretty sure it's in the camera

[chilly ingot]

if its tilted. Add after tilter against cam

But u probably gonna redo all this with the m48 adapter?

[mystic loom]

i mean if i dial it all in and it's just good I'll just keep that in my war chest in case my alignment degrades

[chilly ingot]

i think mine has better stars with f2.8 but CA is many times worse

Idk

[mystic loom]

i mean, this seems to be in the realm of close to good enough to me, like they aren't offensive with my 533

the nonstellar will look good, and seems in the realm of stuff blurxterminator can help with

and then I can shoot stars at f5.6

[chilly ingot]

i was testing with aps-c so my 533 could be great

i should image with that if i get the chance

my 533 atm in this warmer weather is a dark currect factory

[mystic loom]

yeah during the heat wave in Phoenix I couldn't cool it lower than +5c

[chilly ingot]

doing long subs is not really a great thing atm for me

[mystic loom]

glad I bought this thing in the summer when i'm currently struggling to land a project I can really sink into between clouds, heat, and bad sight lines

getting my gear dialed in before fall

I will say, that tilter thing is extremely tedious but I had weird fear that it wasn't going to work

and it does

also I really hate windows and my remote PC is a pain in the butt but it's very nice to have ACCESS to an option that can do this kind of advanced analysis with NINA

will be glad to pivot back to my asiair when it's over but this is really helpful vs doing it with astap

[chilly ingot]

yeah

its kinda problematic to solve OTA problems with asiair

no real tools for it. can only annotate average star size

[mystic loom]

yep, it's great once you're dialed in

[chilly ingot]

and its also random set from sub to sub

i got my cursed ngc7000 subs to stack

something wrong with my pix wbpp

i used siril

[mystic loom]

testing out step down rings -- is this normal for them?

I was under the impression that they'd simply dim things not cause this heavy vignetting

separately, the cine copy (remember I'm currently sitting on two of them) might be actually really good?

[mystic loom]

stopped down, astap seems to like these ones

just not sure what to do about that vignetting , if that just flats out then all good but wasn't expecting it

[chilly ingot]

What size ring is it?

[mystic loom]

46mm

So f2.9

But it’s a cone of rings, not just a clean 67->46

Not sure if it’s better to get one that just takes it down in one step

(Does such a thing exist)

this was roughly f2.8 with the blades

[chilly ingot]

Isnt the filter size 77

But ye the lens sits abit deep from the filter threads. I noticed something similar from quick balcony test subs. Im going to image with one of my lenses next and see

77mm is so common size they actually sell kits that only have from 77 down and no need to put em together

[patent dove]

yeah that’s normal, mine looks the same, flats calibrate it out

[mystic loom]

Do you have a link to the 77 to 52 step down ring you found on aliexpress?

Then in that case the cine is looking really really good

At f2 I’m really only seeing a little bit of coma in the top left

(T2.2)

I will give the regular one one more try but I ran into issues not being able to get it to focus with the required back focus spacing even with my half mod to the hard stop at infinity (i shifted it to the right 1.5 screws rather than removing it, going to try it removed as well)

Would obviously prefer stopped blades but if this cine looks this good as is and was able to focus with room to spare with no modding it seems pretty robust

[chilly ingot]

Nah i got a dewshield from there. 77-52 is everywhere

[mystic loom]

just found one on B&H, idk why couldn't before

thanks!

[chilly ingot]

Singles are not that bad. Also if you put a set-up ring after it back to 77 it you can leave the rings on and the stock lens cap fits again

[mystic loom]

yeah that's why I want one of those hoods

also I assum edoing all the stepping down as close to the objective lens as possible prob helps vignetting a bit even if they correct out with flats

[chilly ingot]

I put a 72-52 ring to my canon 200 and a 52-72. The stepup’s inner diameter was close to 50mm and im almost dead on the money at f4

Ill test it next when its clear. Roki or canon with the alu dewshield

and single size ring

@mystic loom #1146132625573019710 message scroll down. Upper or lower better?

[mystic loom]

lower

[chilly ingot]

Having some problems with monitor colour profiles so it was a challenge. New windows install quirks to go over

[mystic loom]

i'm on a mac which are just good on colors, I really like the second

better depth of the dark areas

[chilly ingot]

i need to go download the asus profiles and add them to drivers

Or settings.. and pix

[mystic loom]

The nice thing also with getting to figure out all this tilt is it's clear that it's all in my camera thankfully

both these lenses are showing mostly tilt corrected fields

the rest is back focus

[chilly ingot]

thats nice

so the tilt ring can live with the cam for rest of eternity

[mystic loom]

lol exactly

unless god forbid my 72mm refractor has additional tilt somewhere haha

[chilly ingot]

refractors are not that bad to deal with

[mystic loom]

even then it's obvi much more forgiving

[chilly ingot]

i sometimes adjust the focuser is it lays flat to the tube

[mystic loom]

i never touched the train in that way and have been imaging with it since february with great results

[chilly ingot]

slower optics are more forgiving

[mystic loom]

yep, stars on it look fine

oh come to think of it i can always just remove the tilt plate entirely and use the 11mm spacer if it introduces some goofy effects on the refractor

so long as I keep the screw settings the same, should be fine

but ideally will just keep it on

[chilly ingot]

mark it

[mystic loom]

right, to make sure I seat the turns around to the same tension etc

[chilly ingot]

once its tight. as long as some dots line up

like a mechanic paints a torqued bolt

[short charm]

Fwiw, this is the one I grabbed cause its matte so wouldn't cause more reflections like I had from the stack of rings I had before

77mm Lens to 58mm Camera Lens Adapter,77mm to 58mm Filter Step-Down Ring Adapter Ring,Compatible All 58mm Filter Accessory https://a.co/d/iPdGPoJ

[mystic loom]

just flatted out the sub at t/2.2, never mind the moonlight, i was shooting uv/ir to test last night

but I think this one looks very good

I think I'm going to shoot NA nebula tonight wide open with my L enhance

can get f4 stars another night

but I just tested, the stars produced by F2 are tight enough as is that they reduce with blurxterminator and remove cleanly with starxterminator

that's really all you need, long as they're clean enough to lift out

then I can reshoot them slower

and that prob means I'm in the realm of what blurx can generally do to the nonstellar features with it's PSF tightening of "minor optical issues" as it claims

so blurx'ing my f2 prob will just tighten the slight imperfections at f2

I think I have a winner

just need to lean in hard on @uneven compass for advice on how to deal with a fussy cine

[chilly ingot]

damn

you got urself a takahashi rokinon right now

[mystic loom]

this is really clean at t/2.2

I'm so excited

[chilly ingot]

i just stretch the stars manually and screen them on

[mystic loom]

virtually zero CA

[chilly ingot]

was that a long sub?

