So, Bostronomy and I did a thing! After the recent APOD winner that featured the Crescent Nebula as a collaboration between three individuals, we decided to take our data on the same target and see if we could combine them. It began more as a test – we did not set out to do this when we first gathered data on the target – and only I had calibration files for my light frames, but I took our data, ran it through Astro Pixel Processor and behold, we were able to combine our data and process it!
Above, we have that data processed without simulating a luminance layer.
61 x 420s – Meade Series 6000 80mm Triplet APO Refractor Canon EOS Ra Ho-Tech Field Flattener Optolong L-eNhanced Filter
Full calibration frames – dark, flat, dark flat and bias frames. Data taken over 3 nights.
50 x 300s Explore Scientific ED102 ZWO ASI 2600mc-Pro Ho-Tech Field Flattener Optolong L-eNhanced filter
No calibration frames…
I stacked the images in Astro Pixel Processor, letting it know that the images were shot at different focal lengths and with different optics. I used different LNC and Multi-band blending settings to see what ended up the best (in my opinion) – This image was done with a LNC setting of 2nd degree and 6 iterations. From there, I let APP do a stretch, normalize the background and I did a light pollution removal. From there I took it in to Photoshop. In Photoshop, GradientXTerminator was used on its lowest settings with no background calibration. Starnet was not used. Astronomy Tools Actions used to remove noise (Deep Space Noise Removal) and to make stars smaller. No sharpening. Most processing was done in Camera RAW filter to set Vibrance & Saturation. The black, white, shadow and highlight were also used, as well as some minor contrast and exposure changes. Color mixer (in RAW Filter) was used to lightly boost red and blue saturation. For the starless, I did put it in starnet. For the inverted, I simply used Photoshop
The only difference here is that I took the red channel from the starless image in the first group and added that as a slight luminance layer. I set it at 5% opacity and adjusted the curves a little bit to try and bring out a little more nebulosity. The downside with doing it this was is that it can make it appear a little more pinkish then intended.
As mentioned before, this wasn’t planned at all, so we are hoping with doing an actual plan we will be able to produce something a lot better! Stay tuned!
I normally don’t do this – I typically leave my reprocesses to either Twitter or Instagram – but in this case, because I feel like this reprocessing of data added a lot more to it, I decided to make a post. Over the past several months my image processing has evolved to a place where I feel it is a lot better then it was back in January when I first took these images and put them together. I decided to go back and stack them all from scratch and start the process over. Below is the result of that effort.
This is a total of 11.5 hours over six individual sessions. I am looking forward to shooting this again when it is up and available for me, but probably in a slightly shorter focal length. This was shot at 380mm and I want to shoot it at 275mm with my Radian Raptor 61.
L-eNhanced: Jan. 7, 2021 – 40 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 10, 2021 – 40 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 20, 2021 – 19 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 21, 2021 – 37 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 22, 2021 – 23 x 240s (800 ISO)
NGC 6888, known as the Crescent Nebula (or Brain Nebula in some circles), is located around 5000 light years away in the constellation Cygnus. Close to the star Sadr, NGC 6888 is an emission nebula that was discovered by William Herschel in 1792.
I didn’t start out planning to shoot this target, but after putting my new Radian Raptor 61 through its first light paces, and capturing it in the corner of gathering light on Sadr (see this post) and the nebulosity around it, I decided to hop back to the Meade 80mm and try to shoot it at a longer focal length. Along with the Crescent Nebula, I also put a focus on Western Veil (seen in my previous post) and I am now putting a focus on Eastern Veil. Going from wide field to a slightly smaller field of view can be very fun, especially when you start to make out detail in some of the smaller objects.
I was able to get just over seven hours of total integration over 3 different nights. The first two nights the moon was not really present and it it wasn’t too bright when it was. The final night the moon was around 80% luminosity and up the entire imaging session. For all three sessions I used the L-eNhanced filter by Optolong filters. This filter is great for isolating the Ha and Oiii wavelengths of light as well as suppressing the light pollution that surrounds me – especially under Bortle 8 skies here in Rhode Island.
Equipment & Image Information
Meade Series 6000 80mm Triplet Refractor Canon EOS Ra Ho-Tech Field Flattener Optolong L-eNhanced Filter Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro Mount ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (guide) ZWO asi120mm-mini (guide) Pegasus Power Box Advanced
I have been asked a few times recently about how I process my images. First, the two people I have gleamed the most information from are AstroBackyard and A.V. Astronomy. Both Trevor and Aaron provide wonderful tutorials and resources on just about everything you need when it comes to astrophotography, and I would encourage you to go and follow these two. That being said, my processing is not perfect, and in some cases probably comes off as lazy, but in the end, I am happy with my images and in my opinion, that is the most important thing there is. Obviously, improvement can always come and should be welcome, but being happy with your product is the first key to success.
