IC 405 Flaming Star Nebula

[rjbokleman]

IC 405 Flaming Star Nebula / Caldwell 31 / SH 2-229 / AE Aurigae

Rather quiet in this group of late and I'm sure the reason has been the weather. I started working on this in early January and didn't get all the RGB I was looking for, but this was another attempt at Ha+RGB and using the Ha as the L channel.

It's also the first image using the Rigel nStep motorized focuser. A real joy!


Ha+RGB


Ha Only

Details on Astrobin.

[bluemax]

Ron, thanks for another screen saver! I have quite a collection from the great imagers in the group. I really like the crisp stars in this one, keep'em comming!

[menardre]

Ron

Very impressive photo. The details are amazing. As a beginner in astrophotography I am overwhelmed at the amount of time and effort is required. I saw how many pictures you took, over several nights just to get one really great final photo. As a beginner, I try to keep my efforts to a single night .... I am not at all sure how to gather data on subsequent nights and have them all align properly. Maybe someday I will advance to more complicated scenarios.

Roger

[rjbokleman]

Roger,

It took me months of fooling around with most everything from BackyardEOS/BackyardNikon, to Nebulosity, MaximDL, Prism, to Sequence Generator Pro (SGP) trying to narrow down an image acquisition application that would work for me.

BackyardEOS/Nikon was a great place to start as the application is inexpensive and worked well...up to the point where I realized I needed to get back on target in the same location, same camera angle, center the target, over the course of many nights.

I used Nebulosity for image processing as it was simple as straight forward and taught me all about Bias, Dark, Light, Flat frames (Debayering, what's that?) and did a reasonable job. Just like ImagesPlus is doing for you now.

Later, I forced myself to nail down SGP for two main reasons:

Plate Solving: I needed a way to have the camera take an image and then tell the telescope mount where to point to center my target in the camera frame. This is basically what Plate Solving is. The image is run through a database of known objects in the sky and the solver basically creates a pointing model for the mount to say...you need to move this much in RA/DEC to be pointing at the target. SGP can use PinPoint or PlaneWave PlateSolve 2, and for totally blind solving (no RA/DEC hint) http://astrometry.net which can be run locally on your laptop. Getting this going can be a challenge as there are number of concepts that are needed to be understood like FOV/Pixel/ArcSec of your scope/camera combination. Once you nail it, then you don't even need to align your mount anymore! That's a huge relief.

Framing / Mosaic Wizard - All this does is let you, offline, enter a target you'd like to image, say M81. It will go to DSS and grab an image. Present your FOV combination for your telescope/camera combination and let you drag a square box around M81 that represents the actual picture it will take. Then you save off the sequence in SGP. When you start that sequence for that target...the scope slews to the target, does a plate solve to center, and will even check the camera angle/rotation to be sure you're at 90 degrees. Then off you go!

The beautiful part is I can do all of that ahead of time during the day. Have the sequence ready to go and then it takes me 10 minutes to start taking my first image. It also puts me back where I was, night after night, after night in the exact same place to continue so I can acquire many nights of data.

Last, but not least, once I exhausted what I could do with Nebulosity, I then took the next major step to PixInsight for processing taking what I learned from Nebulosity with me.

[Chuck]

Hi Ron:

What can I say except WOW, very impressive image. The detail is awesome and I love the color in this one.

I do have a question about your Orion StarShoot Pro Mono guide camera. When used with your Celestron OAG on the 8" EdgeHD, do you have a feel on what the faintest guide star magnitude you'd be comfortable to use for guiding? The reason I'm asking is that I'm looking to purchase that same OAG but undecided on which guide camera to get. I have been looking at the QHY5L-II-M, which I think is the same as your Orion camera, but not sure if I need something more sensitive. Thanks.

---- Chuck

[rjbokleman]

Ron, thanks for another screen saver! I have quite a collection from the great imagers in the group. I really like the crisp stars in this one, keep'em comming!

