First round of images from the ASI294MM pro

We have had some great weather down here in south Texas the last few weeks so I was able to get a lot of use out of the new 294mm. Really have nothing but love for the 294. The images speak for themselves. Here are a few that I was able to capture in SHO, each one between 8-10 hours of integration.

I have notices some interesting color over the 1600mm after my initial SHO combinations and enhancing them has been easy. This camera will be my workhorse for the foreseeable future and I’m super excited to see how galaxies start coming out soon. Next thing I will be testing will be the 294mm with a combination of Ha and LRGB astronomic deep sky filters on andromeda and horsehead. Stay tuned!

ASI294mm pro VS ASI1600mm pro

So the asi294mc pro was my first astronomy camera and for a beginner at the time, it was a great camera. I have since moved on to shooting monochrome images and the asi1600mm pro has been really the been my workhorse for my imaging. Recently ZWO released the asi294mm pro so I decided to give it a try. It is a 12 megapixel camera vs a 16 megapixel like the 1600 but pixels are bigger allowing the 294 the gather more signal before blowing out bright objects like stars. It is also supposed to have close to a 90 percent quantum efficiency vs 60 percent on the 1600 so its is picking up 30 percent more signal in the same amount of time. After battling some clouds over a few nights, I was finally able to get enough data to make a comparison.

The top image is the 1600 and that is 60x180 second exposures calibrated and stacked. The bottom image is the 294, 21x600 second images calibrated and stacked. I think both look good but if I get in close, I can see more detail in the fainter nebulosity on the asi294mm-pro. Also the contrast from the signal to background is really sharp. All in all, Im happy with the camera so far and looking forward to finishing tadpole and showing off the final results. Stay tuned!

Some Examples of SHO / Hubble Pallet

Well Ive had my asi1600 gt for about 4 or 5 months now so I figured I would give an update on my progress. Its been a learning curve but not as bad as I thought. Imaging has gotten easier, editing has gotten crisper. The good thing is I feel like Im not hitting a ceiling at all and there are plenty of objects I still want to shoot and many more I want to reshoot and get a better image than before. But here are a few of my latest images with my 1600 -

All these images have been stacked and combined in astropixelprocessor, edited in pixinsight and photoshop, and finished in topaz denoise. Im hoping to do a workflow video when I get a chance to help anyone who might be struggling to edit their images so stay tuned!

Going Mono!

When I first started learning astrophotography a little over a year ago, I was excited to get started shooting. I did a lot of research and reading and skimmed over anything that detailed monochrome cameras and imaging. Who wants to take pics with black and white. The more I got into the hobby, the more I learned about it. Then my thought was “well I dont want to spend more time imaging.” Then I got to the point about a month ago where I was getting frustrated trying to make my images look like the mono images and the processing was getting very tedious with lots of varying outcomes. I felt like I had hit a wall. So I made the jump to mono and went with the asi1600gt:

Yes its square and it doesn’t look as cool as my asi071mc pro but based on images I had seen with the similar 1600mm, this was the way to go. So why is mono better? Well I am definitely not an expert but when I started separating out channels in my color processing, it finally started to click what a mono does and how it is processed. So the difference between a mono camera and a color camera is basically a filter that sits over the sensor on a color camera and it lets red, blue, and green colors through. Well while that gives you awesome instant color images in real time on your ipad when imaging, you are missing out on many light photons that are just getting filtered out. With a mono camera, you shoot one color or signal at a time. The sensor is much more sensitive and receives much more of the color/signal you are shooting (just have to do it one at a time).

Along with this comes the use of filters. There is a built in filter wheel on this camera so I bought a set of narrowband filters. H-alpha, sulfur II, and oxygen III are the 3 most dominate wavelengths that make it down to our cameras from space. So that being said, I would need to shoot separate sessions of each of those wavelengths and ASSIGN a color to them in post processing. This was hard for me to understand at first but basically you take your h-alpha image and assign it to green, sulfur II is assigned to red, and oxygen III is assigned to blue. It is known as “false” color. But now you have MUCH more data, separate color channels, and a much better image to start processing. Here’s what I got with my first attempt -

Now we are talking. My first mono narrowband image ever. Here is what my thoughts are after it is all said and done… So the acquisition is definitely more time consuming. My images are going to go from 2 - 3 hours of integration to 5+ minimum. That is okay! I want to have beautiful pictures. Also seeing a black and white image sounds terrible but seeing the detail in those images is rewarding. The best thing about this is the post processing. It is a breeze! You have much more flexibility in your images and you are not stressing out and creating noise trying to stretch and pull colors out that are not there. I am extremely happy with my decision to go mono and look forward to creating some awesome images in the coming months!

