Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

Click on an image to get a closer view. A Seestar S50 captured 169 minutes worth of 10 second exposures of the Wizard nebula in mosaic mode to make sure that it was all captured. A 5000 mAh power bank was used. The anti-dew lens heater was used, the Seestar S50 ran on the power bank and after several hours of imaging hadn't used even half of its charge and the charge in the Seestar did not reduce at all. The session was terminated due to clouds. It takes about twice as long in elapsed time to capture a given total exposure due to the fact that preparing and saving captured RAW files is a relatively slow process and a proportion of the captured images are lost due to star trailing. This seems to happen more frequently in mosaic mode as the scope slews to another part of the developing mosaic after several frames have been captured. It then seems to require a little time for tracking to stabilise and produce untrailed stars. Individual Fits files are not saved in mosaic mode as the mosaic is being built up by live stacking.

The resulting 16 bit Fits file was SPCC corrected in PixInsight and StarXterminator was use to produce a starless image. The image was further processed in GraXpert, the Gimp 2.10 and SetiAstro's Cosmic Clarity.

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Animation of Tablet screenshots showing the building up of the complete mosaic.

posted by astroimager  # 6:08 PM 0 Comments

30 minutes worth of 10s exposures of M15 with a Seestar S50; Debayered stacked and part processed in PixInsight and further processed in The Gimp 2.10 and GraXpert.

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M15 the Pegasus globular cluster

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 4:50 PM 0 Comments

Following last night's Pixinsight Zoom meeting I've repossessed an image of the Andromeda Galaxy, originally taken using my SX694, Altair Starwave 70EDT and Cem60 mount.

18x180s luminance, 6x180s R,G and B and 6x600s Ha subs.

In the session last night part of it was using a continuum subtraction script to isolate the Ha portions of the Ha image. Once prepared, the image with just the pure Ha was combined with the red channel of the RGB image whilst in the linear mode.

The image was then processed using StarX, NoiseX and combining the luminance channel later on. Stars were then replaced to finish and levels and curves adjusted.

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Original image

posted by astroimager  # 3:47 PM 0 Comments

I captured an image of the Andromeda Galaxy using my Rokinon 135mm lens at f/2.8, mounted on a Canon 1300D DSLR camera, which was attached to a Star Adventurer 2i pro tracking mount. The settings included 200 images at 50 seconds and 800 ISO, 50 flat frames, and 25 dark frames, all stacked in DSS and processed in Siril and Gimp 2.10. Additionally, I utilized an intervalometer to control the camera and a Bahtinov mask for focusing on a bright star. The image was taken from my back garden under Bortle 5 skies.

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The Andromeda Galaxy

Chris Playle

posted by astroimager  # 9:59 PM 0 Comments

The Cocoon nebula through A William Optics 81mm APO refractor with an Altair Quadband filter and an Altair Hypercam 533C OSC 14 bit CMOS camera. 33 x 5 minute RAW exposures captured with AstroDMx Capture. Calibrated, debayered and stacked in PixInsight with SPCC; further processing in Gimp, GraXpert and Seti Astro's Cosmic Clarity.

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Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture capturing RAW fits of the Cocoon nebula

The Cocoon nebula

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 8:00 PM 0 Comments

40 minutes worth of 10s exposures of NGC7538 with a Seestar S50; Debayered stacked and part processed in PixInsight and further processed in The Gimp 2.10, GraXpert and SetiAstro Suite Cosmic Clarity.

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NGC7538 

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 5:06 PM 0 Comments

IC1805 (The Heart nebula): On the night of the 12th November I captured 4 hours of Ha and SII data of the Heart nebula with an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR using an ASI 533MM Pro camera shooting 5 minute subs. Just one OIII sub was taken before clouds prevented any further capture, so I added 4.5 hours of SHO data taken over the last two years with the same equipment to produce an 8.5 hour total SHO integration. Pixinsight was used to collate the data, with Adobe Lightroom used to finalise the composition.

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IC1805 (The Heart nebula) SHO

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 3:42 PM 0 Comments

A Seestar S50 captured 118 minutes worth of 10 second data over a 4 hour period to capture the whole of the Pelican nebula. Because the anti-dew lens heater was used, the Seestar S50 ran very low on power after about 4 hours and the session was terminated. The way that Mosaic mode works is that the central area of the mosaic gets more exposure than the peripheral regions and so has a better signal to noise ratio. If more power had been available, the regions of the mosaic that were cropped out may not have required cropping or a smaller amount would have needed to be cropped. A 50,000 mWh power bank has been obtained to allow longer times to be spent on other mosaics in the future if the weather allows.

Nevertheless satisfactory results were obtained.

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Animation of tablet screenshots capturing the mosaic of the Pelican nebula.

posted by astroimager  # 11:54 PM 0 Comments

Barry Fitzgerald gave fast moving and very thoroughly researched Zoom lecture. The talk was full of images, facts and explanations of the structures visible on the lunar surface. A thoughtful questions time followed the talk which had captivated the audience from the start.

posted by astroimager  # 11:30 PM 0 Comments

A three minute RAW AVI was captured of the 94% Moon with a Seestar S50 telescope through a hazy sky. The best 50% of the frames in the AVI were debayered and stacked with 1.5 Drizzle in Autostakkert!4. The Stacked image was wavelet processed in waveSharp and further processed in the Gimp 2.10.

