SharpCap Forums

Thanks, Bruce, but you know, it never fails, every step forward leads to more head scratching and then refinement. We, I mean "I", never seem to be happy with what I've accomplished. I thank you for your kind words!

Brian

Thanks, Dave. Something I noticed: The diffraction pattern depends on the filter as can be seen in the attachment. I am certain that this is due to the 2mm thickness of the Newtonian Mask's vanes. Long wavelengths (red) diffract more than short wavelengths (green), so red light does a better job of ...

aka NGC 869 + NGC 884 William Optics ZenithStar 71 Achromat Atik 314E Mono CCD GSO Wratten #12 Optolong Red and Green W12: 26x60s R: 70x60s G: 35x60s Color Combine: W12 => L 67% R => R 33% R + 33% G => G 67% G => B Post-process color calibration not needed due to balanced frame count (planned ahead ...

Hi Bruce, I very much appreciate your feedback. Very insightful. Today, I added the W12 frames that I captured last week with the color frames from the other night. According to my calculations it raised the total signal-to-noise ratio from 60 to 87. There is something interesting happening that I t...

No doubt, you will read this and ask yourself: Why? To answer that question, I must explain that I have an Achromat refractor, not an APO. The William Optics ZenithStar 71 was marketed as "APO-like", and the price point was good! Well, I discovered only later that a lot of people are unhap...

Exactly my thoughts!

Robin,

This filter would probably be helpful, but I would have to 3D-print a custom holder to fit my filter wheel.

Brian

Hi Robin,

I will look into a narrow blue filter, but the downside is the increased integration time needed for the blue stack.

Thanks for your help,
Brian

Hi Robin, Next opportunity, I will image M34 again, and capture a stack of W12, R, G, and B. First, I'll use APP to try to create a color image using W12 as L. Hopefully that will give acceptable results. Second, I'll borrow a technique from narrowband to create a bi-color image from two channels: 1...

Thanks for reminding me of NEAT, Dave.

Here is the same image of NGC 1664 as posted earlier, but now employing NEAT for noise reduction:

Brian