M78, Meh

[bladekeeper]

Clearish last night.

Actually, it was mostly clear the night before. I set up the AVX with the ES ED80 DeskLamp and nabbed some 3-minute frames on M78. My focus was very soft on that one, especially as the temperature dropped during the course of the evening. A pretty trashy image. I may tweak it some more, but it will likely hit the dust bin.

Again, clearish last night. This time I swapped the ASI294MC Pro over to the SV102T and saddled her up. This time I went for 60×5m frames. I kept it going until almost 2 AM this morning. I kept having to pause the capture due to PHD2 chiming at me for wandering cloud bands. The humidity was ramping up hard too.

I got done with the lights capture and packed up and went to bed about 0230 hrs. The alarm went off at 0600, so I got up, put the scope and laptop on the back porch, cooled the cam down to capture temp and commenced my darks capture. I let that run until done. I was at work about the time that finished, so I remoted into the PC with my iPhone and shut the cam off.

At lunch, I captured my flats and dark flats.

I think I stacked 48 lights along with darks, flats, dark flats, and bias via DSS, and StarTools to process. This is the fourth iteration of processing. I was hoping to get some more data this evening but the sky is even more trashy tonight so I didn't bother setting up.

I will likely add more to it if/when another opportunity presents itself.

[SKEtrip]

Your dust bin looks better than my "wall hangers"
Great capture Bryan, thanks for the share.

[Graeme1858]

That's a lot of work for a work night! And a lovely image as a result.

Have a good Christmas.

Regards

Graeme

[MariusD69]

Wonderful! Well done, Bryan! Merry Christmas!

[Juno16]

Great image Bryan!

As Graeme said, it is a lot of work for a work night!

Merry Christmas!

Jim

[ic_1101]

Very nice capture Bryan!

Merry Christmas!

[bladekeeper]

Thanks a bunch, friends, and a Merry Christmas to all as well!

[j.gardavsky]

Hello Bryan,

not just a meh, but hallelujah to your capture of the reflection nebulae in Orion!
A real keeper!

Merry Christmas,
JG

[bladekeeper]

Hello Bryan,

not just a meh, but hallelujah to your capture of the reflection nebulae in Orion!
A real keeper!

Merry Christmas,
JG

Hahaha! Thanks, JG!

[Hankmeister3]

Now that's really nice, Bryan. I've never tried to image M78 but you've just inspired me to do just that. I really like the colors. I assume that's pretty much "real" color. Nice dust, too. Sweet!

Yeah, sometimes I find myself refocusing several times throughout a five hour photo session because of the crazy temperature gradients which horse up the focal lengths due to shrinkage of components now. A Bad mask gets me close but I've found my spiders and then the actual shape and size of the brighter stars with the 10x magnifier engaged on my Canon LCD gets me even closer. Sometimes I use an 8x eye loupe on top of that! This especially works with my APO refractors.

Merry Christmas to you and yours Bryan. Looks like you've been a busy man this deep into the year. BTW, did you happen to capture Rudolph's red nose last night? Heh!

[bladekeeper]

Now that's really nice, Bryan. I've never tried to image M78 but you've just inspired me to do just that. I really like the colors. I assume that's pretty much "real" color. Nice dust, too. Sweet!

Yeah, sometimes I find myself refocusing several times throughout a five hour photo session because of the crazy temperature gradients which horse up the focal lengths due to shrinkage of components now. A Bad mask gets me close but I've found my spiders and then the actual shape and size of the brighter stars with the 10x magnifier engaged on my Canon LCD gets me even closer. Sometimes I use an 8x eye loupe on top of that! This especially works with my APO refractors.

Merry Christmas to you and yours Bryan. Looks like you've been a busy man this deep into the year. BTW, did you happen to capture Rudolph's red nose last night? Heh!

Thanks, Henry!

Yeah, that's pretty much "real" color. I didn't play with the color balance at all, I just accepted what was pulled out. I was trying to balance noise with dust there. I would like to add another 40 or 50 subs to the stack but I don't think the sky is gonna play nice for a few more days.

I had a really good bat mask that someone 3D printed for me and I really liked it. Unfortunately, I left it on the back porch one day and someway, somehow, the darn thing melted and warped severely. Not sure how that happened. Anyway, the "store-bought" replacement is a bit tougher to use. I do like the auto-focus routine in NINA in conjunction with the ZWO EAF. That works wonderfully for deep sky applications.

Merry Christmas to you and yours as well, Henry!

I did not catch Rudolph's red nose, but I did catch the green running lights on the sleigh in one frame:

[chartram]

Nice shot Bryan and Merry belated Christmas!

One thing I learned from the OSC days is that there is no substitute for more data and tight focus. Keep on it and it will only get smoother and more colorful. Looks great as is, really liking watching your images- they get better & better every time!

Mike

[bladekeeper]

Nice shot Bryan and Merry belated Christmas!

One thing I learned from the OSC days is that there is no substitute for more data and tight focus. Keep on it and it will only get smoother and more colorful. Looks great as is, really liking watching your images- they get better & better every time!

Mike

Thanks, Mike, and Merry Christmas to you as well!

I'm really wanting to add more data but the darn sky just won't play nice.

I need to go back and be a little more aggressive on culling the lower quality frames prior to stacking. I was in a bit of a lunch rush when I did this one. I think I let a few "cloudy" ones into the mix. Tracking was pretty darn rough that night too.

Ah well, if you don't feel like you have a set of vice-grips clamped to your bottom lip, it's just not AP.