StarTools

Strong winds finally abated last night around 8pm leaving a reasonably clear stable moonless evening.
I haven’t imaged the Tarantula with my 10” Newt yet so grabbed a quick one in Ha at low altitudes ( 22 degrees to 33 degrees ) Pretty tired last night so shut down just after midnight.
Guiding was surprisingly good around 0.50 to 0.55 total rms at such low altitudes

Bortle 3
No moon
NexDome Obs
10” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon fibre Newt
SW EQ8-R pro mount
ZWO2600MM cooled to -10C , Gain 100
ZWO 7x2” EFW
ZWO EAF
Antlia 3nm Ha filter only
Orion 60mm guide scope
ZWO290MM guide camera

Ha 34 x 3 min dithered subs
Flats
Bias
EQMOD and Stellarium
APT
PHD2 Multistar guiding PPEC algorithm
Stacked in ASTAP
Processed in Startools v1.8

Startools Spatially Variant PSF Deconvolution did a good job at correcting atmospheric blur at these low altitudes

Ha only ( Synthetic Luminance )
Native frame version
Crop version

Astrobin link below for full resolution…….
https://www.astrobin.com/b2ugf0/


Thanks for looking
Comments welcome
Martin

Hi Martin,

that looks insane Really wished this target would be within reach for me. Together with the dragons of Ara my favourite southern target out of reach

The handling of the dynamic range is impressive to me. Did you use HDR or is it just the 2600MM handling the high dynamic range with the right settings?

Regards
Stefan

Just incredible!

Stefan B wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 7:39 am Hi Martin,

that looks insane Really wished this target would be within reach for me. Together with the dragons of Ara my favourite southern target out of reach

The handling of the dynamic range is impressive to me. Did you use HDR or is it just the 2600MM handling the high dynamic range with the right settings?

Regards
Stefan

Stefan,
Thank you !
When I loaded ST and hit AutoDev for an initial inspection , I was astounded at the level of detail
I use Gain 100 for Narrowband ( as most folk do ) which has low read noise and good dynamic range. The larger stars are slightly saturated in the cores but you can deal with that.
This image has very basic processing ….
AutoDev for inspection
Bin at 65% ( image size roughly 4000 x 2500 )
Crop edges
Wipe Narrowband preset
AutoDev again for final stretch , no ROI , just increase ignore fine detail to 2.5pixels , the rest default
Contrast , used expose dark only
HDR used Tame preset ( 1.08 )
SV Decon 15 samples , 8 iterations , increased de ringing
De Noise to 3 pixels
Save
That’s it !!

Startools just works
I find with “good clean data” I get better results with less processing
I often don’t use quite a few modules like Sharpen and Super Structure
Thanks again
Martin

fmeireso wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 7:56 am Just incredible!

Thank you
Yes very happy with the results for under 2 hours

Cheers
Martin

Insane detail. Just, wow.

Startrek wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 3:56 am Ha only ( Synthetic Luminance )

Is there synth L when you only have one filter file? I think it just, is what it is.

Mike in Rancho wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 4:36 am Insane detail. Just, wow.

[quote=Startrek post_id=14952 time=<a href="tel:1696564611">1696564611</a> user_id=1349]
Ha only ( Synthetic Luminance )

Is there synth L when you only have one filter file? I think it just, is what it is.


[/quote]

Thanks Mike
Appreciate the kind comment
The image is Ha but I called it Syth Lum as I never used the Color module
Anyway who knows , let’s call it Mono

Yeh it’s very satisfying to build your own Obs , build your own 10” Carbon Newt and image under dark skies with a new Mono camera like the 2600MM. The Antlia 3nm Ha filter exceeded my expectations.
There’s no substitute for dark skies in this hobby !!

Unfortunately I had to leave my dark site and return back to the burbs ( Bortle 8 skies ) for the next month or two , so this target is a future works in progress

Cheers
Martin

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the detailed reply. Very tasteful processing. And I fully agree with your opinion on clean data. I usually tend to overprocessing nonetheless. But I am getting better at it

Thanks for sharing your mono adventure!

Regards
Stefan