A Bit of Soul in The Universe

[Astrobdlbug]

I was trying to think of a way to include a reference to the legend that was Terry Pratchet and his novel Soul Music - but didnt really see this image as musical... anyway back to subject in hand.

 

Another smash and grab image - seems to be the way its going this season - App on phone all forcast clouds, but go outside with dogs and Oh !  look NO CLOUDS, quick to the bat cave (ok Skyshed POD), quick setup , like switch things on - select target - go through routine - slew/solve/focus/ - PHD2 connect, select star, calibrate, guide - about 10-15mins if all goes well.... Oh look CLOUDS...stop , wait,wait, start , stop,wait, start etc.... until the inevitable duvet of cloud cover crushes any hope that crystal clear inky black skies will ever return....

 

So Monday night was not quite as bad as that, but had 2-3hrs of potential - spoiler I lost an hour to focus issues as IC1871 is quite high so the load/weight on the focusser is nearly vertical and I got huge slippage - took me about an hour to resolve and tighten the two small allen headed grub screws on underside of focusser to incease the friction.

 

I managed to get 25 300s subs, thats 2hrs5mins

 

This was aquired with my ASI2600 OSC with Optolong L-Extreme dual band filter as the moon was around so went for narrowband target  rather than try any broadband RGB.

 

I have processed almost exclusively in PI, but hands up with only 2hrs integration I went nuclear on noise removal with Topaz.

 

Again this is native AT106EDT f/l with no FF/FR and I have corner star issues - probably tilt as I dont have any FF/FR back focus isn't in the frame for this (AFAIK, but any advice warmly accepted )

 

[paul]

For only 2hrs of data that is a credit to your skills. Some nice colour and detail there👍

[TerryMcK]

Very nice indeed. Topaz is good but I've found after a recent update has become much slower even on my Xeon equipped workstation.

[Astrobdlbug]

1 hour ago, TerryMcK said:

Topaz is good but I've found after a recent update has become much slower even on my Xeon equipped workstation.

Thats interesting- I’ve not noticed any performance change - but that’s probably because I built a beast of a PC over summer and loaded it with a NVidia RTX3060 GPU that topaz seems to love… Without stating the obvious programs like Topaz perform better with GPU processing as they operate using parallel execution of code rather than CPU which although generally have greater clock speeds execute code in serial. Topaz has setting to detect what GPU is available automatically- but I changed it so it’s forced to use the GPU - perhaps a tweak like that may improve performance on your PC

[AstronomyUkraine]

Great image Bryan, for so little integration time. A tribute to the ASI 2600 and your processing skills.

[TerryMcK]

1 hour ago, Astrobdlbug said:

Thats interesting- I’ve not noticed any performance change - but that’s probably because I built a beast of a PC over summer and loaded it with a NVidia RTX3060 GPU that topaz seems to love… Without stating the obvious programs like Topaz perform better with GPU processing as they operate using parallel execution of code rather than CPU which although generally have greater clock speeds execute code in serial. Topaz has setting to detect what GPU is available automatically- but I changed it so it’s forced to use the GPU - perhaps a tweak like that may improve performance on your PC

My GPU is a bit weedy. I have been trying to get a decent beefier video card for ages but they are really expensive now and in short supply probably due to the cryptocurrency miners.

[AstronomyUkraine]

39 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

My GPU is a bit weedy. I have been trying to get a decent beefier video card for ages but they are really expensive now and in short supply probably due to the cryptocurrency miners.

Not only are crypto miners the problem Terry, but also scalpers who are using bots to buy any stock as soon as it becomes available, then sell it on Ebay at inflated prices. An RTX 3080 retails for around $699 and are selling for nearly $2500 on Ebay.

[peter shah]

super image...even more so given the integration time

[Astrobdlbug]

2 hours ago, peter shah said:

super image...even more so given the integration time

Many thanks Peter - I was surprised I ended up with an image to post up, I am still re-orientating my expectations with this camera. I know from images posted elsewhere pairing the ASI2600MC with a fast reflector - e.g. Epsilon with F2.8 optics delivers stunning images with very short integration times - but that’s an expensive bit of optical kit - so getting this image with a F6.5 refractor is quite satisfying.

I also think processing the bi-colour into a false Hubble is also gives more impactful image than shades of red that is the raw output of pairing OSC with a dual band filter

 

Bryan

 

[MarkAR]

Very nice image, calming gentle colour scheme is really good.