Open Star Cluster NGC 1664 using a Newtonian Mask

[oopfan]

I had about an hour and a half before moonrise last night, so I checked the charts and discovered a neat star cluster in Auriga. I used the same setup as my M34 shot earlier that night. Again, my apologies for the sub-par tracking.

Details:
William Optics ZenithStar 71mm f/5.9
Atik 314E Mono CCD Bin 1
"The Flatinator" with Newtonian Mask
Wratten #12 filter (minus blue)
50x 85s lights
30x 85s darks
50 flats
50 bias

Please refer to my post on M34 using the Newtonian Mask:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3365

Please refer to my post on my Newtonian Mask for further information:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3364

You can read more about my use of the Wratten #12 in a future post.

Brian

NGC-1664_W12-50x85s_APP-CON0-G95-S15-3-25.jpg (975.89 KiB) Viewed 1219 times

[umasscrew39]

Agree- beautiful open cluster, Brian. I think I am on the fence with the diffraction pattern (twinkle stars) just like the star vs. starless-type images. I think my hesitation is that I really like one or two large stars in an image with the diffraction pattern as a nice touch but not the majority of them. Just an artistic preference for me but that is the fun part- to each his/her own. That is also why the NGC 1664 seems to be a good example of a nice touch with your "Flatinator" (LOL) with the Newtonina mask. Very clever on your part to do this and yes- sounds and looks much better than dental floss!

Need to see more images!!

Bruce

[oopfan]

Hi Bruce,

I do have control over it. I can lower the exposure and increase the frame count to maintain SNR. The bright stars in my M34 were heavily saturated so the spikes were more pronounced.

I was introduced to dental floss by Chuck Ayoub of "Chuck's Astrophotography" a couple years ago. By the end of the video, if I remember correctly, he wasn't too thrilled with it. He was partially to blame, though. He chose the Pleiades using a long exposure to pick up the nebulosity. The spikes on the stars nearly spanned the entire frame! Now, with what I know about SNR, I will choose a shorter exposure, and then make up for it in integration time.

Now, I just need to figure how to get color. I've got an idea. Something I will borrow from narrowband.

Thanks for your reply,
Brian

[oopfan]

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

NGC-1664_W12-50x85s_APP-CON0-G95-S15-3-25_filtered.jpg (389.5 KiB) Viewed 1197 times

[Menno555]

Cool tweak!
But question: why? Is this for aesthetic reasons or something else?
Of course depends on personal taste, for me it's like making it some kind of fairytale image.

Menno