Date
1 - 20 of 21
C/2022 E3 ZTF
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midmoastro
Up at 3:30am to try my hand at this. Had a few passing clouds and a somewhat bright moon but overall not too bad. 30x90" using the Takahashi FC-100DZ @ F/5.3 and the Mach2GTO Larger size here: https://www.astrobin.../full/zijv1i/0/ |
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Super Todd,
I may give this a try this weekend. I guess they are 90 second exposures. I see the stars look round. Are you guiding the comet using horizons or the stars as you normally would do? Very exciting to have a new comet to observe and image. |
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wow great capture todd! On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 10:44 AM midmoastro <teche70@...> wrote:
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Brian Brian Valente astro portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/ portfolio brianvalentephotography.com |
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“Not too bad” 😆😆
That’s a great shot, Todd! Karen AP
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>
On Behalf Of midmoastro
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2023 12:44 PM To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Subject: [ap-gto] C/2022 E3 ZTF
Up at 3:30am to try my hand at this. Had a few passing clouds and a somewhat bright moon but overall not too bad. 30x90" using the Takahashi FC-100DZ @ F/5.3 and the Mach2GTO Larger size here: https://www.astrobin.../full/zijv1i/0/ -- Karen Christen Astro-Physics |
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midmoastro
Emilio, yes I used 90" at 528mm FL. I think it's picking up speed so you may have to check or alter that exposure.
Thank you Todd |
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midmoastro
Thank you Brian, thank you Karen. It's better than some of my earlier stuff. Always trying to work on improvements.
Todd |
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So you are guiding on the stars and keeping the exposures short so the stars don't get out of whack? I guess an alternative way is to guide on the comet using Horizons and let the stars elongate. I like the image very much. Thanks |
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midmoastro
I used Horizons to guide on the comet. I tried 120" but the stars were trailing. 90" had just an ever so slight amount of trailing but you had to get near 100% to tell.
Thank you Emilio, much appreciated. Todd |
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Todd did you separate the comet and stars and process them separately? Those are pretty round stars for comet tracking rate On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 11:04 AM midmoastro <teche70@...> wrote: I used Horizons to guide on the comet. I tried 120" but the stars were trailing. 90" had just an ever so slight amount of trailing but you had to get near 100% to tell. --
Brian Brian Valente astro portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/ portfolio brianvalentephotography.com |
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midmoastro
Brian, yes I did separate and recombine them. I also hit it with BXT to try and tighten those stars just a bit. Without BXT, the stars averaged out nicely though.
Todd |
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Great Details on the acquisition. Congratulations on one of the first nice images I have seen on this object. |
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Todd,
I have not had much success with either PixInsight or APP in getting comet images to show like you have demonstrated here. Any suggestions/hints on what you did to get this really nice result? I tried last night (early this morning) but clouds moved in and I only got about 15 subs. I was using 120sec exposures, and I didn't use Horizons on this attempt - plan to next clear night.
Mikey
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toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Tue, 10 Jan 2023 at 13:44, midmoastro <teche70@...> wrote:
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midmoastro
Happy to assist if I can but I still feel like a "newb" to be honest. What I describe below may or may not be the correct way, its just what I have gathered here and there and experimented with.
I use PI and run my images through WBPP first. When finished, you can use one of the Master files from WBPP for the star stack image. Follow your normal processing to remove any gradients, etc., then color balance, stretch, and remove the stars. Use comet alignment tool to align the comet images, then run those through Image Integration to produce a comet stack image. When using Image Integration, you will have to try your best to remove trailing stars at this step by using your choice of rejection algorithm. Since it wont full remove everything, you have to use clone stamp to remove/blend some of the artifacts. Once you get it best you can, combine the images using Pixel Math. I hope this helps get you started, Mikey. Thanks for the nice comments. Todd |
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Todd: Thanks for the help. I follow that process pretty much the same, but I bet I didn't use the correct rejection algorithm, or I didn't set the parameters properly. I'll give it another go. Now all I have to do is wait for the clouds to go away :)
Mikey
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One thing I found helpful for star rejection when doing the comet integration part is to have some delay time between exposures. For example, 90 second exposure, 90 second wait, repeat through night This helps with star rejection when doing the comet alignment because otherwise the stars end up as streaks and they aren't easily rejected. On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 12:31 PM Michael 'Mikey' Mangieri <mjmangieri@...> wrote:
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Brian Brian Valente astro portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/ portfolio brianvalentephotography.com |
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”What I describe below may or may not be the correct way, its just what I have gathered here and there and experimented with.”
If it works, then it is the correct way. :-) That large Astrobin image is really super nice Todd. I’ve been looking at the Tak. FC-100DZ for a few months. I’m pretty sure that I need one… -- Dean Jacobsen Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/ |
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midmoastro
Thank you Dean, There are some artifacts if you look close but I think I've figured out how to solve those.
I still have a few things to figure out for comet processing that I dont currently like but I'm further along than I was :-) My Tak really is a nice scope for a doublet. Correction appears excellent to me. That said, if my name comes up on the 110GTX list, the Tak will likely be replaced or retired for the most part. Todd |
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Nick Iversen
> 90 second exposure, 90 second wait, repeat through night
Why not keep imaging and just stack every second exposure and do it twice? Else you are wasting half the night. |
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yes you can do that, absolutely. I was just keeping it simple, but you're right you can do that and probably end up with 3 passes in post processing (2 for comet, 1 for stars) On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 3:17 PM Nick Iversen <inoddy@...> wrote: > 90 second exposure, 90 second wait, repeat through night --
Brian Brian Valente astro portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/ portfolio brianvalentephotography.com |
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