This was very insightful info, Luke and the final image is beautiful! I love the delicate blue hues you were able to capture in the reflection nebula. Thanks for sharing your experience with us on this. Cheers!
The best nights are often the surprise ones. Astro keeps you on your toes for sure. Keep em coming luke and yes I've had 2 clear nights in a row here in southern Ireland as well....can't believe it
I totally agree Peter! it's easy to get stuck in a rut so when a surprise result pops up like this it's a real shake-up! :-D Thanks so much for watching & commenting mate, and good luck for some more clear skies!!
I really feel like I'm just chilling in the obsy with you enjoying the night sky when you make your videos. Really raw and authentic. I love watching them when I'm chilling in my car with my telescope set up beside me in my dark sky site. It's like we're both chilling and doing astro at the same time! Really enjoy your content Luke, clear skies!
Ah mate that's a seriously awesome thing to read :-D So glad that feeling comes across from my videos my friend, it really is all about just sharing the night sky with like-minded people! :-) Really happy to read this one! Clear skies mate!
It's great seeing you do a video on this nebula as I also recently imaged it and it turned out to be one of my absolute favourites. I just got a new camera about a month ago, switched from an ASI533MC Pro to an Altair Hypercam 26C. And as I was scrolling through Stellarium to find the first target to try the increased FOV of my new camera out on, I actually settled on this exact same region, NGC 6914 and the surrounding Ha, with the blue nebula slightly offset from the centre of the frame. I ended up combining two nights of UV/IR cut data and a single night of l-eNhance data for its Ha signal. And I have to say that turned out to be probably my favourite image I've taken so far. There's just something about the mix of that bright blue reflection nebulosity, surrounded by so much red Ha and all of it combined with streaks of dark dust, it all makes for a very colourful frame. And then all the stars in the region, scattered all around the frame, gives the scene a special sparkly quality as well, at least with my quattro's diffraction spikes. I absolutely love it and highly recommend it to anyone to try and image. I even ended up getting it printed and hung it on my living room wall :)
Aw mate that's fantastic to hear, you got an image that you were so happy with that you literally hung it on the wall! - I'm happy for you! :-D Totally agree that this region is a true beauty, so much going on - feels like I can notice something new every time I look at the image! Thanks ever so much for watching and taking the time to share, I appreciate it!
Thanks for this one Luke. I appreciate your enthusiasm and unflagging interest in this hobby, it convinces me that imaging the night sky never has to grow stale.
👏👏👏 Luke so happy for you mate! Nothing like a clear sky out of nowhere and the excitement to find something to image! I like seeing you light up with happiness and sharing it with the world! Enjoy mate while it lasts! Clear Skies!
Awesome, mate! Yes, I have been using my old Baader Moon & Skyglow filter and the results on faint reflection nebulae improved a lot, even from my Bortle 8 balcony. I will give it a shot to try with no filter... of course when I have clear skies. Cheers!
Great job Luke, I have found similar under my B7 skies too, I have been playing with shooting with just a IR/UV cut then using a dual nb filter and extracting the Ha and merging it in just to boost the Ha regions. I can then use the RGB data to get the nice stars and other nebula detail. Bill Blanshan has some great pixelmath scripts to merge Ha into RGB really easily. I look forward to seeing more of these!
And now you've discovered why I argue so strongly against using light pollution filters. The three test subs you showcase really highlight how differently the same target appears when imaged through various filters. Oh, that and having 11" of aperture at f/2 helps as well :). I think you'll find there are quite a few "narrowband" targets that display some lovely structures when shot in broadband. This winter, do a broadband of the Flaming Star nebula... and discover the wonderful blue reflection that's revealed.
100% agreed mate yeah! I'll definitely be returning to my roots a bit and doing more of this kind of capture - it was a ton of fun seeing it come to life once stacked! :-) Hopefully we'll get a shift in the weather before long and I can do more!
Really appreciate your efforts Luke, its really encouraging to see that filters aren't always required and for the very budget conscious, its nice to know we can still get great results with just a colour camera.