[mystic loom]

60s

tracked not guided

[chilly ingot]

goddamn it man. looks clean

[mystic loom]

either at zenith or vaguely near sadr, I forget

I guess I could plate solve and find out

irony is this is the first copy i doubted before buying the other one that claimed to have even better optics

lol maybe I keep them both and tune the other as close as I can and do roki binoculars

will see if i can get its back spacing figured out

if not will just resell it, will be easier than the cine to sell

[chilly ingot]

2x roki at f/2. complete a project overnight

[mystic loom]

lol it'd be insane

[chilly ingot]

it literally would

[mystic loom]

talking my wife out of the deep concern that would come from me buying a second 533, lol

so now I need to decide if I'm going to replace my l enhance with an idas nbz to further optimize this setup or buy a corrector for my sct with the proceeds of selling an ipad mini (my job gave me some gift cards for something but I've tapped amazon out of what I need from them, so needed to liquidate those gift cards, and apple stuff is basically currency, lol)

do i perfect this setup or start working on my galaxy rig for spring...

@uneven compass you just use an l enhance and are happy with it it seems

it's the filter I already have and has treated me well enough on my frac

but curious

[chilly ingot]

i tryed this 4nm with my refractor and its a game changer for bortle8

shame it wont work with f2 or 2.8

3.6 is supposedly allright

[mystic loom]

yeah that's my thought - especially if I have one capable of f2.2, wonder if I should specialize with a highspeed idas nbz

[chilly ingot]

i got the non uhs one. its good for f2 to 4 or something

i think the new version states it has no cap on how slow of a scope and f2 is fastest

[mystic loom]

oh reallyyyy

ohhh

[chilly ingot]

nbz ex or something?

need to double check

[mystic loom]

i could use it with my f4.8 refractor then

[chilly ingot]

i used mine with a 4.8 frac. works just fine

[mystic loom]

could feasibly sell off my l enhance

[chilly ingot]

its 12nm bandpass

so 2x tighter than lenhance

[mystic loom]

man, that'd be nice

yours is the nbz?

[chilly ingot]

i got that for my lenses yeah

[mystic loom]

nice

how does it tolerate full moons?

[chilly ingot]

the 4nm is for newt and refractor. plannin on stopping down the 200mm to use that in it too

[chilly ingot]

id need to try again since i got a gradient from the tilted up roki

[mystic loom]

i'm going to shoot weather permitting tonight with my lenh regardless so that can be worst conditions checking anyway

[chilly ingot]

but everything just dbe's out though

[mystic loom]

yeah

true

eh, screw it I'll get the nbz, who knows what I can sell to get the sct corrector closer to galaxy season

that's so far away

[chilly ingot]

yeah. half a year

[mystic loom]

ha, all that's in stock is the UHS, maybe just get that and optimize

just posted a want ad on CN classifieds, will see if I get a bite for the slow version

[short charm]

Even your slow version is decent

[mystic loom]

you mean my l enhance?

[mystic loom]

ahhh! you know what this shot is? just remembered - crescent nebula

you can see it in the middle

it was close to zenith and had a lot of stars

that bright star is prob sadr

[mystic loom]

It almost seems like@the slow NBZ is discontinued—starizona has it listed that way too

Wonder if I get the alp-t

[chilly ingot]

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p16374_IDAS-NBZEX-12-nm-Ultra-Narrowband-Nebula-Filter-O-III--H-Alpha-2-Inch-mounted.html

its renamed

f1.8 to f10

looks like the highspeed antlia is pretty cool

for a high bortle area

[mystic loom]

My back yard is prob b7 at zenith looking through the light dome of mesa and Tempe in b8 to the south so definitely bright

[mystic loom]

so interesting, a handful of stores seem to have the nbzex in europe but none in the states as far as I'm seeing

not really worth 46 eur shipping to US

[uneven compass]

It works fine... better bandpass would be better but it's hard to get one better than the lenhance that works well at f2

The only other one is the aplt high speed, and it apparently has halo issues

[chilly ingot]

astro hutech imports them to the US but its not listed atm

[mystic loom]

other thing i'm kind of debating is getting the askar d2 which passes oiii / sii and keeping my l enhance

i'd probably stop down to something like f 3+ but if I were working on a shot with opportunity to get sii I could always do so

I know you have to shoot forever to get sii on osc but could be fun

we'll see how tonight goes on l-enhance

[uneven compass]

@mystic loom how did you dial in backfocus on your roki?

[mystic loom]

I think the sum of adjustments made on the tilt plate plus a 0.1mm shim

It probably could use another 0.1mm but that was how much it took to make the non cine one I had lose the ability to reach focus even with the hard stop moved and I have absolutely no idea how to do the surgery on the cine versions since all the YouTube videos are for the normal ones so I am going to leave it be for tonight lol

Not going to just start pulling screws Willy nilly on a $380 toy

Will see after tonight! Curious how it performs in a real world setup, with stacking and all

Will probably shoot Sadr region at 2.2

I wish I could remember where I got these super thin shims, maybe they came with the asi

[mystic loom]

going to give the idas uhs a try, they are in stock at starizona and they're only a town away and are pretty reasonable about returns

[mystic loom]

ha, clouds came in but I got a couple shots in with the l enhance at 2.2, wow it does not like to take stars at this aperture and sub duration
they look like christmas lights

looking forward to seeing how the nbz uhs does compared to this

I never keep dual narrowband stars but these are comically bad (maybe being too hard on them, they seem to at least remove clean-ish enough with starxterminator)

[mystic loom]

welp, PI telling me I do need to continue to fuss about my backfocus, lol

starxterminator leaving scars

in my top left corner

[mystic loom]

ok, progress

a bit of scarring and one halo I could have fixed before going further but switching bX to only sharpen nonstellar but not sharpen stars (since I'm throwing them out anyway) helped them lift out more cleanly

also my l-enhance met its match with the Blue Supermoon, the gradient was brutal, lol

[chilly ingot]

its not blue btw. just a another full moon

[civic mirage]

It's supposedlty marginally brighter than normal. I believe the next one is likely to be 2037.

[mystic loom]

I know just calling it by what the normals are

"you don't understand, two full moons in one month is nothing to celebrate"

I think this was just my first time being so brazen as to just go whole hog shooting with the filter but like wide the hell open and not the entire opposite part of the sky

got the gradient out but oof

[uneven compass]

Single 5 minute sub. The new mount appears to be preforming excellently

[shell wasp]

nice, that moon is washing that out so much lol

[uneven compass]

Oh absolutely

I'm thinking it'll still be a neat project

[shell wasp]

yeah i was super happy with how mine turned out

wednesday ill start collecting on veil again and then it'll be done

[uneven compass]

Nice!

I think I'm just gonna do one night on North America, then get ha on gecko

After that I'll focus entirely on heart and soul and our secret project near taurus:)

[shell wasp]

😉

[civic mirage]

NGC 1333 by any chance?

