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Re: Helix - 200 hours of data

Stuart Heggie <stuart.j.heggie@...>
 

Processing discussion aside, it is a pretty amazing looking shot! I too didn't appreciate this full extent of the Helix before. Alas, way too low for me to try for.


On Sun, 29 Sep 2019 at 23:12, slawomirlipinski@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
 

Hi all,


Sharing my latest narrowband image of the Helix, taken with my trusty Mach1 controlled by SGP - set up in the afternoon, polar align at dusk and pack up in the morning. Easy-peasy.


Some basic info:

 

-> The image is a blend of 0.55 HA_SNO + 0.1 HA_HNO + 0.35 HA_HSO. I know, not really scientific.

 

-> Integration (203 hours):

 

HA = 194 x 900s + 157 x 1200s
OIII = 124 x 900s
NII = 88 x 900s
SII = 167 x 900s + 22 x 1200s

 

-> 4" refractor, ICX 814, coastal location 20deg South of the Equator.

 

-> The background looks a bit gritty, but the data is extremely stretched, since background st.dev in all masters was only about 1 ADU.

 

Astrobin: https://www.astrobin...q9xl7a/?nc=user

 

High resolution: https://cdn.astrobin....6_wmhqkGbg.jpg


Thank you for looking

Suavi
Re: Helix - 200 hours of data

Roland Christen
 

That is pretty amazing! Never knew there was so much stuff surrounding the Helix.

Rolando



-----Original Message-----
From: slawomirlipinski@... [ap-gto]
To: ap-gto
Sent: Sun, Sep 29, 2019 10:12 pm
Subject: [ap-gto] Helix - 200 hours of data



Hi all,

Sharing my latest narrowband image of the Helix, taken with my trusty Mach1 controlled by SGP - set up in the afternoon, polar align at dusk and pack up in the morning. Easy-peasy.

Some basic info:
 
-> The image is a blend of 0.55 HA_SNO + 0.1 HA_HNO + 0.35 HA_HSO. I know, not really scientific.
 
-> Integration (203 hours):
 
HA = 194 x 900s + 157 x 1200s
OIII = 124 x 900s
NII = 88 x 900s
SII = 167 x 900s + 22 x 1200s
 
-> 4" refractor, ICX 814, coastal location 20deg South of the Equator.
 
-> The background looks a bit gritty, but the data is extremely stretched, since background st.dev in all masters was only about 1 ADU.
 
 

Thank you for looking
Suavi
Re: Mach2 – How far down the list?

Horia
 

This is great news, thank you Marj.

Kind regards,
Horia
Re: Helix - 200 hours of data

Bill Long
 

Share the unaltered masters if you are willing, would love to look at the data myself and chat with you offline about the best way to work with it. 🙂 

From: ap-gto@... <ap-gto@...> on behalf of slawomirlipinski@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...>
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2019 9:59 PM
To: ap-gto@... <ap-gto@...>
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Helix - 200 hours of data
 
 

Hi Bill,


Yes, I did 4 iterations on OIII and 5 on the rest of the channels. I did see the worms, and these were actually mostly generated by a light noise reduction. I could not find settings that would not introduce these artefacts.


Given that I wanted to show the faintest extensions which only registered less than 1 photon per hour of exposure, there was no way to hide these. Even though the background looks gritty, the data is very clean and st.dev for background in all masters is just under 1 ADU.


Thank you for pointing that out Bill, I may one day try to reprocess the Lum.
Re: Helix - 200 hours of data

slawomirlipinski@...
 

Hi Bill,


Yes, I did 4 iterations on OIII and 5 on the rest of the channels. I did see the worms, and these were actually mostly generated by a light noise reduction. I could not find settings that would not introduce these artefacts.


Given that I wanted to show the faintest extensions which only registered less than 1 photon per hour of exposure, there was no way to hide these. Even though the background looks gritty, the data is very clean and st.dev for background in all masters is just under 1 ADU.


Thank you for pointing that out Bill, I may one day try to reprocess the Lum.
Re: Helix - 200 hours of data

Bill Long
 

Did you use deconvolution on this? The background has wormy bits that are usually a dead giveaway that deconvolution was used and the algorithm set the globals incorrectly.  

