The Rosette is not best placed for me now as it is moving into the sky-glow produced by the Manchester (UK) conurbation. My intent was to capture extensive nebulosity at the expense of star saturation (in the open cluster NGC2244). Full image here https://www.astrobin.com/393465/ .
Equipment: Altair 66ED refractor, Altair 183M camera, 0.8x reducer/flattener, Celestron AVX mount.
Software: SharpCap 3.2, FITS Liberator, SiriL 0.9.10, Gimp 2.10.
Capture: 20x180s, 20 darks, 100 bias, 100 flats. *Unguided*.
The black level setting of 30 in SharpCap was decided by taking single bias frames and using the minimum black level setting which gave a centralised/balanced histogram in FITS Liberator.
Mount alignment was achieved with polar scope, 2 alignment stars, 4 calibration stars and an All Star Polar Align. Focus was with a Bahtinov Mask.
SiriL: calibrate, register, stack frames, background extraction, apply histogram transformation and export to TIFF.
GIMP: Curves, levels, shadows-highlights, contrast, slight noise reduction.
If I get a chance, I will repeat this capture with the same exposure (maybe gain 400) but using an Ha filter.
Dave
[ALTAIRH183M]
Output Format=FITS files (*.fits)
Capture Area=5440x3648
Binning=1x1
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Colour Space=MONO12
Fan=On
Temperature=13
Black Level=30
USB Speed=1
Auto Exp Target=144
Frame Rate Limit=Maximum
Analogue Gain=200
Exposure=180000
Timestamp Frames=Off
Banding Threshold=35
Banding Suppression=0
Apply Flat=None
Subtract Dark=None
#Black Point
Display Black Point=0
#MidTone Point
Display MidTone Point=0.5
#White Point
Display White Point=1
TimeStamp=2019-02-26T19:54:53.9002407Z
SharpCapVersion=3.2.5926.0
NGC2244, Rosette Nebula, Altair 183M, 20x180s
Forum rules
Please upload large images to photo sharing sites (flickr, etc) rather than trying to upload them as forum attachments.
Please share the equipment used and if possible camera settings to help others.
Please upload large images to photo sharing sites (flickr, etc) rather than trying to upload them as forum attachments.
Please share the equipment used and if possible camera settings to help others.
Re: NGC2244, Rosette Nebula, Altair 183M, 20x180s
Pushing the 183M to the max!
Re: NGC2244, Rosette Nebula, Altair 183M, 20x180s
Pushing the imager to the max perhaps? The camera seems ok once a good combination of capture settings have been worked out. I must try for a longer integration time, maybe using the IDAS LPS P2 or Ha filter.