The secret proj that is

[shell wasp]

nah

you’ll see, it’s gonna look really nice i think

[civic mirage]

Mmm

[uneven compass]

Full moon data moment

Also got some heart and soul, but that is far from ready to stack

[mystic loom]

Found the regular speed nbz

For relatively cheap too! In case any of you were looking for it

$239 at telescopes.net

[chilly ingot]

Really good price

[chilly ingot]

think i need some of those super fine shims

fast optics are so unforgiving

[mystic loom]

kk took one for the team and modded my cine, figured out which screws are safe to pull to expose the hard stop

when I saw that the NBZ is 2.5mm vs my l-enhance's 1.85mm, I didn't want to mess around, I figure will need the extra distance

it's actually easier to do than the regular since you don't have to pull that rubber grip all out of shape

pick em up! https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804928315438.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.3b1318022VL5A3&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa mine already shipped

[mystic loom]

excited though about getting a cheaper version of the nbz, this can entirely replace my l enhance

since will work with my refractor

will maybe get the askar d2 that grabs oiii and sii

[uneven compass]

WIP until star data

5 hours under a full moon

Some color noise and jpeg compression artifacts, but aside from that I'm very happy

[mystic loom]

What’d you do on color balance? How’d you bring out that magenta? I have controlled out the green but my l enhance data still quite red across the board

I have one pixelmath trick I’ve used but curious what other folks are using here

[chilly ingot]

i been tinkering with the green channel in lighthroom or in pix.

i try stuff like this

i just pull put back instead of scnr. idk what is the correct method

in lightroom you can also tinker some with the hue and saturation of red green or blue

[uneven compass]

Lots of messing with colors in curves

I brought down the reds a good bit, and then brought up the blues

I think I increased the greens a little as well

Aside from that I just boosted saturation

[civic mirage]

I find l-enhance data looks nicer once I copy green channel to blue because green is often stronger and cleaner. This gives the HOO look.

Then as Dadillo said you can further mess with curves, add blue to highlights, etc.

[mystic loom]

Yeah someone gave me a formula in the main photography chat for this when I was working on veil that really helped get it out of that orange and green palette everyone gets from the Optolong filters

Did some blending of green into blue

[chilly ingot]

@mystic loom botched up a rig last night to image the moon. Found out that if i remove the thumbscrew off the filter draver's slider. a redcat ring fits perfectly to the zwo eos filter drawer

good bye filter swaps but i was doing lunar with a 100-400 sigma zoomie and 533mc

400mm just about fit the moon fully into a 1080p ROI video

[mystic loom]

Hot damn my NBZ arrives today and I have what appears to be 5 days in a row of clear skies

Going to tinker backfocus tonight finally with that 2.5mm filter and then go to absolute town

[chilly ingot]

damn

i got a mild flu, clouds and rain

[mystic loom]

Clouds and rain I can’t suggest a fix for but lol when it’s clear you shoot

I dragged my telescope out in Feb when I had Covid

[mystic loom]

Did that step down step up threaded hood trick, now a permanent f2.5

[chilly ingot]

report how it works

havent taken mine out yeat with the hood.

[uneven compass]

How did you do this?

[chilly ingot]

step down with a single size ring and then stepup back to 77. screw on a alu 77mm dewshield

[mystic loom]

First a 77-52 step down ring screwed into the lens
Then immediately next a 52 back to 77 step UP

Then a 77mm lens hood off Amazon

Also threaded

[chilly ingot]

did you measure the inner diameter of the stepup ring? it should be like 50 - 50.5mm?

[mystic loom]

It came with a cover that is much sturdier than the one that comes with the lens

Oh maybe you’re right yeah it’s prob less

So I’m closer to 2.7 if 50mm aperture

Which will work great

[chilly ingot]

ill measure mine quick brb

49.2mm

makes sense. its 0.75 thread + some wall thickness

times 2

[mystic loom]

So just shy of 2.8

A very nice place to shoot at

For a copy that is just a bit short of great at f2.2 (might even be great at 2.2 and I just haven’t ironed out back focus fully yet)

Really hope the 2.5mm filter doesn’t blow out my infinity focus

[shell wasp]

this is like the pax roki setup lmao

[mystic loom]

Pax?

[shell wasp]

yeah like the ultimate roki setup

[mystic loom]

Lol yes

So long as I can infinity focus lol

Worst case it’s stuck with an l enhance which still isn’t a tragedy

[summer apex]

NBZ with my Roki 135

[mystic loom]

So excited to try it tonight

[summer apex]

Clear skies!

[chilly ingot]

@mystic loom dewheater fits on kinda nice now?

does not brake the focuser anymore

[mystic loom]

it should! to be honest its not a huge concern for me just yet desert air and all

[chilly ingot]

oh yeah. cheater

[mystic loom]

Lol

It’s actually humid today at 40% relative humidity

Positively muggy for here

Will see how it is in the winter though, dry but can freeze overnight if just barely

[shell wasp]

i like the foraxx pallate but it stretches the oiii too much and since our oiii snr is low it makes it look grainy

[uneven compass]

What's the bandpass on the nbz?

I'm intrigued

[mystic loom]

Supposedly 12nm

So about half on Ha that of Lenh

[uneven compass]

The ha bandpass on the lenhance is around that no?

The oiii is just much higher

[mystic loom]

I think it’s in the 20s?

Optolong believes the design of the L-eNhance filter is a technical innovation among filters. It effectively isolates the H-Alpha (10nm band width), H-Beta, and Oxygen III (24nm band width)

Little wider on red and much narrower on blue

Will be interested to see it’s halo performance tonight

[uneven compass]

Mhm that makes sense

Definitely better overall

[mystic loom]

Figure even if it’s wider at red the tighter at blue will really help during all those moon nights

[uneven compass]

Agreed for sure

[mystic loom]

And I definitely am getting halos similar to yours with the lenh on the Cygnus areas like that bright star at NA neb and Sadr

Will be good tests

[uneven compass]

Very interested in seeing how it goes, for sure something to consider

[shell wasp]

yeah i have a ton of halos on my sadr

like 4-5

imagine if i’d gotten an l extreme

[uneven compass]

Idk why, the sadr region is just awful for halos

Does the lextreme have worse halos?

[shell wasp]

supposedly

[uneven compass]

Just about to go out... hoping to get everything set up in under 30 minutes

[shell wasp]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342068044249563146/1147658800443170888/image.png

[mystic loom]

L extreme has horrific halos

[shell wasp]

this was the difference in the noice in forraxx vs natural

[mystic loom]

Great contrast but horrible halos even on slow optics

[shell wasp]

yeah

[uneven compass]

Try doing the normal pallate, and bring down the reds and increase the blues in curves

[shell wasp]

ima start shooting at 3.8 from. is on

[uneven compass]

Obviously correcting the black point as you go

It makes this really nice magenta color

[shell wasp]

will do

and i meant 2.8 not 3.8

[mystic loom]

Where is that @shell wasp ? What frame is that

[shell wasp]

cause my stars are an absolute mess

[shell wasp]

in that dark region in sadr

[uneven compass]

Butterfly right next to sadr

[patent dove]

anyone here use the L ultimate?