From: ap-gto@... on behalf of slawomirlipinski@... [ap-gto]
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2019 8:11 PM
To: ap-gto@...
Subject: [ap-gto] Helix - 200 hours of data
 
 

Hi all,


Sharing my latest narrowband image of the Helix, taken with my trusty Mach1 controlled by SGP - set up in the afternoon, polar align at dusk and pack up in the morning. Easy-peasy.


Some basic info:

 

-> The image is a blend of 0.55 HA_SNO + 0.1 HA_HNO + 0.35 HA_HSO. I know, not really scientific.

 

-> Integration (203 hours):

 

HA = 194 x 900s + 157 x 1200s
OIII = 124 x 900s
NII = 88 x 900s
SII = 167 x 900s + 22 x 1200s

 

-> 4" refractor, ICX 814, coastal location 20deg South of the Equator.

 

-> The background looks a bit gritty, but the data is extremely stretched, since background st.dev in all masters was only about 1 ADU.

 

Astrobin: https://www.astrobin...q9xl7a/?nc=user

 

High resolution: https://cdn.astrobin....6_wmhqkGbg.jpg


Thank you for looking

Suavi
Helix - 200 hours of data

slawomirlipinski@...
 

Hi all,


Sharing my latest narrowband image of the Helix, taken with my trusty Mach1 controlled by SGP - set up in the afternoon, polar align at dusk and pack up in the morning. Easy-peasy.


Some basic info:

 

-> The image is a blend of 0.55 HA_SNO + 0.1 HA_HNO + 0.35 HA_HSO. I know, not really scientific.

 

-> Integration (203 hours):

 

HA = 194 x 900s + 157 x 1200s
OIII = 124 x 900s
NII = 88 x 900s
SII = 167 x 900s + 22 x 1200s

 

-> 4" refractor, ICX 814, coastal location 20deg South of the Equator.

 

-> The background looks a bit gritty, but the data is extremely stretched, since background st.dev in all masters was only about 1 ADU.

 

Astrobin: https://www.astrobin...q9xl7a/?nc=user

 

High resolution: https://cdn.astrobin....6_wmhqkGbg.jpg


Thank you for looking

Suavi
Re: Work In Progress: Gamma Cygnus Region in SHO (Experimental - C&C Welcome)

Ben Koltenbah
 

Thank you, Terri!
Re: Work In Progress: Gamma Cygnus Region in SHO (Experimental - C&C Welcome)

Terri Zittritsch
 

What a beautiful image.   I really like the intense vivid false colors of the narrowband images.   Everywhere you look in this image, there is some eye candy awaiting your glance.


Terri

On Sep 28, 2019, at 3:14 PM, benjamin.e.c.koltenbah@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:


Greetings!

I post this with some trepidation as I've been experimenting with color processing and enhancement of SHO data.  Sticking my neck out anyway, I'll ask for helpful comments and suggestions.

My subfolder link in the AP GTO folder:

Direct link to image in the folder:

AstroBin link for higher resolution:

This is very much a work in progress, but I've found this region to have so many interesting pieces that I wanted to process what I've got thus far and post it for your comments.  I assure you that I was not self-medicating on psychedelic substances while playing with ColorMask and CurvesTransform in PixInsight, but I was purposely pushing the envelope further than I normally do.  (Maybe I need to respect that envelope a bit more again?)  I left a twinge of my beloved green color, but made sure it did not overwhelm.

 

This is a two-panel mosaic around Sadr (Gamma Cygnus) taken with a Tak FSQ-106EDX4 and FLI ML16200 at 2.3 "/px on an AP Mach1GTO.  N is up, S down, W right, E left in the typical star almanac orientation, spanning about 20 min or 5 deg angle in RA and about 3 deg angle in DEC.  Sadr is the bright star just left of center.  I actually placed it dead center, but then discovered that this leaves a boring black nebula-less region along the left, so I cropped it a bit on that side.  The greater region about Sadr is IC 1318 or Sh2-108.  To the left is a nebula often called the Butterfly Nebula, although I've discovered there's a planetary nebula with that same name.  There is an open star cluster to the upper left, NGC 6910.  When I continue with this project (hopefully this same season), I'll do a better job researching the various parts of this image as I'm sure there are lots of other named places of interest present here.  Incidentally, the Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, which many of us are much more familiar with, is just a bit out of view below the bottom right corner of this image.  Another mosaic panel there would easily cover it.