Sky Watcher HEQ5 Pro Belt Mod

Guiding is always an issue for me. I don’t know why I get spikes sometimes, I don’t know if my balance is on point, I don’t know if my focus is dialed in. So I asked around and someone on Cloudy Nights mentioned a belt mod for the HEQ5 pro mount that I have. It was only a little over 100 bucks so I purchased one from First Light Optics. It arrived and it was time to do some surgery on the mount… I read the instructions (which were very good) and opened up my mount.

Opening up the gear box and motherboard…

Messing with a brand new mount is a little nerve racking and probably stupid… but I did it anyways. Everything was going good until I had to remove one of the pins from the motherboard. It wouldn’t come off. With little force, I accidently broke off the base from the motherboard, damaging it permanently. Wonderful. Otherwise, everything else went fairly smoothly. So I had to call skywatcher and have a new motherboard sent out. 200 dollars later, I finally had the new board and was ready to complete the install.

Completed Rowan Belt mod

So the new motherboard went in without a hitch and I was able to complete the install. I feel much more comfortable with the tracking accuracy of the mount at this point but I still have some tuning to do with the RA and DEC axis. They are a little tight coming from the manufacturer so I need to get in and loosen a few screws. Other than that, I feel like it was an education. I learned about my mount in a pretty unique way and I am happy with the results. Looking forward to using this mount for many years to come!

A couple of nights of wide field after a great galaxy season

Well galaxy season was fun and it gave me some good times with my first big telescope, the Edge 8HD, but after not having any wide field targets for a few months, it was nice to get a couple shots out of the meade 70mm APO and try out my new Spacecat51! I had some troubles leading up to these shots because of my HEQ5 pro mount but they were worked out for these shots. I will save those fixes for another post. Here was my first target:

This is the Elephants trunk. It is huge… This was shot at 300 seconds x 30 subs. Used the L-enhance on the meade 70mm and this was my first use of my new asi071mc pro. Ive seen some excellent images of this target before and while mine doesn’t look like the hubble space pallet, I really like the way it turned out. I think I might try this one again because I think I can get more out of it. Here is my next night’s image:

Now we are talking! I think my horsehead nebula is my favorite image but this is a very close second and I did this from my backyard! Here is the eastern and western veil nebula. This is also another 30x300 second exposure and I did this with the Spacecat 51 and the asi294mc pro. I regret not using the 071 on this target because I think I could’ve pulled out a little more detail but its hard for me to complain about this image. I will definitely take some more shots at this as it comes up higher in the sky with some different setups. I also want to try and edit this image again and get rid of some stars. Dunno if that is possible but Im gonna try.

Galaxy Season!

So this is my first galaxy season and it has not disappointed! I have had a blast. I need to really catch up on sleep cause I have not been getting much. Ready glad I gave my Edge 8hd a second chance. It has become my favorite scope. Still trying to work things out with guiding but it is very usable. If anyone has any tips on a celestron OAG and 290mm-mini, let me know! It has been acceptable but not great.

Other than that, I think its time for me to collimate! I gave it a go last night but I don’t think I got it as accurate as I would have liked and I didn’t want to waste precious time. I ended up buying a Hotech SCA 1.5 inch laser collimator. I will load it into my equipment section with a write up when I get it going and hopefully it will get me some better focus.

I still want to get Bodes and Sunflower but so far, I have some pretty good photos of the galaxies I have shot. All these shots are at 1400mm and f7. Some are better than others but overall, Im super pumped about this rig again and even though it is a monster to set up and take down, it has been well worth it. Here’s what I got. Lemme know whatcha think!

m100 - top left, m88 - top middle, m66 - top right, Caldwell 7 - bottom left, m51 - middle right, m101 - bottom right.

