Another Year of Learning

I feel that I made some big strides in 2014. I have learned a few more tricks in Photoshop, and also purchased PixInsight this year. I still have much to learn with PixInsight and there are always improvements to be made and new things to learn with Photoshop. Instead of the old "shoot from the hip" mentality on the processing end of things, I think I finally have developed somewhat of a workflow for both narrowband and LRGB images that I try to follow. I think this is very important as I work on being consistent from image to image and try to develop my own style.

I have also been blessed enough to do a lot of upgrades this year. I was able to upgrade from my Gary Honis modified DSLR to the SBIG STF-8300 monochrome CCD camera. To go with the new CCD camera I was also able to get the Starlight Xpress 7 position 36mm USB filter wheel and load it with Astrodon Gen 2 LRGB and 5nm Hydrogen alpha, OIII, and SII filters. Along the way I also put the Orion 50mm mini guidescope and StarShoot autoguider on the shelf and replaced them with the Starlight Xpress off-axis guider and QHY5L-II guide camera. These have all made a huge improvement in my images.

In September I was able to upgrade my mount. Some would not call going from a mount rated to carry 50 lbs (CGEM DX), to a mount with a capacity of 44 lbs (Atlas Pro) an upgrade. For me this has made a huge difference. I am now able to take single subs for as long as I want (in theory). The longest subs I have taken to date are the 45 minute OIII subs in my recent IC 410 image. I took 10 subs and they were all keepers. I'm sure I could do 60 minute (or even longer) subs and still have nice tight and rounds stars. EQMOD and Cartes du Ciel has also been a great addition compared to NexRemote.

The carbon fiber Levenhuk 8" RC will remain to be my long focal length scope for 2015. I am really enjoying the new Teleskop Service carbon fiber 107mm f/6.5 triplet and see it becoming my primary scope. The SV60EDS was sent back to Stellarvue and I should be receiving my new widefield scope on Monday, the William Optics 5-element Star71. I have recently installed the Rigel Systems nStep motor to the focuser on the 107mm scope and am looking forward to automating the focus on this scope. I think this will be another huge upgrade that I will likely want to have on my other two imaging scopes. I am thinking this will be the subject for my January post here at Little Piney Observatory.

I always find it interesting to look back at some of my older images and seeing how I have improved. It so happens I am working on IC 410 this December and I also imaged it last December with my old equipment. Here is a comparison of the shots. Dec 2013 was done with the DSLR camera and was 47 subs of 300 seconds for a total of 3.9 hrs. The Dec 2014 is (so far) a total of 20.5 hours with 18 X 1800 second H-alpha subs, 10 X 2700 second OIII, and 14 X 300 seconds each for RGB. I'm hoping to add some SII soon to finish it up and complete my first Hubble Palette image.

Click on image for better resolution

Update: I finished the Tadpoles up with a total of 28 hours of data. It is complete with h-alpha, OIII, SII, and RGB.

Its also amazing to me how many good people I have come to know in this hobby. I have several new web friends that I hope to meet in person some day. From my good friends Martin Hrdlicka up near Chicago, to Dennis St Germain down in Florida, all the good friends from the old Hayneedle Starparty forum, to all the great people on Cloudynights. It really is a great hobby with great people that help each other learn and get better. I hope you all had a great 2014 and wish nothing but the best for 2015. Have a great new year everyone! :)