 

As for the features of the Sadr Region, I have found lots of neat pieces that may be worth revisiting with a larger scope in the future.  I was surprised and fascinated by the system of tendrils to the center right, fainter at the bottom right, that are reminiscent of the Veil Nebula.  There are little "tadpoles" also on the right upper side, likely those dark gas areas typically hiding formation of young stars, where the gas has not yet been consumed or blown away.  Sadr appears to be illuminating the nebula region just below and to the left of it.  And then there's the general collection of higher density of SII along the top, OIII along the bottom right.  That was a pleasant surprise as I wasn't familiar with this area and had no expectations of what I'd be able to illuminate.

 

To date I have collected (S,H,O) = 900s x (12,13,42) = (3,3.25,10.5) hr.  This represents three nights, roughly 50/50% time on each of the panels.  One night I devoted entirely to the OIII channel, and I had planned to devote the next solely to SII, but then the clouds and rain rolled in.  And a month later they have not left yet.  As a consequence, I have much smoother OIII data, but the SII data is still quite noisy.  The Ha data could stand to have more integration time, but as usual it's the strongest data, so I plan to accumulate more of it after the SII.

 

Thanks for looking and reading, and I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

 

Best Regards,

Ben

 
Re: Mach2 – How far down the list?

Marj Christen
 

We just finished notifying the people on the Mach1 list and will start notification for the Mach2 list soon.

 

Clear Skies,

 

Marj Christen

Astro-Physics, Inc

11250 Forest Hills Rd

Machesney Park, IL 61115

Phone: 815-282-1513

Fax: 815-282-9847

www.astro-physics.com

 

From: ap-gto@... [mailto:ap-gto@...]
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2019 10:21 AM
To: ap-gto@...
Subject: [ap-gto] Mach2 – How far down the list?

 

 

I have registered myself on the notification list for the Mach2 sometime in April, shortly after Marj announced it to this group. On the Mach2 page, there is a message reading:

 

"We are presently notifying people who had signed up on the Mach1GTO list before it was closed."

 

Is this still up to date?

 

Kind regards,

Horia

 
Re: Howard and George Need Technical Support!!

DFisch
 

Steve, thanks also to you for such a nice “beginners lesson” on starting with luminance and working your way “up".  I have yet to tackle full time AP and have dabbled with stacked images as they continue to fascinate me as to how to add data to a point on a picture.  

I am so blessed to have taken up astronomy late in life just to find what a great hobby that it is.  I  have found, just like many, that this forum is an unbelievable resource with rich commentary.   I agree with Mike Hambrick that the tips and trick,  pearls and pitfalls that are presented in this forum could fill a book.   Rolands alone (aka Mr A-P) would fill one too…….oh….now I HAVE to buy THE BOOK.
 I am torn, I want Stowaways and Mach2’s to go out the door in Machesney Park ( note how even the A-P address has Mach in it) but then I want him to be at the keyboard filling pages with this unbelievable clear way he writes, teaches and spins a story.  Thanks to all at A-P ,  I have yet to find a cranky person to deal with.  What a great American success story.   Just dont get burnt out answering too many emails by the brain trust of George, Wayne, Mark, Roland, Daleen et al.   Crowd sourcing astronomy information should be a bit of an adventure.  Dont expect to be spoon fed, failure is inevitable.  

On Sep 29, 2019, at 9:32 AM, sreilly24590@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:


I have to agree with the comments about the printed/written documents. These are indispensable and if they can be downloaded and saved as PDF as many systems allow these days, they can be searched by keywords making in far easier to find specific information. That said it doesn’t hurt to have videos of topics that are particularly hard to understand subjects or techniques and you’d know by the number of questions you get. As far as the imaging side goes it really doesn’t play into your area as you deal with mounts and telescopes. It’s nice you would like to help but not what you’re there for. So having a list of reference material is a good idea. For those types of questions I’d refer them to the many forums about imaging that exist today as well as having them look for reference materials such as books. 

