Starlight from a few million light years away

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MapleRidge
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Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by MapleRidge »

Hi all...

I'll take a chance and post this anyway, but no sunlight in the traditional sense in this pic at all :lol:

I finally got around to trying my hand at deep sky again after many years of promising to get back to it. I took a few test images over the past few months to figure what will work and what needed to be tweaked and finally made an effort on Saturday night.

This image of M33 was taken with my Stellarvue 110 with a focal reducer/flatter (around f5.6), and Ha modded Canon 60D camera on the Takahashi EM400 mount. An Optolong L-Pro filter was also used. Exposures under 3 mins seem to track ok, so no auto guider was used. The image is a stack of 30 x 125 second exposures, which were processed in Images Plus to calibrate dark and flat frames, stack the images and apply a digital development filter. The final stacked image was adjusted in Photoshop to tweak the brightness and contrast.
M33_30x125sec_DDP_PS.jpg
M33_30x125sec_DDP_PS.jpg (1.51 MiB) Viewed 1228 times
The edges of the field show distortion of the stars...should have cropped it a bit, but this is the full frame.

With winter coming and planetary targets getting scarce I figured I better put all the deep sky equipment to work and keep me occupied once the sun sets in the coming months :lol:

Brian


Brian Colville

Maple Ridge Observatory
Cambray, ON Canada

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/185395281@N08/albums

10'x15 Roll-off Roof Observatory
Takahashi EM400 Mount carrying:
C14 + Lunt 80ED
Deep Sky Work - ASI294MM Pro+EFW 7x36/Canon 60D (Ha mod), ONAG
Planetary Work - SBIG CFW10, ASI462MM

2.2m Diameter Dome
iOptron CEM70G Mount carrying:
Orion EON 130ED, f7 OTA for Day & Night Use
Ha Setup: Lunt LS80PT/LS75FHa/B1200Ha + Home Brew Lunt Double Stack/B1800Ha on the Orion OTA + Daystar Quantum
WL, G-Band & CaK Setup: Lunt Wedge & Lunt B1800CaK, Baader K-Line and Altair 2nm G-Band filter
ASI1600MM, ASI432MM, ASI294MM Pro, ASI174MM, ASI462MM
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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by Carbon60 »

Looks great, Brian. I’ve never tried any deep sky imaging, but worth considering with the longer dark nights in the north.

Stu.


H-alpha, WL and Ca II K imaging kit for various image scales.
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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by Montana »

Well done Brian! that's a fantastic achievement :hamster:

I have only done DS imaging once last year when I stayed with Andy in Spain. We stayed up all night chatting for a week and I learned loads. I have the deepest respect as it is a completely different way to solar and planetary. I just don't have the equipment to be able to do this at home :bow

Alexandra


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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by MapleRidge »

Stuart and Alexandra...

Thanks for your feedback on the M33 image :bow

Alexandra, I would think you could do some deep sky (you have the mount, scope and camera), but maybe the light pollution is a bigger issue than hardware?

Brian


Brian Colville

Maple Ridge Observatory
Cambray, ON Canada

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/185395281@N08/albums

10'x15 Roll-off Roof Observatory
Takahashi EM400 Mount carrying:
C14 + Lunt 80ED
Deep Sky Work - ASI294MM Pro+EFW 7x36/Canon 60D (Ha mod), ONAG
Planetary Work - SBIG CFW10, ASI462MM

2.2m Diameter Dome
iOptron CEM70G Mount carrying:
Orion EON 130ED, f7 OTA for Day & Night Use
Ha Setup: Lunt LS80PT/LS75FHa/B1200Ha + Home Brew Lunt Double Stack/B1800Ha on the Orion OTA + Daystar Quantum
WL, G-Band & CaK Setup: Lunt Wedge & Lunt B1800CaK, Baader K-Line and Altair 2nm G-Band filter
ASI1600MM, ASI432MM, ASI294MM Pro, ASI174MM, ASI462MM
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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by highfnum »

pretty


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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by MapleRidge »

Thanks John!!!

Brian


Brian Colville

Maple Ridge Observatory
Cambray, ON Canada

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/185395281@N08/albums

10'x15 Roll-off Roof Observatory
Takahashi EM400 Mount carrying:
C14 + Lunt 80ED
Deep Sky Work - ASI294MM Pro+EFW 7x36/Canon 60D (Ha mod), ONAG
Planetary Work - SBIG CFW10, ASI462MM

2.2m Diameter Dome
iOptron CEM70G Mount carrying:
Orion EON 130ED, f7 OTA for Day & Night Use
Ha Setup: Lunt LS80PT/LS75FHa/B1200Ha + Home Brew Lunt Double Stack/B1800Ha on the Orion OTA + Daystar Quantum
WL, G-Band & CaK Setup: Lunt Wedge & Lunt B1800CaK, Baader K-Line and Altair 2nm G-Band filter
ASI1600MM, ASI432MM, ASI294MM Pro, ASI174MM, ASI462MM
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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by Montana »

