New camera installed...early days but...

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Bit random, but thought perhaps some may be interested...

A lovely clear sky last night at Eagleview, graced by a lovely Full Moon soon after dark along with a brisk SSW breeze ...anywaaaaay, managed to get the cameras swapped over (StarlightXpress TRIUS PRO-694 Blue to a Trius Pro-814 Blue) and after the inevitable fiddling, adjusting etc and unexpected issues that this threw up, getting everything spot on (ish) it was late... but NGC 1365 was perfectly positioned by then at 45deg elevation, cool, the subject of my Eagleview first light, almost exactly two years ago yaaay! So given it was essentially a Full Moon, I decided to hit some Halpha only, bit over two hours of 10min subs in the end. With an ave Ha FWHM of 1.7"-1.9" across the session (despite the breeze!) it was similar conditions to my quick Lum (FWHM~2.0") first light back in 2022, sooooo and considering the Ha subs were 10min and the two Lum subs were only 1min, I am not sure if it is really a relevant comparison buuuut meah, you can see the relative increase in image size and the likelihood of improvements in resolution should the conditions cooperate across a more substantial multi night image compilation, so here it is

Processing of both images was a simple median combine, DDP and log stretch, no darks no flats.

Shows some promise regardless I recon...? Looking forward to completing a full image of this awesome galaxy, with the new camera, in due course .

Mike

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Will you be doing colour with the full image when time and conditions permit?
Impressive results with the moon washing out the entire sky, the first break in the clouds locally for a few weeks. Except it's very windy after the most glorious Spring day. I'd considered hunting a comet once the sun goes down but on standard tripod the wind will be an issue.

[alpal]

Nice work Mike,
I hope the new camera goes well.
My bet is that you'll measure better seeing with it on good nights -
perhaps 2 x 0.68" = 1.36 arc seconds now?

cheers
Allan

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Good to see the new camera on board. A bit hard to compare and make an evaluation with Lum v Ha but the initial sub for the new camera looks to be shaping up well. One point to note is that the smaller pixels may require slightly longer exposures and/or increased sub count to achieve the same SNR. Probably not a lot in it going from 4.54 to 3.69 microns but if you are going for the really faint stuff it may make a difference.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Will you be doing colour with the full image when time and conditions permit?

As I said, that's the plan

Was in town last night, Canberra CBD, looking over the top of a nearby tram station with lots of side facing lights of course (becasue that's where you need the light right??), on a heavily lit arterial Rd and intersection = no comet visible from our apartment balcony

Originally Posted by alpal

Nice work Mike,
I hope the new camera goes well.
My bet is that you'll measure better seeing with it on good nights -
perhaps 2 x 0.68" = 1.36 arc seconds now?

cheers
Allan

Hope you are right, I think you will be, in the end it's the final image that counts of course

Originally Posted by Ryderscope

Good to see the new camera on board. A bit hard to compare and make an evaluation with Lum v Ha but the initial sub for the new camera looks to be shaping up well. One point to note is that the smaller pixels may require slightly longer exposures and/or increased sub count to achieve the same SNR. Probably not a lot in it going from 4.54 to 3.69 microns but if you are going for the really faint stuff it may make a difference.

Yeah, not the best comparison, other than I guess to graphically show how much fainter the Ha signal is in a nearby galaxy compared to the luminance! I think I was strangely relieved that it all worked and just felt like sharing

Mike

[joshman (Josh)]

That's some mighty finer detail in the Core. I'm looking forward to seeing what this beauty can do for you.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by joshman

That's some mighty finer detail in the Core. I'm looking forward to seeing what this beauty can do for you.

Cheers Josh, I think (hope) I will see an improvement on the good nights...that's the plan

Mike

[Dave882 (David)]

Nice one Mike! Looking forward to the comparisons when complete but already quite promising.

[Leo.G (Leo)]

no comet visible from our apartment balcony

I spent well over an hour with binoculars and Stellarium last night (10x50 on tripod) but the comet was behind the row of 30 foot high trees running along the fence line in the neighbours yard. I'm getting to the point where they block everything and I'm going to talk to the council and force them to trim them to at least 10 feet maximum.
I'll get the next one.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

I spent well over an hour with binoculars and Stellarium last night (10x50 on tripod) but the comet was behind the row of 30 foot high trees running along the fence line in the neighbours yard. I'm getting to the point where they block everything and I'm going to talk to the council and force them to trim them to at least 10 feet maximum.
I'll get the next one.

I hear these aren't tooooo expensive

Or to make it really quick, one of these



Mike

[Startrek (Martin)]

Mike,
Always exciting testing out new gear and even better when early stages are looking really promising
Enjoy the new camera
Cheers
Martone

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

I hear these aren't tooooo expensive

Or to make it really quick, one of these



Mike

That looks like it would do the job well Mike, thanks for the suggestion, I know some local earth movers well. You may hear about it on the NEWS, LOL.


Every time my targets dip towards the north west I'm out of the game and it gets annoying when I don't have a permanent set up and it's usually a couple of hours getting everything right just for it to dip behind trees. Along the back fence there's also a huge thing that hangs over my fence that's around 40 feet high which means north east is out of the question too.
It's OK, I've always promised myself I'll win $50,000,000 on lotto one day and get a nice property and proper observatory. If they make it $100,000,000 I could probably even afford a PlaneWave.
Nice gear but not for cheap idiots like me I think!

[gregbradley]

Congrats on your successful implementation of a new camera. Not necessarily an easy thing to do.

The Ha image looks remarkably like the luminance which I would not have expected.

FWHM on Ha is usually way less than in luminance.

Greg.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Congrats on your successful implementation of a new camera. Not necessarily an easy thing to do.

The Ha image looks remarkably like the luminance which I would not have expected.

FWHM on Ha is usually way less than in luminance.

Greg.

Yeah but remember, this is a Ha image of a distant galaxy with very limited Ha signal, not a nearby super bright in comparison, emission nebula .. so it will appear comparatively lower res by default as a result...also, the Ha subs were 10min, the two Lum subs were only 1min each but as I said, probably a mute comparison really anyway, just felt like playing with it for fun

Mike