Stephan's Quintet and NGC7331

[proven rapids]

6h of exposure with a QHY268C and 250/1000mm f4 Lacerta imaging Newtonian. Sadly the seeing was extremely bad yesterday which harmed the possible resolution a lot, but BlurX could restore it quite well. 5px FWHM on the rawstack.

Edit: Here is the Version with IFN:
https://www.astrotreff.de/gallery/index.php?raw-image/15921-stephans-quintett-ifn/

Here is the full res to zoom around:
https://img.bildhost.com/file/bildhostcom/2024/09/08/doneraw3.png

[unique pivot]

very nice

[fickle cypress]

very nice

[lunar ridge]

damn the fov is still this wide with 250/1000, was gonna attempt 200/800 with the same sensor

[stone nebula]

Wide FOV is a good thing! theres alot of dust around them to be caught

[lunar ridge]

probably not in bortle 8

[lunar ridge]

those are like ifn dust probably

[sterile fulcrum]

Its still a nice shoot even with 600mm

[sterile fulcrum]

The only dust i catch is the one on my sensor

[stone nebula]

Yeah its IFN, but youre also mono which is really helpful for it, and you did capture M81-82s IFN pretty well

[stone nebula]

Haha just need more integration, 6h is not enough for IFN unless youre in super low bortle with really long exposures

[lunar ridge]

"pretty well"

you mean 30 hours into the L channel with only a tiny bit sign of ifn?

[lunar ridge]

I wonder if I am able to image this target in bortle 1, how would the LRGB be split

[stone nebula]

Nah i swear you had good snr on it

[stone nebula]

Definitely! tbh you could do the entire night at B1 as lum, then shoot colour at home, IFN isnt exactly colourful lol

[lunar ridge]

I know my data bruh, you could look at euky process on it, not much ifn there

it could be pullout if you apply deepsnr on L before channel combination, but def not much

[lunar ridge]

but the galaxy themselves are quite colorful tho

[stone nebula]

Ahh theres a decent amount, with some serious processing thered be quite alot. But i know what you mean, not what youd expect from 30 hours

[stone nebula]

They are, but they are high SNR, so colour wont be a issue like dust is

[proven rapids]

@stone nebula You can actually see a slight bit of IFN on the top

If you stretch the image more there is a lot visible, but I havent figured out how to make that look nice in processing yet.

I tried masking and just stretching the ifn but it is hard to get a natural transition to the galaxies no matter the smoothing

[unique pivot]

wtfff thats crazy

i never seen this with ifn b4

[proven rapids]

It was a very dark night

I could see andromeda galaxy directly, normally only adverted

I am not that happy with the blend yet but I have a method it just requires tweaking

Extract luminance, starx, adjust histo, negative multiplication in photoshop, kill bright areas in luminance with shadow/highlights

[proven rapids]

Looks ok i think

[unique pivot]

youre a good processor yourself

definitely go for that meganerd role if your want it, your images are better than the majority of meganerds (including me)

[proven rapids]

Thank you!

I ended up using the HDRMT tool in Pixinsight to crush the bright galaxies in the IFN luminance, worked way better

[proven rapids]

The rawstack

[fickle cypress]

You're a wizard

[unique pivot]

THAT LOOKS SO GOOD HOLY-

all your rawstacks look good

but DAMN

i can see the ifn already

do u think maybe can share this too 👉👈

[stone nebula]

Man if my stacks was looking like that i think id cry out of excitement 😭

[proven rapids]

Sure why not, when I get home from work 😀

I should definetly share my M13 stack also, that was the most insane seeing I ever had, I had below 2px fwhm with 1000mm fl and could 2× drizzle. I should do a reprocess of that data with BlurX also.

The guiding was like 0.15" rms, I didnt even know my Eq6r was capable of that

[lunar ridge]

damn 250/1000 newt on eq6r pro with 0.15rms guiding?

with 200/800 the best I got was maybe 0.3

[proven rapids]

Yes, but I only had that at one night ever so far

I have a small observatory that shields some wind off

And it is a carbon fiber newtonian so it is pretty light, but its still a big tube

[lunar ridge]

mine is carbon fiber too

[proven rapids]

Nice, I think for f4 newt imaging its very important

Steel isnt stiff enough for this

And also no tempdrift

[lunar ridge]

true, I am actually having first light tonight

[proven rapids]

Nice, good luck

https://data.tommynawratil.com/Astro/pdf/Photonewton_Collimation_Primer_EN.pdf

I can highly recommend this for collimation, this is the guy who built my newt

[lunar ridge]

I actually uses an ocal electric collimator

I am basically able to see whats inside my mirror through a camera

[proven rapids]

Interesting, I have heard of those before

[lunar ridge]

something I did today

the primary is not collimated yet here, but the secondary is close to perfect collimation

[proven rapids]

Please let me know if it is really good enough for the very sensitive primary mirror adjustment

I normally collimate the primary directly on a star

[lunar ridge]

yes, I know some people specfically use this for the sharpstar f2.8 newt cause they are giga sensitive

[proven rapids]

Wow

[lunar ridge]

laser just wouldnt do it

[proven rapids]

Yeah laser only works if it is directly screwed onto the coma corrector

If you rotate it in the focuser the dot is not allowed to move

[lunar ridge]

this is basically a camera slap on the focuser, and view everything on your computer, just tune the screws

I am not exactly sure how a laser collimator works, I personally just went straight to this

[proven rapids]

Which ocal model do you have?

I think I will also get one, this didnt exist back then when I got my newt

[lunar ridge]

https://astronomyplus.com/products/ocal-electronic-collimator-ec-pro?variant=43628369117413&currency=CAD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwufq2BhAmEiwAnZqw8jkLWAolhNT9MmrU_aCbqwILXdCLX2hVKU7rXG634vNXxrLtAEDjrRoCSpYQAvD_BwE

you could also use this on sct

[proven rapids]

Thank you, I will order one

[lunar ridge]

if you have any question about ocal feel free to message me

[proven rapids]

I think i will get the v3 max its not much more

[lunar ridge]

I think both works, maybe better camera on 3.0?

I usually put it on my mount, and point vertically up towards my rooms light

[proven rapids]

I have a coma corrector and they say to get the 3 max for that

[lunar ridge]

case you need to see the outer most circle, could be hard without light

or use a flat panel

[proven rapids]

I have a flat panel, I will use that

If this really works it would relief so much pain lol

Star collimation is always a hassle to get perfect before the sky gets dark enough to image

They brag about 0.05mm accuracy but that is what you need at least lol