Brian, my mount is nowhere near set up properly for accurate tracking, I also don't have a guide camera either. It would be way too complicated and time consuming to set up in a cold dark garden each time. Accurate tracking set up is OK if it is permanently mounted, the time investment is worth it but not if you have to set up each time in a garden. I would probably spend about 2 hrs setting up and then it would be cloudy. The light pollution is also very bad here, the sodium filter blocks most of it but all street lights have now been switched to LEDs over the last couple of years ;)

Alexandra


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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by rsfoto »

Montana wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:08 am Brian, my mount is nowhere near set up properly for accurate tracking, I also don't have a guide camera either. It would be way too complicated and time consuming to set up in a cold dark garden each time. Accurate tracking set up is OK if it is permanently mounted, the time investment is worth it but not if you have to set up each time in a garden. I would probably spend about 2 hrs setting up and then it would be cloudy. The light pollution is also very bad here, the sodium filter blocks most of it but all street lights have now been switched to LEDs over the last couple of years ;)

Alexandra
Hi,

WOW, LED light is a DSO killer. It has far too much blue and the intensity is overwhelming. Look below what happened in my town. They installed LED light a few weeks ago and now it looks like a football stadium on the street. My Sky has gone down the drain ...

I have a SQM running and before the LED I was reaching near 20 mag and now I barely reach 19 mag per square arc second ...

Right image January 2018, Left image 2 weeks ago. You can see the date on the right lower corner in each image of my All Sky camera.

NHSA_Cielo_LED_Mortal.jpg
NHSA_Cielo_LED_Mortal.jpg (1.38 MiB) Viewed 1157 times


regards Rainer

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San Luis Potosi Mexico

North 22° West 101°
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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by MapleRidge »

Alexandra, certainly a lot of obstacles for you to attempt the deep sky...sad news.

Rainer, that is quite an increase in brightness. Are these new lights not well shielded? There has been a moderate change over in a few cities locally and they seem to have reduced the sky glow (base don before/after pics).

Brian


Brian Colville

Maple Ridge Observatory
Cambray, ON Canada

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/185395281@N08/albums

10'x15 Roll-off Roof Observatory
Takahashi EM400 Mount carrying:
C14 + Lunt 80ED
Deep Sky Work - ASI294MM Pro+EFW 7x36/Canon 60D (Ha mod), ONAG
Planetary Work - SBIG CFW10, ASI462MM

2.2m Diameter Dome
iOptron CEM70G Mount carrying:
Orion EON 130ED, f7 OTA for Day & Night Use
Ha Setup: Lunt LS80PT/LS75FHa/B1200Ha + Home Brew Lunt Double Stack/B1800Ha on the Orion OTA + Daystar Quantum
WL, G-Band & CaK Setup: Lunt Wedge & Lunt B1800CaK, Baader K-Line and Altair 2nm G-Band filter
ASI1600MM, ASI432MM, ASI294MM Pro, ASI174MM, ASI462MM
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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by Montana »

Rainer, I took a 5 second image of the Milky Way from my house last night, the camera has a sodium filter block on it but my image looks just like your left hand one :( will have to dig it out of the camera tonight.

Alexandra


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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by rsfoto »

MapleRidge wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 3:46 am Alexandra, certainly a lot of obstacles for you to attempt the deep sky...sad news.

Rainer, that is quite an increase in brightness. Are these new lights not well shielded? There has been a moderate change over in a few cities locally and they seem to have reduced the sky glow (base don before/after pics).

Brian
Hi Brian,

In my case it has nothing to do with shielding the LED lamps. The street is concrete, not black asphalt, and is very bright and blue light reflects nicely on this. Then add the humidity in the Air ... as well as add the lamps of the neighbours shining up and you got the perfect Light Pollution ...

No way of speaking with the neighbours as they are afraid of the dark and when they go into vacations they light up their houses 24 hours a day so the robbers do not get in ...

:o


regards Rainer

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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by Montana »

I processed my image from the other night, I couldn't do more than 5 second exposure
(Testing my new Sigma 10mm f2.8 lens. Stacked 1 min 40 secs (20x 5sec images) at ISO6400)

ImageFull sky 2020-11-18 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

Alexandra


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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by rsfoto »

Montana wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:31 pm I processed my image from the other night, I couldn't do more than 5 second exposure

ImageFull sky 2020-11-18 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

Alexandra
Hi Alexandra,

Very nice but it is all relative. What was the lens, the aperture, the ISO and the resulting speed ?

Thanks ;)


regards Rainer

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Re: Starlight from a few million light years away

Post by KMH »

Brian,

Beautiful image!

Kevin


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