 

With the vast amount of different equipment available to the amateur astronomer these days their best bet is either an imaging forum or three or the maker of their cameras, filters, software. I agree that the subject is a bit overwhelming when 1st getting started but research should be done before jumping in. With the availability of data that can be downloaded these days and trial periods on software you can easily try processing before getting to deep. And knowing what software/hardware you should have to have success is good ahead of time. When I started it was getting polar aligned well, focusing very well, and then guiding well. Those were the very basics to get any reasonably decent data set. Of course the sky conditions play a huge role as well. Once you get there, not always so easy sometimes for the beginner, then you get into longer exposures and more data. 

 

When it comes to processing it all comes down to trial and error for the beginner or following a set procedure advised by experienced people on the forums and there will always be differences based on preferences. There are plenty of programs to do basic processing , and I always suggest doing luminance data only first as it’s the base of the image, and when you feel you’re getting the results you want start adding color data. Start with small projects and move up form there as you progress and expect it to take a good while and have some patience. It won’t happen in a week or 20. Look at it as learning a new technical art and the more you know about each component the better the chances of successes are. Each mechanical part plays a major role. Good tracking, well polar aligned, sharp focus (checked as needed for your telescope depending on mirror movement based on temperature changes), proper mounting of the imaging train……the list goes on. 

 

Plainly said it really isn’t your purpose to advise on such matters. I mean if you get an email form a customer and it contains an image of a single frame that clearly shows what is most likely a mechanical error then yeah I’d see you making suggestions on what to look for and check. I remember way back when I had my C11 and I was using my AP900. I posted some images and Roland asked me to post a single image of the group. He looked at the image and determined rather accurately that the secondary was pinched causing all kinds of problems. I took the telescope to the dealer and they made the repairs, under warranty. Without Roland’s input I would have never known. I thought I had a mount issue while all along it was the optics. After the repairs I sold the scope, of course I made sure it was proper first, and got my 1st RC. Would have preferred an AP scope but those weren’t any easier getting back then either. Point being if it doesn’t involve the mount or your AP telescope getting into a deeper non AP discussion isn’t really going to be practical.  What Roland did for me was show me where to look and what to do thus eliminating the mount in question. As usual I was amazed that Roland would take the time and interest to help me resolve this but then again his eyes and knowledge made it evident to him where I had no clue. 

 

Far more long winded then I expected………and for the record, you guys have the very best customer service in the industry as far as I’ve seen. Happy to be an AP customer…..and yes, I finally did get an AP scope, my new Stowaway.

 

 

-Steve

 

 

From: ap-gto@... <ap-gto@...> 
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2019 7:44 PM
To: ap-ug@...; 'ap-gto@...' <ap-gto@...>
Subject: [ap-gto] Howard and George Need Technical Support!!

 

  

Hi Gang!

How's this for a switch?!?!

George and I are getting more and more calls with general questions about imaging. As much as we both love assisting our customers, answering questions about cameras, image calibration and processing, other manufacturers' telescopes, we need to devote our time to subjects that are particularly our area of expertise.

So we are asking for help. In years past, I would have referred people to Ron Wodaski's excellent book: The New CCD Astronomy, but it is out of print and is also now a bit dated. (It is still a marvelous book, however!!)

Where can we send people - especially beginners - for help?
What are your favorite resources for imaging information? What are your favorite websites? Are there good resources in print? What about instructional videos? Where can beginners go to learn about things like dithering, sensor temperature, image scale, and the like?
Can we assemble a list of resources for our Astro-Physics family?

Speaking of information resources:
TO ALL of our imaging customers, we also STRONGLY recommend that you check out the Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC)! AIC will be held this year from Nov. 15 - 17 in San Jose, CA.
https://www.advancedimagingconference.com/?
This is an incredible resource for anyone interested in astro-photography. Not only will this year's workshops be outstanding as always, but attendance also gives attendees access to the conference library of previous sessions. The library contains many years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom, and is probably worth the price of admission even if you didn't attend.

May your skies be clear, dark and steady!

Howard Hedlund
Technical Support and Communication
Astro-Physics, Inc.
11250 Forest Hills Road
Machesney Park, IL 61115
Phone: 815-282-1513
Fax: 815-282-9847
www.astro-physics.com>
howard@...>
Please include this e-mail with your response.