[shell wasp]

like to the left of the star

[mystic loom]

Wow it’s quite cool

[uneven compass]

It's not great with the roki unfortunately

[mystic loom]

Send me the coords

[uneven compass]

Can't really image faster than f4

[shell wasp]

it is, there are some really nice regions

[mystic loom]

Maybe I’ll try it out this week

[uneven compass]

It's literally on sadr

[patent dove]

damn, not even f3.5?

[shell wasp]

i’m not at my pc but it’s literally right to the left of sadr

[mystic loom]

Oh that’s sadr centered

[patent dove]

that’s what i use with my alp t

[mystic loom]

Got it

[uneven compass]

Like, if you slew to sadr it will be perfectly centered

[mystic loom]

Just used to seeing crescent in the corner on the sadr frame

[shell wasp]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342068044249563146/1147654265972731954/image.png

this

[mystic loom]

Maybe I missed it

Ohhhhh there you are

[shell wasp]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342068044249563146/1147658223978029196/image.png

[mystic loom]

Yeah I think I need to shoot that

[shell wasp]

another comparison, i like the color in the foraxx but it’s too noisy

but there’s some really cool regions

i’m getting on my pc right now

this is sick

so is all of this

@uneven compass like so?

maybe a bit more

[uneven compass]

Much more

It might not work well on that target

Tbh it probably won't

[uneven compass]

Tone down the blues in the background a bit

I honestly kinda like it-

Even if this isn't a great target for it

Ready to image after 20 minutes

Just gotta wait for it to get darker and for my camera to cool

[summer apex]

Yeah - also a bit yellow in general for my taste. But I’m not smart enough to come up with a better dynamic palette that makes HOO less boring 😉

[summer apex]

Yeah I like doing this too! Worked well for veil

Western Veil shows how good the NBZ is at not getting halos

(Though veil above was redcat 51 not Roki)

[shell wasp]

I think im happy with this, shows the most detail out of any of the pallates I chose

[civic mirage]

Ha is clean af

[summer apex]

Looks great!

[mystic loom]

That veil is so great and man I’m sold on sadr

What’s your integration there (and bortle)?

[shell wasp]

8 hours b4

[mystic loom]

Oh congrats on nerd upgrade

[shell wasp]

wow a role i am so cool

[mystic loom]

Lol

[mystic loom]

Ahhhh I hope this isn’t premature but I appear to be able to form a v curve on autofocus with the NBZ

I might be able to use this filter! With a large back focus shim in, likely more than I need

[hazy copper]

Corners arent amazing. i cleaned out my cam sensor and screwed it back on too tight i think.

[chilly ingot]

Easy. I just do polar align and slewing to target with uv/ir cut or something. Put in NBZ and run autofocus

The main reason to have EAF is these narrowband filters actually

Bathinov masks start to demand too long exposures but autofocus is still a breeze

[mystic loom]

alright, I can definitely get into focus with this NBZ so it's a keeper

at least the slow version that comes in a couple days (going to shoot with the fast version tonight all the same)

[mystic loom]

a complication I'm realizing is that I can't find a UV/IR filter that has the same thickness as the NBZ -- it seems weird that IDAS doesn't have one simple UV IR filter that just is of same thickness as their others - 2.5mm

they sell a goofy sounding one that also does some kind of Ha boosting... not sure if i'd want this

https://agenaastro.com/idas-h-a-enhancement-filter-with-uv-ir-cut-2-mounted-heuib-ii-m48.html

the issue is that my svbony uv/ir filter is 1.85

so some big backfocus differences

optolong makes one that is 2.0mm thick

that's still a half a mm off from this filter

hoping to not have to go out and astap every time I switch filters

[chilly ingot]

well the optolong is like 0.66 and svbony 0.616

[mystic loom]

yeah shimming differently and moving on is the option, but

maybe I'm missing some key pieces, but when I shim differently each time I have to adjust rotation, which means undoing the EAF

i can see why people give up on all this and buy a mono camera with a set of filters from the same brand, ha

[chilly ingot]

Yeah so removing a 0.2 shim for broadband stars only. Once per project

if u use the svbony

[mystic loom]

yeah makes sense

[chilly ingot]

Thread pitch is 0.75mm so its like a quarter turn hmm

i can actually get perfect backfocus with my 2600mc if i go shoot broadband at a darksite

since the stock window is uv/ir

shame my extension from m48 to filter drawer is 6mm instead of 5.5mm so i slotted in the optolong to increase backfocus. it went over abit

[mystic loom]

so annoying they skimped on the window on the 533, not being uv ir

makes stuff like this complicated

I suppose once I dial it in it's dialed in more or less, and I can just take notes and use the right shims for each project / phase

I have the NBZ basically perfect:

close as I'm going to get I think

[chilly ingot]

looking at my subs now and the starlayer from the stack

it all ironed out with blurx correct pass only

[mystic loom]

for normal projects, won't matter too much since i'll shoot stars at like f5 and that will hide a fair amount of problems

[chilly ingot]

being 0.16 over

[mystic loom]

but will want to get broadband dialed in before I go to a dark site

[chilly ingot]

that 4% tilt is nuts

looks like my tilt is in the camera too

[mystic loom]

this night is going to be not much by means of getting actual shooting done

still configuring stuff

[chilly ingot]

i rotated the ota during shooting and all subs have tilt in the bottom

[mystic loom]

the NBZ is so much tighter I'm considering bumping up to 10 minute exposures

[chilly ingot]

sure if you can cool low enough

[mystic loom]

this is a 7 min exposure on NA nebula

still a fair amount to the left, I might be able to bump that further

trying 10

if that's too high will land at like 8

and then tonight will probably bail on cygnus for the remainder of the night as i'm only just getting started and it's going to set below some trees before I get any integration worth being excited about

will probably shoot california nebula for rest of the night

[chilly ingot]

its just this

at -5c you can do 5min subs till noise creeps in over normal read noise. you want to cool more for 10min subs i think

[mystic loom]

oh i hadn't thought of this at all

this part is above my head

i'm cooling at -5 tonight

I can't cool much here (this is the downside of the desert in the summer!)

[chilly ingot]

https://youtu.be/GKXkM_FbFgg?si=WvVBvfDDQlM-RxQ-&t=2031

check this timestamp

[mystic loom]

ok so -5c and 5 mins is sweet spot for now then

but in winter, that'll be fun

[chilly ingot]

well actually you are going from 1.5e of read noise at 100gain to 1.6e with 10min subs

-5c

well read noise + thermal noise

as in total

still pretty damn low so might aswell go 10mins

[mystic loom]

i'll try it on CA nebula

let's see how it goes

[chilly ingot]

Looks like thermal noise at -5c / 5mins and -10c/10mins is the same

this is so damn marginal though

i should check how bad it is at +20c 😄

With 60s subs +15c the thermal noise is already triple compared to -5c and 5min sub. Cooling is officially insane

[mystic loom]

at least as far as histogram goes, 10 mins looks right

will see in the AM

heading to bed!

