SharpCap Forums

2019-02-10

William Optics 71mm f/5.9
Altair 290M camera (uncooled)
Optolong LRGB Filters
Unitron Model 142 GEM
The Flatinator
Passive tracking with PEC
No active guiding

Gain 200 (1.74 e-/ADU, FWD: 7100e-, Read Noise: 1.55e-)
Offset: 25 ADU
Exposure: Multiple
Camera rotation: 5 deg E of N

Lum: 72x 25s
Red: 30x 30s
Green: 30x 30s
Blue: 25x 36s

Flats: 100x per channel
Darks: 20x per channel
Bias: 100x all channels

Total integration time: 74 minutes
Total time at telescope: 122 minutes

SharpCap 3.1.5219
APP 1.071

Nice capture it is always amazing how many objects are up which is the great thing about this hobby as there is always something new to image or something that you can try to image better. Plus it definitely keeps the grey cells active and working.

Cheers
Nick

Thanks, Nick. I still have more imaging to do to bring down the noise level but the results so far are very encouraging.

I took a three month rest from imaging while I developed a "Flip-Flat" work-alike since I couldn't get myself to part with the $500 cost for the original. I ended up spending more on development but it was worth it. I can now mass-produce one a day if I choose to market it. I call mine The Flatinator.

What prompted me to do this? I wanted to do more LRGB but the number of steps involved with capturing calibration frames and lights was overwhelming to accomplish manually in a single evening. For a while I thought I'll simply spread imaging an object over four nights: one night for luminance, the second for red, etc. But then I realized that clear nights are hard to come by. Sometimes it takes well over a month to accumulate four nights. So that's when I decided that I needed to come up with an automated solution to get an entire LRGB sequence in one night because you never know when you'll get another chance.

I've had to rely on a lot of scripting to make this work. Thankfully I hear that Robin is working on this type of functionality in the next version of SharpCap. Hopefully I'll get another session of data for NGC 4565 in the next week or two. I'll post a new photo at that time. I've seen some really great photos of it but I figure I need five hours total.

Brian

Sounds interesting any photos of the Flatinator.

Cheers
Nick