Imaging at 1400mm and F/7

Imaging is not easy. I have learned that over the past year. I have obsessed about it but as much as I do, it doesn’t make it any easier. In one of my earlier blog posts, I explained how I started imaging with hyperstar and an Edge 8hd and how/why I moved to a smaller, more portable rig. I kept my Edge to use it for deep space imaging that a wide field refractor might not pick up the detail on. I had tried it twice with a .7 reducer and OAG to no avail. In fact, the 2nd time I was upset and ready to sell my big mount and scope. I calmed down and told myself I would do a little more research and give it one more try. That try came last night. Here was my set up:

The night started off the same as the others. There are 3 things I needed working. I needed my main camera to focus, I needed my guide camera to focus, and I needed my mount to connect to everything so the my guide camera could make the tracking adjustments it needed to guide. One or more of these items never worked. Finally at about 12:30am, it all came together. My mount connected, I was able to focus my guide camera, and then begin guiding. It was a very rewarding feeling. It was pretty spot on with the exception of some very gusty winds. It yielded this image:

This is M101, the pinwheel galaxy. I have imaged this before but with a smaller refractor. I am very proud of this image and for only 20 sub frames at 300 seconds per image, gusty winds, and a quick pixinsight edit, I think it came out pretty good. I would like to get data totaling up to about 5 hours on this galaxy and see what I can do with it. I had read about how tough it is to image at this focal length and beyond and I will have to agree, it is not nearly as easy as imaging with a small refractor or hyperstar. But I finally got it. I will post a video on my setup and how I was able to get all this working very soon so that anyone else who might have a similar setup to mine can have a little bit of a head start. Tonight I will be shooting m51 so stay tuned!

My Trip to Terilingua

A couple of weekends ago, I decided to take my Meade 70mm APO refractor imaging scope down to Big Bend and the ghost town of Terilingua. Big Bend is know around the country as one of the few “dark” sites with zero light pollution. I was pretty excited when the weather started to look very favorable for not only taking some great pics of galaxies and nebulas, but also to get some of my first shots of our own galaxy, the milky way. With as little as a tripod and a DSLR camera, one can do astrophotography and the milky way is the perfect place to start.

The first night, it was cloudy to start but looking at the forecast, the milky way was going to start coming up around 2 and the clouds were supposed to have moved out. So I set my alarm for 2am and went to sleep around 10pm. I didn’t need my alarm to wake me up. I was waiting for it around 1:30 and I went outside. It was a site I really cant explain. Total darkness and more stars than I could imagine. The milky way looked like a cloud coming towards me at first. I set up my tripod and star tracker and got my DSLR going with an intervalometer. I had a fast f2.8 14mm Rokinon on my camera to collect as much light as I could and also get a fairly wide angle of the sky. The hardest part was getting focus. I don’t think I was able to get it as you can see in my image. While its pretty, its not as sharp as I would like it:

The milky way with a Nikon D5300 and a Rokinon f2.8 14mm lens

Besides the fact that its out of focus, I was not able to find a good foreground (which I think is essential for a nice milky way shot).  So I got this.  Basically this has just given me a taste of what I can do and when I go back, I will be more prepared and hopefully get a better shot(s). 

On the next night and night after, I was able to enjoy a sunset while setting up my scope and the clouds would clear out both nights just as the sun was going down. It was perfect. I really wish I had more time there but since I didn’t and I wasn’t interested in staying up all night, I didn’t get as much exposure as I wanted. Each of my pics had exposure times of about an hour. 180 second subs and 300 second subs. I think the fact there was no light pollution helped me to get great images with less time but I can only imagine how awesome my images would be with 3x the integration. Here are my results from my trip:

M45 Pleiades

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy

M51 Whirlpool galaxy

Horsehead and Flame Nebula in Orion

I think one of the coolest things is in a couple of the images of galaxies, you can actually see smaller fainter galaxies. See if you can spot some! The last image of horsehead is probably what I am most proud of. I could look at the image all day. It was done with only 10-15 sub exposures of about 3 minutes per sub. I had an Optolong L-enhance filter on which will make the camera more sensitive to hydrogen alpha and Oiii ionized oxygen bands of light. With these pictures under my belt, I am excited for my next trip out to Terilingua and Big Bend to get some more targets!

Before and After Editing

Here are just a few examples of what a little bit of editing can do for your stacked images. First is the galaxy andromeda:

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Next is the Rosette nebula:

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Here is Orion:

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Still learning different editing techniques but as you can see, taking the pictures is only half the battle….