I begin by stacking in DeepSkyStacker. Even though I use DSLR which is non-cooled, I still take dark and bias frames. I also take flats and dark flats. Because my camera is not cooled, I take dark frames right before I begin my imaging session. I could go through and do an average sensor temp with my dark frames that relate to the sub frames I take, but I do not. I try to take 10-20 dark frames, 50 bias and either 25 or 50 flats and dark flats.
Once stacked, I bring them to Photoshop where I do the majority, if not all, of my processing. My typical work flow is the following: – Small crop, convert to 16bit image from 32bit – Initial leveling – Threshold layer to find dark and light points – Levels – each channel separate to bring them in line – Curves – slight curve adjustment, then quick leveling (each channel individual) and repeat until my black point reaches around 36 in each channel – GradientXTreme – Usually on the two lowest settings, never higher then the middle setting. I look at it both with leveling background checked and without – Astronomy Tools Actions – I usually run the two Violet Halos options as well as Smaller Stars here – Camera RAW Filter – Here is do a lot, especially on my first go through – First, I look at the Color Mixer and adjust individual saturation and luminance. Usually it is red and orange channels, and sometimes the aqua and blue channels. I then go to the Basic tab and adjust vibrance, saturation, black, white, highlights and shadow levels. I also will typically adjust the exposure a little as well. The key here, for me, is to make sure I am not clipping anything nor making anything too bright while starting to bring out the color of what I am shooting. – Topaz DeNoise – the latest update brings us the Severe Noise option which feels a little better then the Low Light one. I usually put it on Auto then bring the sharpness down by half. – Astronomy Tools Actions – I try the Space Noise and Deep Space Noise options here and depending on how it effects the detail of the nebula, I may or may not go with any of them. Always good to check. I’d rather have some noise and keep structure in my nebula then loose it because the software assumed it was noise. – Astronomy Tools Actions – Enhance DSO is done here. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don’t. If I don’t like it I just continue on to RAW filter and if I do… well, I also continue on to RAW filter! – Camera RAW Filter – minor adjustments in the basic tab. I may repeat this a couple of times – Astronomy Tools Actions – Contrast Enhancement – I run this then usually set the layers opacity to 50% or below.
At this point I flatten the image and save it as a 16bit tiff to run it through Starnet++ – an excellent program that removes stars but leaves the nebula.
While doing this, I attempt a mask using the Color Selection -> Highlights to bring out the nebulosity a bit more. A.V. Astronomy has a good video on it. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. By this point my starless image should be done and I bring that into Photoshop, isolate the red channel, copy and paste it as a new layer in the image I am working on. From there, I set the opacity of that layer to 10% and adjust the highlights to see if I can bring out the dust a little more. Keep in mind, this will make your image a little pink versus red. This does two things – first, you can set your black point a little lower and it will offset if you clip a little bit. You can also adjust your saturation a bit more to make it more red. This layer acts as a luminance layer – though a true Ha luminance layer will work much better. What is even better, you can use both methods I mentioned in the same image! Just be careful not to over do it!
At this point I save a main image jpg, I save an inverted version and I make one more starless version to match my current process. I always make sure to keep a working Tiff file that has all my layers available in case I want to go back and try something different.
The Cygnus Loop is a large supernova remnant within the constellation Cygnus which is now visible in the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere. The entire structure is around 3 degrees in size and sits around 2,400 light years away. It has an age of around 21,000 years. This target, for me, was one of the more frustrating targets. Its unique coloring, its “whispiness” and the sheer amount of stars make it a challenging target to both shoot and more importantly, process cleanly. In total, for the Western Veil images, I got around 5 hours of data total and I feel like to get it completely “clean” I would need around 15 more total hours for a total of 20 hours on target. I am hoping to get this amount in a more wide field, which I have already begun and is shown in the images at the end of this post.
These images where processed as an HOO image. This means three channels, one in Ha, and two in Oiii. This was down with a one shot color camera utilizing a dual narrowband filter – the Optolong L-eNhanced. The channels were separated in Astro Pixel Processor then recombined and then processed in Photoshop. I really like how the stars here have decent color, which is typically difficult to achieve when processing normally when using a narrowband filter.
These images have a more “traditional” processing method – stacking in Deep Sky Stacker then processing in Photoshop.
As you can see in both sets, there are a large amount of stars, even with star reduction techniques being used. The inverted images really show the star field and the deep contrast of the nebulosity.