[aplogo]

P Consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Mach2 – How far down the list?

Horia
 

I have registered myself on the notification list for the Mach2 sometime in April, shortly after Marj announced it to this group. On the Mach2 page, there is a message reading:

 

"We are presently notifying people who had signed up on the Mach1GTO list before it was closed."

 

Is this still up to date?

 

Kind regards,

Horia
Re: Howard and George Need Technical Support!!

Mike Dodd
 

So we are asking for help. In years past, I would have referred people
to Ron Wodaski's excellent book: The New CCD Astronomy, but it is out
of print and is also now a bit dated. (It is still a marvelous book,
however!!)

Where can we send people - especially beginners - for help?
Even though Ron no longer runs the ccd-newastro group on Yahoo, it is still active under a different owner, Dave Wormuth. <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ccd-newastro/>

Not a lot of activity, but a beginner might ask for help there.

Just a thought....

--
Mike

Mike Dodd
Louisa County, Virginia USA
http://astronomy.mdodd.com
Re: Howard and George Need Technical Support!!

Steve Reilly
 

I have to agree with the comments about the printed/written documents. These are indispensable and if they can be downloaded and saved as PDF as many systems allow these days, they can be searched by keywords making in far easier to find specific information. That said it doesn’t hurt to have videos of topics that are particularly hard to understand subjects or techniques and you’d know by the number of questions you get. As far as the imaging side goes it really doesn’t play into your area as you deal with mounts and telescopes. It’s nice you would like to help but not what you’re there for. So having a list of reference material is a good idea. For those types of questions I’d refer them to the many forums about imaging that exist today as well as having them look for reference materials such as books.

 

With the vast amount of different equipment available to the amateur astronomer these days their best bet is either an imaging forum or three or the maker of their cameras, filters, software. I agree that the subject is a bit overwhelming when 1st getting started but research should be done before jumping in. With the availability of data that can be downloaded these days and trial periods on software you can easily try processing before getting to deep. And knowing what software/hardware you should have to have success is good ahead of time. When I started it was getting polar aligned well, focusing very well, and then guiding well. Those were the very basics to get any reasonably decent data set. Of course the sky conditions play a huge role as well. Once you get there, not always so easy sometimes for the beginner, then you get into longer exposures and more data.

 

When it comes to processing it all comes down to trial and error for the beginner or following a set procedure advised by experienced people on the forums and there will always be differences based on preferences. There are plenty of programs to do basic processing , and I always suggest doing luminance data only first as it’s the base of the image, and when you feel you’re getting the results you want start adding color data. Start with small projects and move up form there as you progress and expect it to take a good while and have some patience. It won’t happen in a week or 20. Look at it as learning a new technical art and the more you know about each component the better the chances of successes are. Each mechanical part plays a major role. Good tracking, well polar aligned, sharp focus (checked as needed for your telescope depending on mirror movement based on temperature changes), proper mounting of the imaging train……the list goes on.

 

Plainly said it really isn’t your purpose to advise on such matters. I mean if you get an email form a customer and it contains an image of a single frame that clearly shows what is most likely a mechanical error then yeah I’d see you making suggestions on what to look for and check. I remember way back when I had my C11 and I was using my AP900. I posted some images and Roland asked me to post a single image of the group. He looked at the image and determined rather accurately that the secondary was pinched causing all kinds of problems. I took the telescope to the dealer and they made the repairs, under warranty. Without Roland’s input I would have never known. I thought I had a mount issue while all along it was the optics. After the repairs I sold the scope, of course I made sure it was proper first, and got my 1st RC. Would have preferred an AP scope but those weren’t any easier getting back then either. Point being if it doesn’t involve the mount or your AP telescope getting into a deeper non AP discussion isn’t really going to be practical.  What Roland did for me was show me where to look and what to do thus eliminating the mount in question. As usual I was amazed that Roland would take the time and interest to help me resolve this but then again his eyes and knowledge made it evident to him where I had no clue.

 

Far more long winded then I expected………and for the record, you guys have the very best customer service in the industry as far as I’ve seen. Happy to be an AP customer…..and yes, I finally did get an AP scope, my new Stowaway.

