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Equipment / Current experience

Scott Iver
in General
Hi all.

I'm thrilled to have found out about Adam's video instruction series, I thought it could be useful to have a way to reference where people are now (coming from) so that over the course of time we can chat about how we've improved, what we've found that works for us on our equipment etc.

So to get this party started...

I'm from the St. Louis MO area, and started with AP about a year and 1/2 ago.   My neighbor is an astrophotographer and I bumped into him at the local astronomy park one night.  I started taking my dad's old and rusted tripod and my Canon 70D out with him.   One of my first "keeper" shots was of the milky way, using an iOptron skytracker that I borrowed from him.  From there I started buying equipment both used and new, and here is my current list:

Cameras:  ZWO 1600mm-cool main imaging camera , ZWO 290mm Mini for Guiding  (still have the Canon 70D and am thinking of how to incorporate it again)
Filters/Wheel:  8 slot filter wheel for the main camera, I currently am using Baader Planetarium filters, LRGB Ha, Oiii, Sii, Hb.   I know that most don't use Hbeta, but I got it specifically for working on the Cygnus loop and Veil.  I have this mosaic dream in my head for that area... anyway I digress..

Scope:  Explore Scientific ED127 I got it used, but its in really good shape, it's the older white aluminum model.  Finder/Guide is a Stellavue 60mm

Mount:  Orion Atlas EQ, I got it used, there's quite a story behind this mount, to make it shorter I had it hypertuned I'm using a shoestring astronomy cable for direct mount to PC communications without the hand controller in the mix.

Focuser: Moonlight 

Field Flatener/Reducer : Explore Scientific 3" 

Dew Control : DewBuster with commercial heater strips for the objectives of the main scope and guide scope

Software I'm using or have available :  ASCOM (of course right), EQMOD, SGP (sequence generator pro) for data capture and control.  I'm also using Stellarium with Stellarium Scope, Astrotortilla and FireCapture when I do planetary (I know it's not the "right" equipment but it's a nice change of pace now and then).

For the processing side, PixInsight obviously, I've just recently started using it for my stacking more and more.  Deep Sky Stacker, I have the Adobe Photographer bundle that gives me Photoshop and Lightroom (I love classic for helping my stay organized).  I also have and sometimes still use StarTools (I started out using this for my processing).   I also have a mix of Autostackert, Registax, PiPP, etc.

Computers:  My imagine laptop is an ASUS with a 4 core (8 total) processor.  It was at one time considered a bit of a "gaming laptop".  My desktop where I do most of my processing is a custom built "game rig" type system with 8 core CPU, 32 Gb ram, two NVIDIA video cards and a solid state drive for windows.  What once was an OK gaming PC seems to be very good at image processing.   I've been much more wiling to "waste" compute time trying out crazy idea's in Pi than what I see in videos a lot of the time.

Personal wise I have two young children so I don't have nearly the amount of time I'd like to have for astroimagining, so I have to also maximize my efficiency when I do get to sit down to process the data.

I have most of my final images on AstroBin, which I really like for helping (forcing?) me to keep track of my capture details so that I have a reference for later.  It also allows me to "snoop" on how other folks accomplished certain images.

My ultimate goal - I'd like to have just one of my pictures hit an "image of the day" somewhere.

Comments

  • Scott Iver
    So I've probably only watched about 1/3 of the content in Fundamentals so far, and decided to go back to some old data and try re-processing it using some of the things I've learned so far.  Here are my two examples to date.

    I'm using Astrobin which allows for a "work in progress" version and a "final" version.   My new reprocessed images are in the final tab.

    These were originally processed using StarTools, Photoshop, and Lightroom.  I in NO WAY mean to say any of those software tools are "bad" or "lacking" in anyway, just to make that clear.   

    Both of these images were created using my Canon 70D, looking at the dates I think these would have been using an old Orion Starshoot autoguider setup, and my ES127 scope.  I did not own any flatener/reducer at the time, nor was my Atlas mount repaired back then.


    Andronmeda Galaxy (M31):  https://www.astrobin.com/354221/B/?nc=user

    I'll be purchasing Horizon's as soon as I get a bonus check from work!
  • Scott Iver
    and.. just re-watched the arcsinhStretch video and realized that I need to go back and take that path on my M31, I have a feeling it could be even better
  • Scott Iver
    Over new moon weekend I was able to get about 4 hours of data on M20.

    My first attempt at processing is here: https://www.astrobin.com/full/360970/0/

    This is the first image I've made since purchasing fundamentals, and it got 16 likes on AstroBin in under 12 hours so far.

    I think I have learned a few things and felt like sharing:

    If your doing monochrome, and you have to travel like I do, don't bother with Narrowband at the darksite.  In the time I took to gather the narrow band subs I could have been getting more Lum and RGB data.  LRGB are far more affected by light pollution than narrowband is.  Spend your travel darksite time on the LRGB and add in any Narrowband you get from home as "icing on the cake".  (since I have it I'm going to start working on a narrowband only version of this image as well for comparisons)

    Figuring out YOUR hardware and software is by far the most valuable thing I've spent time on.  And I do mean your individual particular camera, mount, etc.   My 1600mm-cool *should* behave like any other off the factory line, but in practice I don't see this being the case.  You'd think that I could swap dark files with my buddy who owns the exact same camera, but you can't.  Each one has a "personality" to it, so embrace it.  Learn from others, but know that doing exactly what they did doesn't mean you'll get the exact same results.  Same with PixInsight, your data won't be exactly the same as anthers, so Adam's video's have been invaluable learning aids for me.  Adam takes the time not only to explain what something does, but he SHOWS you how it works.  I've advanced farther in Pi in the last week than I have in the last year.

    Yet another area I seem to be getting "schooled" in all the time is acquiring the data.  "Garbage in Garbage out" as they say (although with Adam's techniques you can save a lot of data that would have normally been called "garbage" before!).  Going to know Gain and Offset vs ISO / monochrome CMOS vs DSLR has been a fun challenge, yet still frustrates.
  • Robert Yount
    Nice M20 Scott. Keep it up. :)
  • Scott Iver
    Thank you! Much appreciated. I recently completed a 2 panel mosaic of the Flame and Horsehead nebulas.

    https://www.astrobin.com/full/384737/0/?real=&mod=

    I’d appreciate any feedback I can get for improvements.
  • Scott Iver
    edited May 2019
    I recently participated in Chilescope's processing contest.  I did not win but it gave me some valuable lessons learned.  It also introduced me to the concept of purchasing telescope time from a remote site to acquire data.

    Here is my NGC5128 - Centaurus A : 


    The moon was at 66% and I ended up doing two applications of DBE to deal with the gradients.  I ended up blowing out the fine details in the galaxy by over-pushing noise reduction,  I plan to reprocess this again.

  • Scott Iver
    I decided to share my processing contest entry on Astrobin.

    Here is the link:  https://astrob.in/406042/0/

    I think I lost because I did not double check the image at 1:1 and I ended up with some dark rings around stars after deconvolution.
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