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94% waxing Moon

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 3:20 PM 0 Comments

Bubble Nebula SHO

Imaging Telescopes Or Lenses

StellaLyra 8" f/4 M-LRN Newtonian Reflector with 2" Focuser

Imaging Cameras

Player One Ares-M Pro · ZWO ASI120MM Mini  

Total integration Time 

Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 1.25": 80×300″(6h 40′)

Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 1.25": 72×300″(6h)

Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 1.25": 70×300″(5h 50′)

18.5 hours

Click on the image to get a closer view

posted by astroimager  # 9:57 PM 0 Comments

We have started to use live stacking in AstroDMx Capture to improve the preview whilst capturing individual RAW fits files of the DSO. At the moment, live stacking is a work in progress but we are already finding that the image capturing process is more pleasing as we prefer to monitor the imaging and guiding as we are capturing. The RAW fits files captured are untouched, but the stacked display steadily improves as the signal to noise ratio increases as the square root of the number of files that have been stacked.

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Animation of the live stacking of 10 x 5 minute RAW exposures of the Elephant trunk nebula in AstroDMx Capture

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 6:01 PM 0 Comments

Ha: PST – Apollo-M Mini with x2 Barlow - 11:56-11:59 am: 15% of a 15,055 frame SER with Astro DMx Capture. Stacked with Autostakkert!4 (1.5 x drizzle applied)/ wavelet processed in Registax with final processing done in Pixinsight and Adobe PS 2024

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H-alpha

White Light

Zenithstar 71 with Herschel Wedge  –  Apollo-M Mini with x2 Barlow - 12:19-12:21 pm - 15% stack of a 7,985 frame SER with Astro DMx Capture. Stacked with Autostakkert!4 (1.5 x drizzle applied)/ wavelet processed in Registax with final processing done in Pixinsight and Adobe PS 2024

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 4:32 PM 0 Comments

A Seestar S50 was used to capture a 3.5 minute RAW AVI Through a Baader OD 5.0 solar filter. The best 50% of the frames were debayered and stacked in Autostakkert!4. The image was wavelet processed in waveSharp and post processed in the Gimp 2.10 and ACDSee.

Click on the image to get a closer view

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 4:05 PM 0 Comments

A three minute RAW AVI was captured of the 87.7% Moon with a Seestar S50 telescope. The best 60% of the frames in the AVI were debayered and stacked with 1.5 Drizzle in Autostakkert!4. The Stacked image was wavelet processed in waveSharp and further processed in the Gimp 2.10 and ACDSee.

Click on the image to get a closer view

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 3:52 PM 0 Comments

On the evening of the 11th November, members enjoyed several hours of observing at the Brian Stokes Cygnus Observatory to view the Moon and Venus and Saturn and Jupiter and their moons using a range of optical telescopes and binoculars. With a bright 80% waxing gibbous moon and semi clear skies, only the brightest stars were visible, providing challenging conditions for newer members to learn to navigate their way around the night sky aided by several longer term members. Several bright meteors were observed along with several lines of Starlink satellites that had recently been launched. 

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Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 11:59 PM 0 Comments

The Elephant trunk nebula through A William Optics 81mm APO refractor with an Altair Quadband filter and an Altair Hypercam 533C OSC 14 bit CMOS camera. 10 x 5 minute RAW exposures captured with AstroDMx Capture. Calibrated, debayered and stacked in PixInsight with SPCC; further processing in Gimp, starnet++, GraXpert and Cosmic Clarity at the command line.

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The Elephant trunk nebula RGB 

HOO rendering

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 10:18 PM 0 Comments

M42/43 and the Running Man nebula from 53 minutes 30s worth of 10s exposures with a Seestar S50 in Mosaic Mode. Also an animation of Mosaic mode in action.

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M42/M43 and the Running Man nebula

Animation of Mosaic mode in action showing screenshots from the tablet controlling the Seestar S50: (3s between frames)

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 10:02 PM 0 Comments

A three minute RAW AVI was captured of the 78.6% Moon with a Seestar S50 telescope. The best 60% of the frames in the AVI were debayered and stacked with 1.5 Drizzle in Autostakkert!4. The Stacked image was wavelet processed in waveSharp and further processed in the Gimp 2.10 and ACDSee.

Click on the image to get a closer view

78.6% Moon

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 9:49 PM 0 Comments

This is the Jelly Fish Nebula. 2 hours each of Ha; SII & OII shot on SW ED80 Esprit f5 telescope. Processed in Pixinsight and annotated using AnnotateImage script.

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IC443 Jelly Fish Nebula in SHO Hubble Palette.

Paul Howat

posted by astroimager  # 8:14 PM 0 Comments

I must thank those who have entered the competition, I liked the creativity shown in these images and so did the judging panel (My wife who chose the winner and judged blind).

Thank you for taking part, I know it may seem daunting to anyone who has not done this before, but it is for fun, it is for your enjoyment. I am a terrible artist but I enjoy doing it and I find it relaxing, so please try and take part. 

October winners and runners up.

The winner is Noel with his rendition of the comet over a bay. Rhian was particularly impressed with the tone of the image, the reflections and calm nature, so very well done Noel.

The runners up are Chris Bowden's image of the comet near the IQ building, and Danny's rather charming rendition of a cat looking at the comet. Fantastic images from both of you.

Also a further recommendation must be made for the under 12's image submitted by Frida, whose image is by far the most colourful.

John Beer

posted by astroimager  # 9:55 PM 0 Comments

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS: 30 minutes of 60s RGB subs taken with a William Optics 90mm Megrez doublet refractor fitted with a 0.6 x FR/FF. Data integrated and processed in Pixinsight using normal stacking method resulting in the nucleus/com being smeared somewhat due to the comet's movement over the period of capture.

M33: (Triangulum Galaxy) 7 hours of 5 minute LRGB/Ha subs taken with a William Optics 90mm Megrez doublet refractor fitted with a 0.75 x FR. Data integrated and processed in Pixinsight with RGB luminance and Ha data processed separately with continuum subtraction applied to the RGB data to better combine the Ha data with the resultant image then blended with luminance data. 

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 10:25 AM 0 Comments