Recovery from problematic experiment.

Recently I experimented with acquiring light frames sans dark frames in SharpCap. The result was ugly.  For reasons still a mystery to this imager Autostakkert! could not correct for vignetting when the session flat frames were applied. 

Autostakkert does offer the option to apply the dark frame during stacking but this did not work either. Hmm? Astro-imagers often promote DeepSkyStacker for stack averaging astro images; so I gave it a try. DeepSkyStacker rejected my .png flat frame as an unknown format  and rejected it's converted to .tif format as the wrong color. These files are readily accepted by Autostakkert! which was used to stack average the images without using the flat.  

Thanks to careful some cropping in GraXpert gradient remove software, the  descent images below were resulted after post processing in PaintShop Pro 2021 

IC 5146

NGC 7380

NGC 7538

NGC 7635

Sharpless 112

Setup: 

Celestron 8 AVX, Starizona NightOwl 0.4X focal reducer, ASI294MC Pro,      Orion Mini Autoguider.

Imaging: 

30x60s subframes, -10C, 

Processing: 

Autostakkert!(stack averaging), GraXpert (stretching/gradient removal), Paintshop Pro 2021                  

Seasonal Favorites

It's that time of the year, mid summer, to revisit old favorites. I never tire trying to better myself imaging these or other targets. All my recent imaging has been done from increasingly light polluted Harvard MA. Poorly targeted and excessive LED lighting is really trying to kill off night. Nonetheless the Milky Way can still be glimpsed overhead from Harvard. Typically 30 to 60 30 second exposures are acquired at F/4 using the Starizona Night Owl focal reducer corrector, light pollution filter and ZWO ASI294MC Pro using 120 unity gain. Subframes are stacked and averaged with Autostakkert! 3.  Images histograms stretched and images processed in PaintShop Pro 2021. Additional processing done in using Microsoft Photos bundled with Windows 10. 

IC5146 - Cocoon Nebula

Messier 8 - Lagoon Nebula

Messier 16 - Eagle Nebula

Messier 17  - Swan or Omega Nebula

Messier 20 - Triffid Nebula

NGC7023 - Iris Nebula

Messier 13

NGC7380

NGC6992 Eastern Veil Nebula