SharpCap Forums

Well, it finally stopped raining for a while and the sky cleared, which was just as well as it was getting to the point where I thought I might need to dust up on my carpentry skills and start collecting pairs of animals just to be on the safe side

The sky behaved particularly well and stayed stable with good guiding so just waiting for the stars to align and my lottery numbers to come up next.

The image is 72 x 5min subs so a total of 6 hrs of integration, there was no moon on the night which also makes a change from usual my sky is Bortle 5 and the images were captured using the Antlia Quad band filter and my Starfield Gear70Q F5 scope as I wanted a bit of a wider field to capture some of the nebulosity around the main event were my APM LZOS 130.780 even with the reducer only just fits the Rosette on the sensor of the ASI2600MC Pro.

As usual all frames were captured via SharpCap and then the raw frames processed through PixInsight and then stars and nebula combined within Affinity Photo, it was slightly painful as the PixInsight trial licence had expired so had to cough up for a full licence.


25.12.19 Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237-9, 2244). by Nick Davis, on Flickr

Kit used
Imaging kit : Starfield Gear70Q 70/350 Petzval, ZWO EAF + CAA, ASI2600MC-Pro + Antlia Quad Filter
Mount : M-UNO Synscan
Guide : APM-LZOS 130/780 + 0.75x MR flattener/Reducer, + Esatto 4" Focuser, Altair 290M guide camera
Software: SharpCap, GSS Mount control software, PHD2, Stellarium, PixInsight, Affinity.

Thanks for looking.

Have a safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year in case we do not get any more clear skies between now and then.

Cheers
Nick

Nick

Some good detail in the nebula. You might find this interesting viewtopic.php?t=8347, captured with an Antlia quadband filter.

Dave

Hi Dave,
Yep getting better with Pixinsight although still a lot to learn, interesting read in the other topic although I tend to stick to predefined times rather than calculating exact values as it better suits my workflow and methodology for the scripts I have. so I usually pick one of four 60s, 90s,180s or 300s. This is usually based on brightness of the object so for Orion anything over 60s is pointless as the trapezium has gone or time available on target or weather which ever cock's things up first .

May look at the Antlia ALP-T 3nm Ha OIII and SII OIII next year plus a filter wheel as with those I can do true HSO palettes were as at the moment SII is in with Ha in the Quad band filter but want to try the quad out on andromeda out of curiosity and later in 2026 try the new Gear70Q on Markarian's Chain as it will give a good wide shot, have you noticed there is always something else with astrophotography to spend money on.

Cheers
Nick