Yet Another M42 via the STC-7 Widefield with a TMB-80/480 (f/6) of M42 and company. While more of a test of the scope+STC combo to see the effects of Petzval curvature will post results here. There is some star elongation in the corners as expected. A stack of two images that were stacked in the STC-7 consisting of 16 images each at 30 second subs. The Trap wasn't saturated but my failed processing blew it out. The second image is 16 images of 45 seconds each stacked via Maxim DL. The amount of post processing is much less than the previous image so one should not compare camera/PC stacking. ___ Tim
Great detail Tim. It is hard to spend longer processing an image than the time spent photographing it. But I definitely appreciate you showing me how the camera performs with a shorter focal length Clear slies. Ross
Thanks for the compliment Ross. The TMB 80 is an amazing scope and coupled with the STC-7 would make a great kit for mtn top astro-imaging. Best Regards, Tim
I love the mountain tops. I actually walked 1500 miles across the Patagonian desert and wrote a book Walking Patagonia: The Way... I had to use a pen name because I was too honest keep up the grest work.
Trip of a life time and a lady of a life time - a great trip! I ordered your book and look forward to reading it.
Tim was awesome enough to share some of his files with me. And this is my first time attempting to process a monochrome image. I did notice some halo, some of the halo is due to deconvolution which I was unable to perfect in my short time editing (been super busy with dad life, work life and publishing a new true short story about a recent adventure "The Double Slit Experiment: The Legend of Hare Mountain." However, around the brighter stars it was apparent in the subs as well. I am not sure if this is due to a relatively long exposure 180 seconds in the RGB (I think it had the 3 stack inside the camera making them 60 seconds) and I really have never done monochrome processing before so it is highly likely an error on my part, but I have the Atik Horizon color right now, and bright star problems is certainly something I want to get away from. Also, if I get this camera I plan to do very short exposures and utilize the in camera stacking to the max. I did an m13 photo with 5000 5 second photos and it took about 200gigs of space to process in DSS, so I dont have a problem with a ton of short exposures. Just want the best. Hopefully someone can tell me what I am doing wrong! and again, thank you so much Tim, it has been a blast having the chance to see your photos, and the detail you got on M42 is way better than I have gotten out of my Atik Horizon. I also got the colors all bad. After doing the photometric color calibration in PixInsight, I did background neutralization, and that messed it all up. I will make it better and post again soon.
Apologies for the delay - tied up!! I think the deconvolution was to strong and caused ringing around the stars. I tried some deconv but kept it weak and was able to make the dimmer star appear brighter. The brightest stars have reflections: CMOS chip to filter and back to the CMOS chip. I don't think this can be avoided. Even using Tech Pan, back in the day, it would show some of these effects due to the coating on the film. This link may help with PI and deconvolution: https://pixinsight.com/examples/M81M82/index.html On YouTube: "Cuiv, The Lazy Geek" has an interesting video about a quick M42 processing of the mono channel. Your work on M13 is very inspiring and once it's in better area of the sky I am going to give it a go using a Baader FFC operating at 3x. Will take advantage of StackPro in the camera. There is an interesting video from the AAVSO group about CCD Vs CMOS and also stacking with CMOS Vs CCD. I hope this helps... Best Regards, Tim