Image & Equipment Information:
Meade Series 6000 80mm Triplet APO Refractor Canon EOS Ra Optolong L-eNhanced Filter Ho-Tech Field Flattener ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (guide) ZWO asi120mm (guide) Pegasus Powerbox Advanced
15 x 360s (6/16/2021) 30 x 420s (6/17/2021) Dark, flat, bias and dark flat frames for calibration ISO 800 – Taken in Providence, RI – Bortle 8
These images show the entirety of the Cygnus Loop. The annotated version is provided by astrobin.com. These were taken with a similar setup as the Western Veil images, but with the Radian Raptor 61 instead of the Meade 80mm. Here you can see the Western Veil at the top of the image with the Eastern Veil nebula at the bottom. Though I was planning on putting a lot of focus on the North American Nebula, I think I am going to put some time in on Eastern Veil with the Meade and the Loop as a whole with the Raptor. This image needs a lot more data as I only have just over an hour and a half so far.
Image & Equipment Information:
Radian Raptor 61 Canon EOS Ra Optolong L-eNhanced Filter ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (guide) ZWO asi224mc (guide) Pegasus Powerbox Advanced
20 x 300s (6/13/2021) Dark, flat, bias and dark flat frames for calibration ISO 800 – Taken in Providence, RI – Bortle 8
I had a little more then an hour left over on a clear sky night and I decided to turn to Markarian’s Chain – A string of galaxies that form part of the Virgo Cluster.
On the left is the picture, which is heavily cropped, that I ended up with and the one on the right is annotated by astrobin.com.
Equipment & Stats Meade Series 6000 80mm Triple APO Refractor Canon EOS Ra Optolong L-Pro Filter Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro Mount ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (guide) ZWO ASI224mc (guide)
60 x 60s 20 dark, 50 flat, 50 dark flat and 50 bias frames
At the beginning of February I had a decently clear night so I decided to shoot a faint nebula commonly referred to as the Jellyfish Nebula. IC 443 is located in the Gemini Constellation and is a large, and faint, supernova remnant. Below are three different processes.
Initial Process – Deep Sky Stacker Stack
Reprocess #1 – Same data as initial process
HSO Simulated Process – Stacked and channels separated in APP
Both the initial process and the reprocess were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed how I normally process images. The final process was stacked in Astro Pixel Processor. With stacking in APP I am able to separate the individual channels taken and assign them differently from the typical RGB pattern. Because I am using a narrowband filter like the Optolong L-eNhanced this approach is possible to do for really interesting results!
Equipment & Stats Meade Series 6000 80mm Triple APO Refractor Canon EOS Ra Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro Mount ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (guide) ZWO ASI224mc (guide)
30 x 240s & 5 x 300s 20 dark, 50 flat, 50 dark flat and 50 bias frames
Above is the Flaming Star Nebula (and some friends!) at two different focal lengths. The more wide shot was taken at 180mm and the more close up shot was taken at 380mm.
The 380mm was taken with the Meade Series 6000 80mm Triplet APO while the 180mm was taken with the TPO Ultrawide 180 f/4.5 Astrophotography Lens & Guide Scope. The plan for the TPO is to mainly use it as a guide scope, but since it is a triplet (like the Meade) I wanted to get some imaging done with it as well. The setup for this, at least for me, was, to say the least, uncomfortable, but I was able to make it work and get some data!
180mm – TPO Ultrawide 180 f/4.5 Astrophotography Lens with Canon EOS Ra 30 x 300s 15 darks, 50 flats, 50 dark flats, 50 biases 800 ISO Instagram Link Astrobin Link
380mm – Meade Series 6000mm Triplet APO with Canon EOS Ra 50 x 240s 20 darks, 50 biases, 50 flats, 50 dark flats 800 ISO Instagram Link Astrobin Link
Rosette Nebula – Providence, RI – 11.5 Hours Total Integration
I began this project on January 7, 2021 and was able to reach my goal of 10+ hours on target on January, 22, 2021. I was able to take images on the 7th, 10th, 18th, 20th, 21st and the 22nd with the first two nights being clear, transparent and all my gear working properly. The next three nights were supposed to be clear but I battled intermittent clouds and was not able to gather the amount of data that I thought I was going to be able to. The last night that I collected data I had clear and transparent skies, all of this despite having a 1st Quarter Moon up, however, it took a couple of hours to troubleshoot my mounts alignment process, which I still haven’t gotten back to where it was before the 22nd. Note: I still use the hand controller and do a 3-Star alignment mainly because I have not had any issues at all. This issue I believe was my fault – I chose Capella as my first star and went to it with no problem. I chose Sirius as my second star, however clouds came in before I the mount pointed to it and I decided to wait – on the star – for the clouds to clear. This took around 15 minutes and I think the wait messed up my mounts internal correction. I decided to realign one it clear up but the mount was not going to correct locations for the stars. I eventually got it close enough to get to the Rosette Nebula to finish up my data collection.