 

 

-Steve

 

 

From: ap-gto@...
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2019 7:44 PM
To: ap-ug@...; 'ap-gto@...'
Subject: [ap-gto] Howard and George Need Technical Support!!

 

 

Hi Gang!

How's this for a switch?!?!

George and I are getting more and more calls with general questions about imaging. As much as we both love assisting our customers, answering questions about cameras, image calibration and processing, other manufacturers' telescopes, we need to devote our time to subjects that are particularly our area of expertise.

So we are asking for help. In years past, I would have referred people to Ron Wodaski's excellent book: The New CCD Astronomy, but it is out of print and is also now a bit dated. (It is still a marvelous book, however!!)

Where can we send people - especially beginners - for help?
What are your favorite resources for imaging information? What are your favorite websites? Are there good resources in print? What about instructional videos? Where can beginners go to learn about things like dithering, sensor temperature, image scale, and the like?
Can we assemble a list of resources for our Astro-Physics family?

Speaking of information resources:
TO ALL of our imaging customers, we also STRONGLY recommend that you check out the Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC)! AIC will be held this year from Nov. 15 - 17 in San Jose, CA.
https://www.advancedimagingconference.com/?
This is an incredible resource for anyone interested in astro-photography. Not only will this year's workshops be outstanding as always, but attendance also gives attendees access to the conference library of previous sessions. The library contains many years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom, and is probably worth the price of admission even if you didn't attend.

May your skies be clear, dark and steady!

Howard Hedlund
Technical Support and Communication
Astro-Physics, Inc.
11250 Forest Hills Road
Machesney Park, IL 61115
Phone: 815-282-1513
Fax: 815-282-9847
www.astro-physics.com>
howard@...>
Please include this e-mail with your response.

[aplogo]

P Consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: AP V2 ascom driver freezes

Barnett Helzberg
 

thanks Ray!

I'll try some more direct connection methods to narrow down the problem.

It's a GTOCP3 box connected over a serial > usb cable to the Silex DS-600 which is wired to the observatory network an ethernet cable. My laptop has been connecting to the obs network over wifi. Kind a miracle it works at all with serial>usb>ethernet>wifi>laptop. 

I wish there were some kind of "connection stress test" I could use instead of waiting around for this intermittent problem to reveal itself.

Barnett 
Re: Gum 85 in HaRGB

slawomirlipinski@...
 

Thank you Stuart :-)
Re: Work In Progress: Gamma Cygnus Region in SHO (Experimental - C&C Welcome)

Ben Koltenbah
 

Thank you, Rolando and Stuart!

What I'd love to have is at least two more nights real soon to gather more SII and Ha data.  There are two nights coming up for me this next week, but unfortunately I'll be traveling over that time.  When I return it's back to clouds, rain and gloom.

Ben
APCC Standard to Pro Upgrade license key not working

Jim Windlinger
 

Has anyone had trouble upgrading their APCC Standard to Pro?  I have installed it per the instructions but cannot get past the licensing screen.  I can install the Standard version without issues.  I can install the trial version too without issues.  I suspect my license key has a problem.  My email field in the license was changed between the Standard and Pro versions due to a data entry error at AP.  That is the only thin I can think of that would cause a problem.

I will ask AP to regenerate the code when they open, but I am at my remote observatory now and would hate to waste my 200 mile trip if there is a simple solution that I am overlooking.
Re: Work In Progress: Gamma Cygnus Region in SHO (Experimental - C&C Welcome)

Stuart Heggie <stuart.j.heggie@...>
 

What Rolando said! Love it! 


On Sat, 28 Sep 2019 at 15:15, benjamin.e.c.koltenbah@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
 

Greetings!

I post this with some trepidation as I've been experimenting with color processing and enhancement of SHO data.  Sticking my neck out anyway, I'll ask for helpful comments and suggestions.

My subfolder link in the AP GTO folder:

Direct link to image in the folder:

AstroBin link for higher resolution:

This is very much a work in progress, but I've found this region to have so many interesting pieces that I wanted to process what I've got thus far and post it for your comments.  I assure you that I was not self-medicating on psychedelic substances while playing with ColorMask and CurvesTransform in PixInsight, but I was purposely pushing the envelope further than I normally do.  (Maybe I need to respect that envelope a bit more again?)  I left a twinge of my beloved green color, but made sure it did not overwhelm.