[fallow stirrup]

Th elens

[uneven compass]

Flawless night last night

I'm guessing 5+ hours on gecko and another 3 on heart and soul

[shell wasp]

please show gecko stack when you get a chance

both targets i want to image

[uneven compass]

This was 7 hours of gecko from b4

The ha needs a lot more data

The lenhance is struggling with halos as well

[summer apex]

Where’d you go for your B4?

[uneven compass]

Charlotte obsy

Near Lancaster

Gayle H Riggsbee observatory is the official name

[summer apex]

Neat! That’s about 1h from my childhood home… never knew it existed.

[mystic loom]

Definitely get the NBZ

Let me go grab my sub of NA neb

Which we both know that one star blows up under the l enhance on

300s at f/2.75ish, NBZ

no halos

[summer apex]

NBZ even tamed Alnitak for me.

[mystic loom]

yeah I'm in love with this filter

it's $239 right now at telescopes.net

also I found a solution for the annoyance of switching things around all the time because of those different shims

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1266065139/hyperpod-135-lens-mounting-system-for

this EAF solution uses a geared wheel rather than a belt

so long as the backlash isn't so bad that I can't focus, this one I should be able to easily open and close the ring on it without having to loosen the belt and retighten everything with allen wrenches in the middle of the night

[summer apex]

Only downside is the NBZ is psychologically preventing me from going full mono because I can’t afford the equivalent mono filters along with the rest of the setup

Or maybe that’s good…

[mystic loom]

lol

I need to tell myself the back the f off of mono for a couple years

not letting myself blow up my inventory that dramatically

i also don't see the point of doing it unless I also bought a much bigger fov camera than the 533 and I'm not quiiiiiiiite ready to spend the 2200 or whatever it costs to buy the 2600

i could technically liquidate a lot of unused gear to do it but there's a delicate balance with significant others about the raw cost of whatever is coming in you have to spread out over time

a conspicuous flow of $20 3d print parts? sure

gotta wait a few years for another 2k purchase after getting my AM5 mount lol

[summer apex]

Yeah so many ways to spend money. I am perpetually debating 533mm mono setup vs upgrading my 183mc pro to an IMX571 color of some kind (maybe risingcam) vs updating my mount from a cem26 to an am5…

[mystic loom]

honestly? get the am5

the elimination of all annoyance

no balancing

pick it up with one hand

the passthrough electricity

i'm a father of a toddler and honestly it's the reason I'm able to do this hobby

fussy mounts are such a time suck

[summer apex]

Yeah “mount first” is what people always say to me :). CEM26 isn’t too bad either though - mount head is only 10lb. It just has the counterweight and balance to deal with.

Whole setup together is about 30lb including tripod.

I just unlock the RA and carry the whole thing outside when I’m using the Rokinon

Has an ipolar too

[chilly ingot]

i have grown to dislike the 533 abit

[summer apex]

Square sensor issue?

[chilly ingot]

what is the point of having asp-c sensors pixel size in a a tiny sensor. the detail isnt there without bigger scopes. but then the field of view vanishes

[summer apex]

Yeah I will probably go imx571

[chilly ingot]

pretty good for smaller objects though

571 is godlike

[summer apex]

The 585mc TEC cooled is out now too for tiny pixels and no amp glow

Sorta a 183mc successor

Tiiiiiiny sensor though

[chilly ingot]

yeah the risingcam 585 with hdr mode. honestly way better OSC for small scopes than 533

[summer apex]

Wish it was just a smidge bigger.

[shell wasp]

looks nice, definitely need more data for this target though

i like the framing

[chilly ingot]

its pmuch same sized images than 533 but finer sampling

[summer apex]

Sorta

[uneven compass]

I think I'm mostly good in terms of broadband data... definitely need more narrowband

[shell wasp]

yeah

[uneven compass]

I assumed so! It's about an hour from where I live

[shell wasp]

it looks pretty similar to bobson's

[uneven compass]

Then again you grew up like 15 minutes away from me lol

[uneven compass]

That's what I'm going for

I just need a lot more ha

[shell wasp]

im gonna begin shooting veil again on wednesday, then ill probably start on our projects

yeah

[uneven compass]

I'm gonna finish up gecko and heart and soul

Then I'll start working on redacted

[shell wasp]

lol

sounds good

[uneven compass]

I do need to get stars for stuff tho

I'll probably just spend a night getting stars for all 3

[shell wasp]

i mean for rgb stars you only need like 15 mins stacked right?

[uneven compass]

I'm gonna get a couple hours on each I think

It certainly can't hurt

[shell wasp]

true

what filters did you use on this btw? is it RGB Ha combination using jimmy math?

[uneven compass]

Now that I do meridian flips, my f2 stars are unusable

[uneven compass]

The image above is pure broadband

I'm working on getting narrowband with my lenhance

[shell wasp]

ah so you should get much more signal on that ha

my f2 stars are unusable

[uneven compass]

Retaking stars isn't a big deal tho

[uneven compass]

I'd like 15 or so hours of ha

[shell wasp]

yeah it really isn't

just ugh

[uneven compass]

Yeah lol

[shell wasp]

but im gonna try stopping down to like f4 to get rgb stars so hopefully that'll help

and i guess that's just from tilt?

idk

[uneven compass]

Mhm just roki being roki

[shell wasp]

you think stopping down will help?

[summer apex]

BlurX to the rescue

[shell wasp]

dont have lol

and i dont want to have to rely on blurx to get semi decent stars tbh

[summer apex]

Gotcha… but if you have blurx you can use f/2 and get a buttload more light in less time

[shell wasp]

true but also the details in the nebulae arent as sharp as f2.8

and i mean f2.8 is still crazy fast, there's not going to be much difference between them. I do close to 10hr minimum projects anyways so it's not like i'm not getting a crap ton of signal

[summer apex]

Just calculated it to be sure - f2 is twice as fast as f2.8

[shell wasp]

yes

[summer apex]

I suppose depends on what you’re shooting! I’m trying for Iris… need all the signal I can get

[shell wasp]

someone needs to do a sharpness in nebulae comparison between f2 and f2.8

i think ryderdavid did one

[summer apex]

Also would be interesting to throw blurx in there to see how accurate it is

F2 blurX vs f2.8 w/o

[uneven compass]

Just use f4 stars lol

That way you get the best of both worlds

Only thing you really miss is maybe some sharpness in the target itself

[shell wasp]

but say you shoot nebulosity at f2.8 and stars at f4, wouldnt that be the best of both worlds?