Over the course of the six sessions, I used the L-eNhanced filter by Optolong for five of those nights. I used the Optolong L-Pro for one night. I wasn’t planning to use the L-Pro data but I liked the final stack a lot better with it. It helped give the background a little more balance and helped give the stars some color versus just ending up the same color as they can do when using the L-eNhanced only.
Statistics –
L-eNhanced: Jan. 7, 2021 – 40 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 10, 2021 – 40 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 20, 2021 – 19 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 21, 2021 – 37 x 240s (800 ISO) Jan. 22, 2021 – 23 x 240s (800 ISO)
L-Pro Jan. 18, 2021 – 55 x 60s (800 ISO)
Taken from Providence, RI under Bortle 8 skies. Average temperature was 33°F (0.5°C). Darks, flats, dark flats and biases used for calibration on all sessions. Tracking and dithering done with PHD2. Image capture done with Astro Photography Tool (APT). Stacking done in DeepSkyStacker and processing done in Photoshop 2021 CC. Plugins and tools used in PS include GradientXtreme, Topaz Denoise and Astronomy Tools Actions.
Equipment –
Meade Series 6000 80mm Triple APO Refractor Canon EOS Ra Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro Mount ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (guide) ZWO ASI224mc (guide)
My first attempt at doing 5 minute exposures, for the most part, did not go too well. I think mainly because of transparency issues. I had ran 4 minute long exposures the night before and they came out great. Those posts will be up as soon as I get the data totals on target that I want. However, my data on the Horsehead Nebula, in my mind, came out alright!
Equipment & Statistics
Meade Series 6000 80mm Triplet APO Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro Canon EOS Ra Astro-Tech 0.8 Reducer/Flattener Optolong L-eNhanced ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (Guide) ZWO ASI224mc (Guide) PHD2 for guiding, APT for capturing, APP for stacking/processing, Photoshop/Topaz for final processing
31 x 300s 20 Dark Frames 50 Flat Frames 50 Dark Flat Frames 50 Bias Frames
The two images at the top are my final edit / process. The ones here above are my first. I am including them because in someways they may be better plus I really like how the negative image looks.
This month has been… a challenge. Between not having clear skies, Covid-19 running through the family (myself, my wife, my seven children and other family members) and then personally getting worse and ending up in the hospital right before Christmas with Covid/Pneumonia, it has simply been a month that in a lot of ways I’d like to forget. However, I was blessed to be able to recover enough to be home for Christmas and while I was in the hospital, several items that I had been waiting for came in (Optolong L-eNhanced filter for one) and then I saw I would have clear skies on 12/26. I did everything I could to help boost my strength – still weak, tired, etc, and I was able to set up and get a little time in on the Heart Nebula which is located in the constellation Cassiopeia. I had gathered data twice before on this target with mixed results – once with no filter and then once again with my reducer and Orion SkyGlow Broadband light pollution filter. This time though I was armed with the Optolong L-eNhanced and I love the results, even if I wasn’t able to get as much time on target as I wanted.
Statistics and Gear:
Meade Series 6000 80mm Triplet APO Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro Mount Canon EOS Ra Astro-Tech 0.8 Reducer / Field Flattener OptoLong L-eNhanced Filter (2″) ZWO 30mm f4 MiniScope (guide) ZWO ASI224MC (guide
28 x 180s light frames at 800 ISO 20 dark frames (180s at 800 ISO) 50 flat frames (10s at 800 ISO) 50 dark flat frames (10s at 800 ISO) 50 bias frames (1/8000 at 800 ISO)
Guiding with PHD2 and captured in APT. Stacked in DSS with processing in Photoshop, Topaz and StarNet++
Yes, you read that right, 10 second flats…. used AV mod on the Ra, filter was in and I had my light panel real low with a doubled up handkerchief for light diffusion and it seemed to work out okay. I also took some at 1.3″ just in case, but I did not end up using them. I might run the whole process through Siril for the heck of it just to see and if I do I will probably use the lower exposed flats.
Heart Nebula – Combined Data – 11/26 & 12/26 2020 – Providence, RI
Now, these two are a combination of my data from 12/26 and data I also took on 11/26. The difference is on 11/26 I took 59 exposures at 150s with the Orion SkyGlow Broadband Light Pollution filter. Combining all the data gave me just under 4 hours worth of data
28 x 180s (12/26) – L-eNhanced 59 x 150s (11/26) – Orion Skyglow Broadband LP (231.5 min integration / 3.85 hours) Darks (20 / 15) Flats (50 / 50) Dark Flats (50 / 50) Biases (50 / 50)
SNC Astro - Photo 