This is the result of 60 x 30-second subs on the Hyperstar 4 with the C11 and a secret ingredient optical device. Still plenty of noise even with 60 subs, so it looks like I’ll be needing nearer 200 subs to get the noise down. However as these 60 subs took up 3Gb, and then de-Bayering and processing added another 9Gb, it looks like this data will be needing its own hard drive just for this one image!
This is a composite image using DSS2 data and my own Sky90 data of the Struve’s Lost Nebula region. If I ever get the skies, I will need to get a lot more data on this one.
Yesterday I received a couple of deliveries to completely upgrade the MiniWASP array, both the 3 x Sky90s and the 2 x 200mm Canon lenses. I am glad the weather continues to be awful as it means I’ll be able to get everything put together in readiness for a clear sky.
I also got some optics for the Hyperstar 4 on the C11. I am hoping that with this piece of kit I’ll be able to take 30-second to 1-minute subs of Orion’s core and be able to pull out the Trapezium. If it works I’ll keep the magic ingredient to myself, if it doesn’t work, I’ll let you know what it is so you don’t go down the same blind alley.
I was just looking at an old Gamma Cass image (for another reason) and saw a bright red dot for the first time. Yep, it was a Carbon star that had been there all the time and I hadn’t noticed. GSC 3680: 1824 COeV.
After the CTB1 experiment – M42 was well-placed in the South and I managed to get 10 x 3-minute subs before the cloud rolled in from the West. This is pushing me to get 100 x 3-minute subs just to see what it looks like.
What is very interesting from this image is the lack of ghost flaring from the very bright stars. The Hyperstar 3 gave a lot of ghost flaring from bright stars, but in the Hyperstar 4 Starizona seem to have got on top of that problem. Well done Starizona!
The faint red ring that you can hardly see in the centre of this image is supernova remnant CTB1 in Cassiopeia. I have tried imaging this one for years, and this is what I usually end up with. I thought I was being clever this time, so I took 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30-minute subs with the Hyperstar 4 – Yes, that’s a 30-minute sub exposure with the Hyperstar!! And the above is the result – why?
Didn’t think this one through enough. Now I’m pretty sure that with my sky background, I am not getting much signal to noise ratio improvement PER SUB for sub-exposures much beyond 10-minutes. So the above image, signal to noise ratio-wise, is little more than 8 x 10-minute subs. Now you can see, the result is not too surprising. If instead I had taken 48 x 10-minute subs (the usual 8-hours for a good quality image that I have found, experimentally, over 17-years of doing this stuff) then I would have got a 7-fold increase in the signal to noise ratio and almost certainly a far better looking CTB1.
So the quest for a decent CTB1 image continues.
This is a composite image incorporating very recent Hyperstar 4 data with very old Sky90 data.
Here’s another long 7-minute pass of the International Space Station from earlier this month (I’ve only just got around to processing the 17 frames of data). Annoyingly, as you can see, I didn’t continue long enough off the right hand side of the frame as I thought the ISS was out of the field of view. Lesson learned.
A nice long 7-minute pass of the space station tonight. It has been good all week with long passes – but it has also been mostly clouded out.
Another clear (but not Moonless) night last night – so it was perfect for setting up the array. Managed to get the 3 Sky90s aligned, focused, and sensors flattened – so the Sky90 array is now ready for some clear, Moonless evenings.
The Hyperstar 4 on the C11 with the ASI2600MC-Pro camera is awaiting its first clear Moonless evening since setting up for an imaging experiment. Details to follow.
And the 2 x Canon 200mm prime lenses are awaiting the USB lens focus controllers recently ordered from First Light Optics. When these are fitted and the wide field rig is up and running again, I hope to bring even better wide field DSOs to the NFO site. If both lenses are found to give very similar (if not identical) views, then I will change from overlap imaging (both lenses image the same region) to side-by-side imaging, where I take a 2-frame mosaic in one go. This rig in this orientation should give me an 8 x 6.5 degree FOV!!