Frank,

Thanks! My stars are slowly getting better. Less blown out and smaller in size. The motorized focuser helped a great deal with this one I think.

[rjbokleman]

Hi Ron:

What can I say except WOW, very impressive image. The detail is awesome and I love the color in this one.

I do have a question about your Orion StarShoot Pro Mono guide camera. When used with your Celestron OAG on the 8" EdgeHD, do you have a feel on what the faintest guide star magnitude you'd be comfortable to use for guiding? The reason I'm asking is that I'm looking to purchase that same OAG but undecided on which guide camera to get. I have been looking at the QHY5L-II-M, which I think is the same as your Orion camera, but not sure if I need something more sensitive. Thanks.

---- Chuck

Thanks, Chuck.

The last two nebula ... were far to 'Red'. Still learning how to do these blends with PixelMath in PixInsight w/wo 'Lum' frames.

The QHY5L is sensitive. I only have the gain set @ 5% and the silly thing picks plenty of stars in either guide scope. The ASI120MM/S uses the same chip and I have both. In fact, its very, very easy to saturate this guy with PHD2.

I use the Orion version (QHY5L) in the Orion 162mm guide scope and the SV60EDS @ 5% gain, 1x1 bin. I used the Orion (QHY5L) in the COAG w/8EdgeHD at 40% gain, but 2x2 bin. Worked very well and was able to pick up stars easily after some trial and error learning how to use the COAG. I think Andy and a few others helped me on that aspect and the 2x2 bin was key.

I now have an ASI120MM-S to compliment this setup. It was annoying to have to move the Orion/QHY5L from setup to setup and refocus all over again. So due to the USB cable exiting from the rear in a straight line from the camera...the QHY makes an ideal unit for guide scopes. Cable management is easier.

The ASI120MM/S USB comes off the back 90 degrees making it more ideal for my COAG/8EdgeHD setup as the 90 degrees then puts it inline with rest of my cables. The ASI120MM/S was on sale for like $40.00 off plus I had another 2% discount offer from Highpoint Scientific at Christmas, so I pulled the trigger.

With Galaxy season just around the corner...I plan on shooting M81/M82 (like Roger) the first target I every tried using my AT130EDT and maybe M101, then switching to the 8 EdgeHD for several months picking off these galaxies in Leo and others. So we'll see how the ASI120MM/S works, but given my experience with ZWO and the ASI1600MM-C, I think it will be a great little setup that I won't have move again.

[Apollo XX]

Um, is it ok to just chime in here and say "nice image"?

[menardre]

Ron

Thanks for the description of how you acquire your images and keep them centered from night to night.

I have SGP but currently use Images Plus for my camera control. I plan on practicing with SGP to become more familiar with it.

My next step is to take photos using my CPC1100 Edge and a focal reducer. Once I am comfortable with that, I will add autoguiding. I have a Lodestar, and have used with PHD2 to monitor tracking and fine-tune polar alignment. I am holding off on using the autoguider until I am proficient with taking exposures without autoguiding.

Thanks for your advice,

Roger

[rjbokleman]

Roger,

Sounds like a good plan.

The challenge I had with a DSLR and SGP initially was the lack of focus routine like BackyardEOS/Nikon have. BYE/BYN have a 'Live View' where you can actually SEE the FWHM numbers dynamically change (up/down) as you change focus on the scope. It's a REALLY nice feature that many have asked for from SGP.

With SGP I ended up using a Bahtinov mask with the DSLR or using BackyardEOS/BYE (Canon T5i in my case) as a focusing tool first. Closed BYE, started up SGP to run my sequence after I was in focus.

SGP doesn't have a focus routine other than trial and error shots with Frame & Focus and that get tedious quickly. For CMOS/CCD cameras and a motorized focuser it works great, but it took me another 12 months to get to that point.

Not sure about ImagesPlus and what focusing mechanisms they have, but something to be aware of.