Beginner Mistake (but it all worked out)

For my 2nd blog post, I wanted to give a little insight on a choosing a scope and mount. There are a lot of posts on this so its not like its new or anything but if I had to do it over again, I would. When I first started thinking about getting my first scope, I did a fair amount of research. I knew I wanted to do visual viewing and astrophotography. I really was expecting to do more visual viewing than AP. I thought about going with a celestron c8 on an Alt AZ mount. I actually bought one. It arrived not working and I sent it back. This ended up being a good thing because as I kept researching, I found that I needed an equatorial mount to shoot good shots of my targets. I went way over what I wanted to spend but ended up buying the celestron edge 8HD on a cgemII mount. This is a Schmidt Cassegrain optical tube or SCT. I read that the Edge gave descent flat pics and it could be used with hyperstar. Here is my first scope and mount:

I love this set up. I really do. It has a 2000mm focal length so I can get good detail on distant objects when using an eyepiece, it was easy for me to align with star sense, and after I got the hyperstar, I was shooting at f/2 and 400mm. This was actually amazingly easy and for a true beginner, I was already shooting pics of orion, horsehead, and andromeda. I had found that all I wanted to do now is AP as well. Here was my problem. When I wanted to shoot (or use an eyepiece), I had to start setting up this beast about an hour earlier and it would take me about 30-45 mins to break down when I was done. It is not a set up I could easily move around as it weighs about 80lbs or so. So this led me to start looking for a more portable set up. I sold my hyperstar and put the money towards a new portable set up. I did not want to sell my whole rig because I still felt I would use it plenty for more distant objects at f7. At this point, I did what I probably should have done in the first place and that is to buy myself a rig more geared to AP. An apochromatic refractor was talked about a lot and this is what I decided to research. Here is the set up I settled on:

I ended up buying a Meade 70mm 6000 apochromatic refractor. This scope has a 350mm focal length and shoots at f5. That’s not as fast as hyperstar but I was willing to give that up for a more portable set up. I put this on a ioptron cem25p mount which took me some getting use to over the celestron mount but I have come to really like it. I can easily carry this mount from inside my house out to my backyard and when Im done, I can just carry it right back inside and either leave it for the next time or break it down the next day. I am actually getting close to the same focal length that I had with the hyperstar. The images are sharper though on this set up in my opinion.

All in all, my point of this post is if you are like me (and I knew nothing about telescopes, mounts, or AP), depending on what you want to use it for, bigger is not always better. If I could do it over again, I would go with a smaller refractor for AP. It was way cheaper and better for my needs. On the flipside, I learned a lot and I now have 2 incredible scopes and mounts for all kinds of different applications. Only problem now is storing it all :)

NOTE: The Meade 6000 series of APO’s are not for visual viewing. ONLY AP! So if you were wanting to do visual and AP, a different type of small refractor might be better for you. There are plenty out there that can be used for both and might be more well rounded for a beginner.

One Year In....

Well this will be my first blog ever in my life. I want to elaborate more on why I decided to make a site like this in a later blog but for now, I wanted to show a quick comparison of one of my first pics of andromeda and one of my latest edits. These two images are the same photo, just edited differently/”somewhat” correctly. The reason I say “somewhat” is because I think I can still get better but I feel like my latest picture is pretty respectable. Here is the first picture shot with a hyperstar and edited in lightroom.

As you can see, its grainy, not sharp, probably stretched way too much, just overall not good. At the time I thought it was amazing though and to most people, it was. But after seeing all the amazing pictures online, I decided to go back to the drawing board and dive into photoshop. And I mean really dive. I had never used it before and had no idea what I was doing. Thanks to some online tutorials and a lot of practice and trial and error, I was able to achieve the image you see below. This was done by stretching the image, changing the overall colors, adding texture, and bringing down the noise a bit. I don’t like to use brushes or things like that because I like to preserve as much of the natural image as possible and I don’t want to feel like its fake.

This was my most recent edit of andromeda. There is dimension, the core is not blown out, you can almost see the rotation. This is what I wanted. This is what I felt like I saw when I googled “andromeda”. The time I have put into this hobby in this first year has to be 100s of hours. I have become addicted. It has been frustrating and rewarding at the same time. So basically Im hoping what I have planned for my little site here can help the people, like me, who are captivated by the night sky. I will be adding things as I go that I wish I could’ve found for my set up that would’ve helped save me some major headache. Welcome to my page and I hope I can be of some help in the future!