[uneven compass]

Perhaps

[shell wasp]

[uneven compass]

No denoise

5.4 hours

[shell wasp]

looks beautiful, those halos though

[chilly ingot]

[uneven compass]

Yeah lol

I have no clue why they're so bad on this target

I can probably process out the worst ones

[shell wasp]

healing tool in gimp works lol

[patent dove]

you can get the touptek version for $1300 😉

[mystic loom]

I have to stay asiair cult to keep my blood pressure down, I can’t put up with windows as an operating system unless I’m being paid for it at work, lol

20 frames at 10 mins

no darks yet, taking them today inside

you think that's just gradient or did my flats slightly not work vs the vignetting?

i think that looks just like gradient

but checking in

not perfect stars but pretty good

probably totally blurx-able

[uneven compass]

[patent dove]

looks like normal gradient to me

[mystic loom]

def noisy but amazing that I got this in 3 hours

again no darks yet

[shell wasp]

i think deepsnr would work really well on that noise

[chilly ingot]

still a gradient from top left to bottom right

[uneven compass]

Deepsnr my beloved

I am slowly evolving into sketch

[mystic loom]

Woops wrong reply to wrong message, but yeah DBE second pass or think this was an issue with sampling the first time? How often do you guys do multiple DBE passes

[shell wasp]

i usually do 2

[mystic loom]

Was going to say any difference between deepsnr and noisexterminator

I already own noisex

[uneven compass]

Deepsnr is free and only works on drizzled images

Some people say it's arguable better sometimes, but noisex is more consistent

[mystic loom]

I’ll have to try it out

That actually had a very subtle pass of noisex on it already

It’s quite noisey on account of the 10 min subs and no darks

If the darks take out the noise enough to come back to my normal 5 mins at 0c or -5c level I might start shooting at 10 mins

[chilly ingot]

probably looks the same

from 1.5e to 1.6e of noise idk if you have that keen eye 😄

[mystic loom]

How aggressive would you all get about trying to fight out the last of these backfocus tails ? Mathematically, I’m a little short I think (0.03mm short) , I could shim and get to 0.07 past mathematically where my back focus should be

[shell wasp]

i have that same issue

[mystic loom]

This was the astap

[shell wasp]

gonna try just stopping down

[mystic loom]

Trying to get a sense for if I’m chasing a white whale at this point

[shell wasp]

so thats backfocus and not tilt?

[mystic loom]

Tilt is nearly nothing

[shell wasp]

huh

[mystic loom]

The triangle view shows that I’m basically a perfect triangle

[shell wasp]

yeah

[mystic loom]

Octagon here shows 4% tilt

A little to the right but I’m not going to fuss with the tilter, for fear of messing up what I have

[shell wasp]

right

so adjusting backfocus is basically just adding or subtracting very small distances?

like cant i just stop down seperately to take my stars?

[mystic loom]

You can

My worry is I want my nonstellar as sharp as it can be

I don’t want to get too deep in my project before I find out I could have gotten nonstellar even sharper

I can always take f4 stars

[shell wasp]

i see

[mystic loom]

So yeah all idk if you think my nonstellar is good enough given the stars I have in those corners

Like am I at subjectively diminishing returns chasing it more

[shell wasp]

im just going with what i got lol, i don’t have experience with adjusting back focus or anything so i honestly couldn’t tell you

[chilly ingot]

My lenses produce CA anyway

Ill try ”perfect” backfocus atleast once. Think i have a minor tilt to deal with though

Stronger will to image targets over tinkering. Maybe next full moon

[mystic loom]

I think I’m close enough that I can bail on my minipc and do it with asiair and copying subs over to my Mac to peek at quick, less temperamental. Will try out one more shim to see how it looks

After that not wasting more time missing out on sadr

[shell wasp]

sadr was very awesome to image

[chilly ingot]

I think the the corners or sides are not as important as the middle if you frame the target where it should be, middle

[mystic loom]

Ha yes

But stuff I seem to be interested in is so big it even fills up the shot at 135mm

[chilly ingot]

think you will be fine too if you mosaic with like 20% overlap. can sleep well

[shell wasp]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1147693881622810714/1147693883434745937/sadr100donejpg.png

this was my framing

i should have moved it up a bit

but yeah so much dust

[mystic loom]

WIP but god this area is cool

starless, before anything downstream of that

this is going to be fun, going to get at least two more days of it

@shell wasp what did you do for gradient removal on this one how can you even with this much structure around

actually ABE did a pretty good job evening it out, lol

[shell wasp]

i mainly did a dbe on the left and just in between the dust as best as i can

kinda these areas

[chilly ingot]

are you enjoying the filter?

[mystic loom]

The NBZ is amazing

No halos at 2.8

[chilly ingot]

i know man

its totally worth it for fast optics

and the "slow" one is a 2in1. goes straight into the refractor too

[mystic loom]

I’m going to keep the slow version which I believe still works up to f2

[chilly ingot]

i think there is no astro sharp lens sub f2

the crazy fast 85mm lenses probably need stopping down to 2 or 2.8

[mystic loom]

Yeah and honestly 2.8 is still lightning fast

[summer apex]

Noodling around with just uv/ir cut at f/2 - this is about 36 mins of data

Bortle 7, last night

EAF really helps at f/2

[summer apex]

Think I’m gonna keep trying to broadband it for a while just to see what happens, maybe break out the NBZ to add Ha later

And maybe use the NBZ stars as a luminance mask for the RGB stars to tighten them up

[shell wasp]

broadband looks really nice on that region

[shell wasp]

so the faster your scope is the more likely it is to have halos 🤔

[worthy grove]

That's amazing for bottle 7! Same as my skies, how did you do that in this moon under b7?

[shell wasp]

what’s your rig btw?

[mystic loom]

Man bold move with half moon still up!

[summer apex]

Just used the Rokinon wide open with 15 second subs!

[summer apex]

Roki 135 in a redcat ring, 183mc pro, cem26

[summer apex]

Yeah definitely some nasty gradients

[worthy grove]

Wowsers 15 sec subs. That must have been one heck of a stack job😂

Nice work though, how much data are you going to shoot for?

[summer apex]

Depends on the weather! Maybe about 3-4h. I need to figure out how to get Nina to loop through panels of mosaics (maybe 30 minutes per panel at a time) so my exposures are similar…

[worthy grove]

Yeah I was wondering how to do that. Seems like you would have to manually add them or do all of each panel sequentially?

[summer apex]

Yeah. I’d have to use my brain. Lame. Ugh.

[mystic loom]

I really paid the price not doing something like this with my veil mosaic earlier this summer. Shot 4 panels over 14 days, each time the same order. First one of the night had such a brighter background than last at near zenith

was able to tame it with some extremely aggressive and time consuming masking

my thought is set up a plan with different orders of the shoot each night so at least each night a different goes first and last etc

[summer apex]

Smart!!

Got 45 mins of m31 same night after Cygnus went behind the trees…. And the moon came up more…

[short charm]

Hmmm, there's a setting to normalize the BG when you combine mosaic panels. What program you using?

