First Light as promised IC1396 The Elephants Trunk Nebula.

To the left is a 3 hour calibrated frames desaturated from the colour of the 294mc pro, to the right is 20 x 3 minutes frames calibrated from the new Mono camera. One error I made was setting the camera at gain 100 so stars are a little bloated. I am not interested in anything other than it's sensitivity and noise levels. Test 1 pretty incredible.

Goodbye Old Friend

OK a dodgy title when you are not even a year old, but I have been bitten, and bitten bad by a bug. I have been more than happy too as I have worked this way for 30 plus years of imaging with various formats of equipment from film cameras, DSLR's, CCD & CMOS cameras.

What the hell is he on about I hear you say?? Ok so I have been looking to upgrade and venture into the world of the Mono chip sensor for a long while. I have been looking at thousands of amazing images and watched 100's of You tube videos on the benefits and the improvements in sensitivity and quality etc . I have long known these facts but like many imagers out there have chosen the colour route for many reasons and I too fit into probably all of those categories and reasons why and even made that decision last year again when I purchased the ZWO ASI 294MC pro cooled CMOS colour camera. I was and I am still bowled over at the quality of the sensor and the images it produces. Most of which are showcased in my posts here. But yesterday I couriered it to it's new home in London. It may have even passed by the new one along the A14 near Cambridge as it headed south.

Along this journey of discovery I had pretty much decided that I would go for the ZWO ASI 1600mm. An older model but a trusted favourite by many astronomers. The perfect entry for me I thought. I am big fan of ZWO since my first high frame rate camera for lunar imaging quite a few years ago now and a perfect match to my ASI AIR pro mini computer.

This morning though a new toy arrived at my door. A complete u-turn from what I thought I was going to order. 

So today I say hello to the ZWO ASI 2600 MM Pro. Unfortunately I will wait for a filter wheel and filters so for a while, I think I will enjoy the incredible specification of 16 bit ADC, 14 stops of dynamic range,  zero amp glow and a whopping 26MP sensor. It is impossible to ignore specs like these and purchase what effectively be an out of date camera like the 1600, 

Time is currently 20.32 and so far clear outside so maybe first light will be tonight fingers crossed.

First light will be the first target I shot with the 294mc pro last year so IC1396 the Elephants trunk nebula it will be,

Below is that first light image from the 294 and desaturated to mono. Watch this space 

I will desaturate the image too not that it will be a fair comparison against the mono camera.

A night of a blue moon.

Typically three clear nights lead up to a full moon. Less of a concern now for us deep sky enthusiasts especially with the Optolong L-Enhance dual band filter. 

Not a perfect solution by any standards but certainly allows us colour CMOS camera users greater object choice when in light polluted or moonlit skies. I am certainly happy with it anyway. Another chance also to test the Autofocus routine on the ASIAIR pro and the EAF. 

I started the evening with a few technical difficulties. I needed to reload the software from a corrupt disk back onto the AIR, possibly due to moisture build up in the observatory. A new thermostatically controlled heater will hopefully cure the problem. It certainly did for the last obsy. The aim of the evening was to test everything worked again rather than any serious imaging run. So I rotated the dome away from the moon and targeted IC1396  The Elephants trunk nebula one of my first targets with the ZWO ASI294MC pro and initiated the auto focus routine. I have to say it worked flawlessly so much better focus than just with a bhatinov mask. I set it to adjust every 30 minutes for the 2 hours of data . Processed also in a slightly different way but just look at the focus difference. I thought I was happy with the older image (2nd one)

Testing Testing Testing

 Testing the new Kit.

IC1396, The Elephants Trunk Nebula. So called because of the dark patch with a bright sinuous rim resembling the tip of the trunk. Yes you got to love where some of these names come from.. One star in this image (well actually three, two of which orbit each other every four days create violent out bursts of ultra violet radiation that strip electrons from the hydrogen gas and illuminate it in this wonderful colour. This in turn causes compression in the clouds of gas and starts star formation. The dark areas you see are the nurseries formed. 

This officially is the first target from the new set up. I spent the day setting up and balancing all seemed to go well and the guiding shown an RMS of just under .80. I am quite happy with this for a start. 3 minute sub frames were used and guided using the Altair Astro 60mm guide scope and ZWO ASI 1120MM for a total of four hours integration time.

The Optolong L-Enhance duoband filter was used using the ZWO filter drawer a fantastic and clever way to introduce and replace filters. 

Overall I am more than pleased with the new set up.

Mu cephei

I have had another go at the Garnet star (Mu Cephei) Far left and associated nebulosity IC 1396. This time using the UHC filter. I never usually over process an image, but I have gone a little overboard this time just to see what is there. 5 minutes shy of 2 hours has revealed some deep stuff. I am very pleased with star shapes using 5 minute guided subs. I want to try the same 2 hours without the filter now.