Jellyfish Nebula IC443

[Stefan B]

Hi everyone,

after a pretty long AP break (we moved to a new home but the weather was much more of a problem...) I finally had the chance to do some imaging. Unfortunately the great winter nebulae are already on the way out and they are mostly located in the south which is difficult from my spot. But the Jellyfish Nebula is quite high and from my location I could get some hours per night before it vanished behind trees. So I got over nine hours of duo NB data:

There wasn't much OIII recorded but okay anyway I guess. Initially I had to tune down the saturation quite a bit in the color module since otherwise the fine tendrils on the left side of the SNR would have lost all structure. Bringing back the saturation in SuperStructure worked well.

This has been processed with 1.8, but if time allows I will give 1.9alpha a shot

See https://www.astrobin.com/lz1ajy/ for details.

Regards
Stefan

[decay]

Hi Stefan, glad to see you back here again Hope you are feeling well at your new home.

And obviously your new location is suited well for AP. Once again a fantastic image. The Jellyfish looks almost three-dimensional, it pops out of the background. And as ever perfect focus, collimation and guiding.

I'm looking forward to see your next images

Best regards, Dietmar.

[fmeireso]

Indeed a great Image Stefan! Nice colors too.And you sure tamed Propus. Very annoying star...for processing.

I still struggle with my Jellyfish. There seems alot of detail in but everytime i mixed up the stars....

[Stefan B]

Hi Freddy and Dietmar!

Yes, I am also glad to be back at it Due to all the non AP stuff going in combination with the bad weather I got a bit frustrated. Somehow not being able to image myself I just wasn't into discussing astro software stuff etc. But now it feels different

Hope you are feeling well at your new home. And obviously your new location is suited well for AP.

Actually it's still the exact same spot (until the astro balcony/roof terrace is finally finished...). But now I don't have to drive to the spot and sleep on someone else's couch but instead walk to my neighbor and do some imaging

Once again a fantastic image. The Jellyfish looks almost three-dimensional, it pops out of the background. And as ever perfect focus, collimation and guiding.

Thanks, really appreciate it. But there's quite something wrong with the image acquisition process. I added a Baader click lock (to reduce tilt I often had) and thus had to slightly change my imaging train since otherwise I wouldn't have been able to reach focus. And I had the impression I somehow messed up the backfocus. And for collimation I have to fiddle a bit more and not sure I got it right... So binning 50% and SVDecon and shrink had to round up the stars towards the lower edges. But it definitely looks much better than on single subs...

Indeed a great Image Stefan! Nice colors too.And you sure tamed Propus. Very annoying star...for processing.

Thanks, Freddy! Propus indeed came out better than expected. Don't know why, haven't done anything special about it.

I still struggle with my Jellyfish. There seems alot of detail in but everytime i mixed up the stars....

I agree, finding a good balance between all those details without overdoing it is quite hard. Maybe a less aggressive approach might be worth trying. But don't know in what module specifically.

Regards
Stefan

[Stefan B]

Here's the result of a short try with 1.9alpha:

JELLYFISH, 2023-02-21, 95x6min, l-eNhance), ATR3CMOS26000KPA_stacked_normalized OSC flats_ST1-9.jpg (479.34 KiB) Viewed 5511 times

No problems so far. Sampling in SVDecon is slower but overall sampling with the star fishies (still love that you coined that one, Mike ) went well. And hell, is SVD pinpointing the stars. Shrink doesn't have to do as much heavy lifting as before (or you can go much further with it).

I am curious to process a NBAccent image with 1.9. Some stuff has changed there, too, if I remember correctly.

Regards
Stefan

[Mike in Rancho]

Very nice, Stefan! And congrats on the new pad.

Was it easy to install your clicklock? I put one on my refractor, and really wish I could for the Newt for the same reasons you did. But my focuser is such that I can see no way to do it.

Excellent tendrils on the Jellyfish, and those star spikes look razor sharp. Owie.

I have seen the same though with intricate detail. Or, I would see it if my data ever did have intricate detail.

Saturation often has to be dialed back to avoid bleeding or even just blurring away of the fine features. Too, the gold-brown of H(H+O)O seems to permit detail perception better than the red of standard HOO.

[fmeireso]

Looks very nice.

Maybe i should try it in v 1.9. Sofar i did not because on occasion the new release just shutted down at time without any error given...

It is an intriguing object. I have a version on astrobin with alot of tendrils, but my background is mushy so are the stars. No good.

I am thinking, perhaps take more ha and taking only thre really best subs. I found out the my FWHM became very bad on the former tries in the end of the session...i stacked them in anyway...

[Stefan B]

Hi Mike,

thanks for your kind words!

Was it easy to install your clicklock? I put one on my refractor, and really wish I could for the Newt for the same reasons you did. But my focuser is such that I can see no way to do it.

It has been very easy. I just unthreaded the current one and threaded the Baader onto the focuser. Don't you have an Orion Newt? So it should be the same like for my Skwatcher (since it's all GSO I guess):

https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/a ... lamps.html

It's product #2956254 M54a x 1-ClickLock (Skywatcher / Orion).

Only thing which made things a bit more fiddly is that the Baader makes your image train 18 mm longer and your focuser has to be adjusted to reach these 18 mm more towards the primary. Basically no problem, I just have to slide the camera with MPCC further inside of the focuser than I usually do. BUT the MPCC has such a nice counter ring which rested on the focuser in my case:

This is not possibly any more since I can't reach focus with this ring attached. Consequently, I always completely lose focus when adjusting the rotation because often the MPCC slides a little (too much) inside the focuser when the click lock is released. Until now this ring replaced a rotater for me Hope I could make clear what the problem is now...not so easy for a non native speaker...

The first night rotating the camera and refocusing almost drove me mad. But I think I'll get better with not losing focus while rotating the camera.

Regards
Stefan

[Mike in Rancho]

Thank you, Stefan!

Great that you have a threaded visual back on that thing. Same as my SW refractor I put a clicklock on.

I am not sure if SW is also GSO. Orion yes, though I believe they add a reinforcement plate below the focuser, and said focuser is also the linear bearing Crayford. Straight from GSO may not have those.

The SW lineup seems different though - unless they add their own mods to a GSO base. At least for the Quattros. Those seem more like they have a Synta focuser, and I believe the OTA's have baffles too.

But alas, the GSO focuser drawtube has the visual back molded/machined all in one piece.

Now, my next step would probably be a 10", but Quattro or Orion I'm not sure. They both seem to have small pros and cons. The Orion 10 has a 3 inch focuser, and at least in photos it appears to permit unthreading of the visual back. I suppose I would have to email them to confirm though.

If it is anything like the 6" geometrically, backspace for the clicklock shouldn't be a problem. I'm racked out 40mm for focus. Also the drawtube doesn't start sticking into the OTA until you get under 25 to 30mm or so.

For the 6 I think I'm stuck with the compression rings, absent a new focuser.

[Stefan B]

I see, Mike. So probably a new focuser is the only way to go in order to get a clicklock attached...

Regards
Stefan