Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

A Panasonic Lumix DMCFZ72, 60x optical zoom bridge camera fitted with an ICE ND100000 solar filter and mounted on a static tripod was used to capture 153 images of the Sun at ISO 100 and 1/1000s through clouds. The images were precisely cropped/aligned in Nicola Mackin's AstroCrop before being Stacked in Siril, wavelet processed in waveSharp and post processed in the Gimp 2.10.

Click on the image to get a closer view

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager  # 3:36 PM 0 Comments

Some 1,059 images were taken with a QHY5P colour camera using Astro DMx Capture through a Herschel Wedge which was fitted to a Celestron C70 travel scope mounted on an MSM tracker. 50% of the images were stacked in Autostakkerrt! and then wavelet processed in Registax with final processing done in Adobe CS2.

Click on an image to get a closer view

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 3:32 PM 0 Comments

M38 LRGB: Just over an hour of data was collected during partially clear conditions on the morning of the 10th February using an ASI 533MM Pro camera attached to an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR. 

The data was acquired in NINA using 2 minute subs and due to clouds was mainly un-guided. The data was integrated/processed in Pixinsight with final adjustments made in Adobe CS2. 

Click on the image to get a closer view

M38

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 3:28 PM 0 Comments

Here's another image from Portugal, the Flaming Star nebula. Imaged over two nights, total time, 8 hours in 5 minute subs, 48 subs each of Ha/O3 and S2/O3. Again I imaged all through the nights.

Stacked and processed in Pixinsight, one image is in the Hubble palatte with some green removed, the other is using the Foraxx palatte, which I rather like. I downloaded a script in PI to do the actual combination. I did discard the Foraxx stars and used HSO stars instead.

Click on an image to get a closer view

The Flaming Star nebula (Hubble palette)

The Flaming Star nebula (Foraax palette)

Anne Startup

posted by astroimager  # 5:08 PM 0 Comments

Here's a SHO image of the Christmas Tree and a HSO image of the Cone Nebula. Both using the same data but I turned the Christmas Tree upside down! I feel both are equally valid.

96 x 5 subs using an ASI533 with the ha/o3 and s2/o3 ultranarrowband filters, the Altair 70EDT refractor on my CEM40 mount. I let the setup run overnight so I had 8 hours of data the following morning. Sequence Generator Pro ran on my mini pc autonomously and stopped the mount once the sequence was finished.

Stacked and Processed in Pixinsight, I then split the colour channels and used the blue and green channels from each filter to produce a o3 channel. I then recombined them. BlurXterminator, StarXterminator and NoiseXterminator, were used before narrowband neutralisation and HDR on the extracted luminance image. After recombining the lum image I returned the stars using pixel math.

posted by astroimager  # 3:02 PM 0 Comments

 Prof Nik Whitehead (University of Wales Trinity St David) gave a fascinating and illuminating lecture on getting payloads into orbit. She covered types of orbits and in detail what is required to get into orbit. Different technologies were explained and the lecture was followed by a lively discussion.

posted by astroimager  # 11:00 PM 0 Comments

Here's last night's capture of the Pleiades, M45, using the ASI533 OSC, Altair Starwave 70EDT on the CEM40 mount. I just used a uv/ir cut filter.

101 x 2 minutes subs. Stacked and processed in Pixinsight. I tried to use a light touch with this data. Processes used were, SPCC, BlurXterminator then Masked stretch StarXterminator, NoiseXterminator and then HDR at a very high level to sharpen the nebulous areas. There are hints of the background nebulosity as well as the well-known nebula that the Pleiades can be seen through. A light application of unsharp mask to finish.

Click on the image to get a closer view

Pleiades, M45

Anne Startup

posted by astroimager  # 8:18 PM 0 Comments

A Panasonic Lumix DMCFZ72, 60x optical zoom bridge camera fitted with an ICE ND100000 solar filter and mounted on a static tripod was used to capture 136 images of the Sun at ISO 100 and 1/400s through clouds. The images were precisely cropped/aligned in Nicola Mackin's AstroCrop before being Stacked in Siril, wavelet processed in waveSharp and post processed in the Gimp 2.10.

Click on the image for a closer view

AR 3576 and 33571 are prominent in this image

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager  # 6:14 PM 0 Comments

My reprocessed wide field image of the Garnet star region in Cepheus, taken with my Rokinon 135mm prime lens at f/2.8 mounted on a 1300D DLSR Canon camera. The camera was mounted on a Star Adventure 2i pro tracking mount.The image is a stack of 100 images, 50 flat frames and 30 dark frames all stacked in DSS and processed in Siril.

Click on the image to get a closer view

The Garnet Star region

Chris Playle

posted by astroimager  # 5:12 PM 0 Comments

Here is a two pane solar mosaic imaged today using my Altair Hypercam 178, a Baader Herschel Wedge fitted with an Altair G band filter in addition to the neutral density filter and Jim's Altair Ascent 80 refractor. Conditions were a little hazy.

I had to use Photoshop to combine the two part solar disc images as the 178 couldn't capture the complete disc. Apart from initial sharpening using IMPPG, all the remaining processing was done with PS3. 

posted by astroimager  # 3:34 PM 0 Comments

Here is my recent Soul nebula two pane mosaic, imaged over 4 nights last month. It's taken a while to process!

64x5 minute subs using the ASI533, Ha/O3 and S2/O3 4nm duoband filters with my Altairastro Starwave 70EDT refractor on the CEM40 mount. There were a few more but they were rejected in stacking.

Stacked using WBPP in Pixinsight and all processing done in PI. The mosaic was assembled using Mosaic by Coordinates and Gradientmerge mosaic processes. I then processed the mosaic using colour calibration, star removal and some sharpening using HDR before screening in the star image using Pixelmath.

Click on the image to get a closer view

The Soul nebula

Anne Startup

posted by astroimager  # 6:50 PM 0 Comments

Here are some solar captures from yesterday taken using an Altairastro Hypercam 174M and a Quark fitted on Jim's Altairastro Ascent 80mm refractor.

Best 25% of 1000 frames for each. Processed in Autostakkert, IMPPG and PS3.

Click on an image to get a closer view

Anne Startup

posted by astroimager  # 6:47 PM 0 Comments

Using an Altair Hypercam 174 as an electronic eyepiece with an 8 inch RC.

Click on the sketch to get a closer view

Jim Startup

posted by astroimager  # 6:43 PM 0 Comments