 

This is a two-panel mosaic around Sadr (Gamma Cygnus) taken with a Tak FSQ-106EDX4 and FLI ML16200 at 2.3 "/px on an AP Mach1GTO.  N is up, S down, W right, E left in the typical star almanac orientation, spanning about 20 min or 5 deg angle in RA and about 3 deg angle in DEC.  Sadr is the bright star just left of center.  I actually placed it dead center, but then discovered that this leaves a boring black nebula-less region along the left, so I cropped it a bit on that side.  The greater region about Sadr is IC 1318 or Sh2-108.  To the left is a nebula often called the Butterfly Nebula, although I've discovered there's a planetary nebula with that same name.  There is an open star cluster to the upper left, NGC 6910.  When I continue with this project (hopefully this same season), I'll do a better job researching the various parts of this image as I'm sure there are lots of other named places of interest present here.  Incidentally, the Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, which many of us are much more familiar with, is just a bit out of view below the bottom right corner of this image.  Another mosaic panel there would easily cover it.

 

As for the features of the Sadr Region, I have found lots of neat pieces that may be worth revisiting with a larger scope in the future.  I was surprised and fascinated by the system of tendrils to the center right, fainter at the bottom right, that are reminiscent of the Veil Nebula.  There are little "tadpoles" also on the right upper side, likely those dark gas areas typically hiding formation of young stars, where the gas has not yet been consumed or blown away.  Sadr appears to be illuminating the nebula region just below and to the left of it.  And then there's the general collection of higher density of SII along the top, OIII along the bottom right.  That was a pleasant surprise as I wasn't familiar with this area and had no expectations of what I'd be able to illuminate.

 

To date I have collected (S,H,O) = 900s x (12,13,42) = (3,3.25,10.5) hr.  This represents three nights, roughly 50/50% time on each of the panels.  One night I devoted entirely to the OIII channel, and I had planned to devote the next solely to SII, but then the clouds and rain rolled in.  And a month later they have not left yet.  As a consequence, I have much smoother OIII data, but the SII data is still quite noisy.  The Ha data could stand to have more integration time, but as usual it's the strongest data, so I plan to accumulate more of it after the SII.

 

Thanks for looking and reading, and I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

 

Best Regards,

Ben

 
Re: GTOCP4 and Keypad updates

jon swanson
 

Thanks Marj.  I also was able to get the update for the update for the CP4 to work via reloading the webpage for it and restarting.  I am waiting on the keypad for a bit until I get all the new stuff (software, camera) working 100% first.

I will sign up for the updates too.  For some reason, I did not even see the menu at the top.  I just kept looking at the menu on the left of the AP home page.  I am up to speed now.  

Thanks again!

Jon




On Saturday, September 28, 2019, 12:27 PM, Marj marj@... [ap-gto] wrote:

 

For the record, the technical support page can still be accessed from the Support tab on our website.

 

When the new keypad version is released, we will send a newsletter to anyone who has signed up for one on our website. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the newsletter sign up. We will also post the information on this group but you could miss it if you don’t keep up with the group posts.

 

 

Clear Skies,

 

Marj Christen

Astro-Physics, Inc

11250 Forest Hills Rd

Machesney Park, IL 61115

Phone: 815-282-1513

Fax: 815-282-9847

www.astro-physics.com

 

From: ap-gto@... [mailto:ap-gto@...]
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2019 1:16 PM
To: ap-gto@...
Subject: [ap-gto] GTOCP4 and Keypad updates

 

 

I have had my Mach 1 for 10 months and spent some time reviewing the instruction manual on how to update the items if one came through.  I don’t see an issue with it but the question I have is.....how do I know if I have the latest version?  And how do I acquire updates?  The manual said to go to the download page on the website which I don’t think is there anymore.  Also, I registered my products and have not received any emails stating there are updates.

 

Thanks for your help.  I have some computer time today with a new camera and wanted to be sure and get everything up to date.

 

Jon
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