[mystic loom]

Pixinsight, I used the PhotometricMosaic approach, it worked much better than the older mosaic method

But at the end of the day, capture approach matters most

It made the problem be workable rather than impossible

[mystic loom]

I'm considering just getting this https://agenaastro.com/idas-night-glow-supression-filter-2-mounted-ngs1-m48.html to have a parfocal filter that also does UV/IR for 'broadband' so I can quickly switch in and out filters in the drawer and use the same back focus

this is parfocal with the NBZ -- normally don't really believe in a "light pollution filter" but going to be a pain to rotate everything all the time i want to grab bb stars

[chilly ingot]

how critical do you belive the rgb stars are in terms of backfocus if you stopdown for sharpness

i dont know how much you can stopdown from the front though

[mystic loom]

I mean I can always override the 52mm ring on the front by just going lower than it at the back I assume

could go all the way down to 5.6 and see if they're clean

[chilly ingot]

wanna know the perfect solution? 😛

[mystic loom]

for just stars, I guess that's a good point

[chilly ingot]

swap to uv/ir cut to ur cam

then there is a 2.5mm thick CLEAR filter from idas

[mystic loom]

lol

i hate you

[chilly ingot]

i know im evil

[mystic loom]

"just buy a 2600"

[chilly ingot]

i completely sunken you to a deep psycosis now

its a damn hassle though. need to microwave the dessidant tablets and stuff

when opening the completely dry and sealed bit where the sensor lies

[mystic loom]

ohhhhh I see what you're saying

[chilly ingot]

uhhh i would not want to do it unless i 100% needed to

[mystic loom]

no not going to mod my 533

[chilly ingot]

yeah

[mystic loom]

remember the ordeal I just went through tilt adjusting it

never again

[chilly ingot]

i dont know why it ships full spectrum when the IR sensitivity is not amazing

[mystic loom]

tbh i'd guess just a cost cutting measure

since it's a 'beginner' camera

[chilly ingot]

goddamn it

now i kinda want 2mm and 2.5mm clear filters

since my cam is uv/ir cut

i shot myself in the foot instead

i also thought about making a custom filter from a empty filter cell

but idk, placing 2x sheets of glass ontop of each other creates this funny effect i forgot the name off

need to be air spaced

@mystic loom what should i image today

im abit ill so im still contemplating to try allsky PA from my south facing balcony or lug some imaging gear to a field

idk if i should try 135, 200, 288 or 518mm with the 533mc

so far i dont see any clear weekends so im not going to a darksite. this already sucks to go to sleep at 2-3am and work next day

[mystic loom]

i'm still working on my sadr region and california nebula projects

i have a plan that does sadr until around 230-3am when it's too low and then switches to CA nebula until astro dawn around 430am

[uneven compass]

I think I have all the data I need for gecko

Hoping to get star data for 4 or so projects tmr

North america just needs stars, and heart and soul needs roughly double the integration it has now

[uneven compass]

I think this is fine

[summer apex]

Neat - where’s gecko at?

[summer apex]

First draft of broadband 2 panel mosaic around Sadr. Will likely redo it like 15 times. This is with about 30 mins per panel. Remind me never to do a mosaic again…

[uneven compass]

It's not really visible in the ha lol

This is rgb

It's the bright dust in the center

[summer apex]

Ah! I see it!

[shell wasp]

looks awesome

[mystic loom]

decided to just get that 2.5mm light pollution filter from IDAS

[chilly ingot]

you have sunken deep

[mystic loom]

LP filters are kind of silly but at the same time I really don't want to fight with rotating everything every time I just want to shoot stars

lol

well I am selling my l enhance

and was going to get an sii sensitive filter but i care less about that right now vs just not having to fuss with my rig every time I switch to broadband

[chilly ingot]

@mystic loom i wasted time trying to bring out too faint stuff from my m27 data.

its just 1hr

[mystic loom]

and maybe the stars work at 5.6 but maybe they don't and side benefit is now I have fewer subs to contend with in broadband since the exposures will be longer

[chilly ingot]

it brings the noise up when i try bring out the sides

[mystic loom]

processing something like a galaxy can get kind of crazy with the integrations I need doing it from B7

(this is my rationalizing tone)

[chilly ingot]

id just skip buying a overpriced useless filter tbh

stop down and go for it. its not about 0.2mm when you are alot slower

i was a whole 1mm off with my f4.8 frac and didnt notice

[winter herald]

guys can i ask a question plz , my friend has a roki lens , he’s so new to the hobby and this is his first image

[mystic loom]

looks like some stacking issues for one -- like those images are from all over the place in the sky, and then some bad tilt

might be easier to see with a single subexposure, no stacking

is the friend tracked (using a star tracker)?

[chilly ingot]

its not tilt. just straight up trailing

[mystic loom]

or a tracked mount?

[mystic loom]

yeah that was going to be my next q

[winter herald]

sky watcher 2i

@velvet lark

[mystic loom]

how long were the exposures

[winter herald]

30s

[mystic loom]

i'd say probably double check the polar alignment

[velvet lark]

Yeah that’s my image

It’s so weird

[mystic loom]

if it's star tracked probs something got bumped

[winter herald]

yeah , the stuff across the screen tho is weird , the white. bright boxes

[mystic loom]

30s wouldn't produce trails like that unless you're way out of alignment

[velvet lark]

Mabye because the camera moved idk

[velvet lark]

No the alignment was perfect

[mystic loom]

yeah I'm thinking maybe your ball mount or something slipped

[velvet lark]

The subs were absolutely crisp

[mystic loom]

I don't know much about how those work

[velvet lark]

Yeah

[mystic loom]

a dslr and a rokinon are a heavy pair

[velvet lark]

I’d say like I tipped the mount a little bit and that sub ruined it in thr stack

[mystic loom]

might want to look into getting one of the rings that fit these and mounting it firm to a dovetail bar

[velvet lark]

Like it could of been literally a single sub

[velvet lark]

Wym

[mystic loom]

so what are you using to mount the cam to the tracker

[velvet lark]

That’s the rig

I have a ring system

[mystic loom]

oh nvm you have an astrodymium or one of the clones

[velvet lark]

Yeah

[mystic loom]

yeah I'm stumped to be honest

[velvet lark]

Would you say it was a single sub that ruined it

[mystic loom]

not sure

[winter herald]

he was at f16 , maybe that might of ruined it

[mystic loom]

how many frames

[velvet lark]

Yeah

96

An hour exposure

Also it we don’t first time acc shooting

Was

[mystic loom]

you can use blink in pixinsight to basically create a gif of all your frames (Process > All > Blink) and that'll let you see if any stand out as way out of line with the rest

[chilly ingot]

f16?

[velvet lark]

Don’t ask bro

Don’t ask

[mystic loom]

also yeah if you're shooting at f16 and that's as good as you can do with your copy I'd get a new one

[chilly ingot]

maybe there is a clear night coming up soon lads

🚮

[velvet lark]

It was my first time and the ring system was covering the f thing

[chilly ingot]

live and learn

[velvet lark]

Trust me there isn’t

[mystic loom]

(not even saying that mean, I can't imagine shooting through a drinking straw)

[velvet lark]

Ngl it’s been so clear all day but cloudy at night

[mystic loom]

oh cool

[velvet lark]

@mystic loom but would the f 16 have messed it up would you say

[mystic loom]

so i'd try f.28 or f3-whatever (the stop between 2.8 and 4) just to cut your lens a little slack and remove optics from the variables

[velvet lark]

Yeah thanks mate

[mystic loom]

no, f16 would just make your shots uselessly slow (would take you weeks to get a shot done) but stars are bright and if anything the slower you shoot the better your stars should look

[velvet lark]

Weeks 😭 💀

[mystic loom]

kind of tells me it's ABSOLUTELY not optics

[velvet lark]

Gahahaha don’t ask why I was on f16 😭

[chilly ingot]

what where you trying to image btw

[velvet lark]

Na nebula

[mystic loom]

just redo your shoot at f4 or lower

[velvet lark]

Rate my kitten out if ten 😂

[mystic loom]

yeah you're going to want to just throw all those away anyway

[velvet lark]

When I did it was just a white screen

[mystic loom]

lower your ISO?

[velvet lark]

Didn’t really work

[mystic loom]

I'm less experienced in DSLRs i jumped to astro cam farily quickly

what is your light pollution situation?

[velvet lark]

5

[solid raptor]

That's a straight 10

[mystic loom]

yeah no something else is up then

[velvet lark]

My nannies is 1 and I love shooting there

[mystic loom]

lower your ISO way down

[velvet lark]

W

[velvet lark]

K I’ll do that

[mystic loom]

30 second exposure shouldn't produce white

[velvet lark]

Then it was the iso

[mystic loom]

unless you're shooting at a streetlight

[velvet lark]

Hahahahaha

I doubt it

[mystic loom]

my backyard is B7 at Zenith and many of the things I shoot rise through a B8-B9 dome, and i'm using 60 second exposures on a more sensitive camera and get normal subs at f.28

[velvet lark]

Yeah also what mount do you have

[chilly ingot]

mm yeah i get a white sub at 1min at b8

[mystic loom]

mount wouldn't factor into how bright things get

[mystic loom]

what is going on with all your cameras lol

[chilly ingot]

it was the old dslr

my astrocam barely bumps the histogram. only stars get clipped

[mystic loom]

maybe my UV/IR filter missed a quality control check and is actually an L-Ultimate that got mis sorted

got it so it's a dslr thing

[chilly ingot]

should go over the DSLR setup with some nebula photos video

[mystic loom]

yeah I'm going to be much less helpful with dslr shooting

[chilly ingot]

too high ISO will make it eat all the well capacity and you get a white sub

[mystic loom]

I got a crappy one off ebay that had horrific banding and when I realized I was moving to arizona I wanted a cooled camera for summer and got rid of my T3

[velvet lark]

I have a really good cannon 90D 😭 *howwwww is this happening 😭 *

[chilly ingot]

what was the iso setting then

[velvet lark]

Uh I’d say it was either 3200 or 800

I think 3200

Also does anyone know of a software like pix where you can see your subs but free

[civic mirage]

It looks very much like your cam move A LOT. Seems that most of the sub exposures are on the bottom half. Did you look through your subs to see if any of them were off position?

[winter herald]

that’s not my can , let me @velvet lark

[civic mirage]

You can start with win photo viewer. But it's not ideal.

[velvet lark]

Y what’s wrong with it

[civic mirage]

Well mine likes to stretch images automatically because its made for regular photos. The OG win photo viewer is hella better. But I believe its not available on win 11.

[chilly ingot]

need the raw codec from windows app store too

[mystic loom]

Well I sold my l enhance successfully today so even if it’s a dumb move it’s at least budget neutral lol

[fallow stirrup]

I got a new image with the rokinon

[velvet lark]

Guys is this normal for my Roki so it reaches focus when it’s all the way to the right and then it locks and the stars look to be in focus but I don’t know for certain if they are

Like I just hope I didn’t get a bad copy yk

If anyone with a Roki knows it that’s normal please tell me

[mystic loom]

you might be bumping up on the infinity focus hard stop

going to post a video that explains it

watch the whole thing before doing anything it talks about and only do if you feel comfortable doing this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk2myVjAFlU

[velvet lark]

Idk I think I’d be too scared to do it could I just send you a picture of some stars with the Roki (tracked) and you might know if I need to do it

[mystic loom]

the issue is that you're going to have multiple variables that come into play here, but largely the best way to tell is if you're running with an autofocuser and your parabola curve of star sizes flatlines, it means it's likely hitting the stop before its reached the minimum, this is how I discovered the issue on my lens (and fixed it)

but upload a tracked image of 30 seconds at what you think is focused (use a bahtinov mask if you don't have an autofocus)

[velvet lark]

That’s a tracked 30 second sub

Of just random stats @mystic loom

Stars *

[mystic loom]

oh please stretch it and save to png

[velvet lark]

What’s that again and if it’s like a processing thing idk how to do it yet someone’s else process’s my images

But also when I’m looking at my subs when shooting the stars look sooo good

Like there’s no way they could be out of focus

Like when it goes fully to the right that’s when it seems to be in focus

Like I’ve never felt like from looking at my subs *oh god that’s out of focus yk like it always looked really good but I was just worried about it focusing at the very end of the rotation

[mystic loom]

what software do you use to process

[velvet lark]

My friend does it and I think he uses siril

But does the picture look focused

[mystic loom]

like I said, I can't really tell without a stretched image

it's a good idea to just jump out and give a shot at learning siril for yourself too, you'll be able to troubleshoot things better if you're doing some of that rather than depending on someone else - here's a video on how to stretch in Siril

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joZvl-GMuWg

watch that and try to stretch your image, then save it as png not jpg and i'm happy to take a peek!

[solid raptor]

@velvet lark Just open histogram transformation in the dropdown menu and let it do an autostretch

[velvet lark]

Uh I will tmrw atm when i try to do it thr pictures look al cubic and glitchy because it says my camera is in use and it’s getting late where I am from so I’ll do it tmrw

[summer apex]

Foraxx or natural palette better?

[shell wasp]

i think natural looks better, could use some sharpening too imo

[summer apex]

Tks! I like your avatar icon thingy!

I also need more data - it’s only 30 mins per panel

[shell wasp]

how many panels?

[summer apex]

Just 2 - all I could handle 😅

I hate mosaics

[velvet lark]

are these stars out of focus

Because @mystic loom that’s the max focus I can get

[mystic loom]

Hey honestly it’s hard to see without a stretched clean image — it could be anything without seeing it that way

I think I see some astigmatism but it’s hard to tell

That might not be a focus thing itself and might just be a quirk in the optics of your lens you can get around by stopping down a bit

Check this tutorial out about stretching a capture #1059854397301063740 message

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joZvl-GMuWg

[velvet lark]

Yeah I’ll do that

Also I don’t know but is andromada trailed

Like that’s my first and my most recent image

Or is it just digicam control because this happened last time and when I stacked it it was centred

[shell wasp]

stacking will align it

[velvet lark]

You certain because I’m scared

It’s like an hours footage

I’ll cry if it’s gone

💀

[shell wasp]

it will but you’ll have weird artifacts on some of it

you’ll just crop

[velvet lark]

What are they

[shell wasp]

just stack it and see

[velvet lark]

Ok