Nice image! I've had problems with light pollution rings on all my images from my Bortle 8 back yard. I was trying to create a mask that would remove them and hit on the idea of just shooting the sky in a 'diffuse' way to capture the glow. One thing led to another and now I'm using a semi-transparent piece of plastic (paper protector from a binder aka UPPDMAT) to cover my scope and shoot flats at night with the same exposure/gain and duration settings as my light frames. I've been using these frames as my flats and skipping over darks since these flats capture amp glow and bad pixels. I've noticed two issues so far, one being if you are looking at something particularly bright, then the light seeps through the 'diffuser' and you end up removing some of it when applying flats, and the second being if your light conditions change, for example as you slew around and start to catch street lights from an angle, the flats won't compensate for this. However for regular sky glow I've had pretty good luck using this approach with a 6SE and ASI294MC Pro. Would be awesome if someone else could duplicate what I'm seeing. Cheers, and Clear Skies!
Hey there mate! - That's a good approach aye, they are sometimes referred to as sky-flats, or night sky flats - you could perhaps point to a deliberately chosen 'empty' spot of sky first before using your diffuser, that should stop the target accidentally being partially subtracted along with the flat operation. as you likely already know, the 294 needs very long flats to work properly, and generally speaking requires full calibration frames to be at it's best - you may want to try using the back side of an led-tracing panel at minimum brightness as your flat source, that's what I did with my own 294 :-) try to get flats to be 4+ sec long and it should really help with calibration, then you just need darks to match your lights and dark-flats to match your flats of course! Sorry that's a bit of a messy paragraph to read, but I'm in a hurry haha! All the best, Luke
I actually did not know that about the 294, so thanks for the tip! You are right, it is a sky flat, I've just never seen them done with anything other than a t-shirt or other fabric which doesn't give you enough definition to account for rings. I was actually using t-shirt sky flats up until that point :) CS!
Awesome final image Luke I too imaged this with the same idea in mind just a UV IR cut. I was a little closer in, but I think your widefield image does it better justice!
That's very kind of you to say Simon! - thank you mate :-D I really was torn on whether to shoot it with a tighter FOV using the Uranus, or go wide with the Poseidon, but I'm glad I ended up doing it this way! :-) Clear skies!
Great video! Crazy to see how well the UV filter did for the light pollution I usually use the Triband for my B5 backyard and then use UV/IR for dark sky sites I might have to try in the backyard now too thanks for doing the experiment.
It’s always interesting to see it in broadband. It’s my preference but impossible unfortunately where I live. I like your target. Anywhere where blue pops off red is gorgeous.
Thanks for watching Garnett my friend! :-) I was honestly shocked at how this came out for bortle 7 skies, probably one of my best shots to be honest! Hope you're keeping well buddy!
Luke Like you I also enjoy a RASA 11 and it took me 2 years to figure out why I had those what I call RASA Rings... ;-) Those darn things are hard to handle. First up you seem to have taken care of your internal reflections. I made 3D printed sleves for the Clear Glass Window Threads and another 3D Printed sleve for my Astro Hutech RASA 11 Adapter. I flocked these parts as I didn't want the sticky stuff on any surface near the corrective optics where the thread sleve went. It is easy to add and remove if need be. The same goes for the Adapter sleve. Once the adapter collor is in palce. The adapter is holding it in place against the flat side of the collor area. Works woderfully and no more reflections for this guy... The next thing on the list is a must with faster scope. That is making your flats a little hotter than you would for say something at f/5 and above. My RASA loves the Histogram Mean to be close to 40,000. Yep, I said 40,000... If you use the NINA Flat Wizard to make your Flats. In the Histogram MEAN Target, you will see the mean target number and next to that is a percentage number of 50%. Make that 60 and you will be in RASA heaven... ;-) Hope this helps Love the Channel!
Hey there mate! - Glad to see another fellow rasa enjoyer haha :-D I had a bit of a nightmare with the reflections and donuts early on - they were uncorrectable! - I went through various fixes to get the donut to be weak, and fully correctable with flats - I'm currently using a 3d printed & flocked baffle too as you mention, along with a flocked interior for my baader UFC system, that seems to have done the trick! I did my best to document these in a recent video I published called 'Flock yeah!', haha If I start to run into issues with flats I'll bear that in mind about needing to have them a little brighter, thanks for the tip mate! Thank you for watching and taking the time to share a helpful comment, it's appreciated! Clear skies :-)
Interesting, about ten days ago I received a new 533 sensor OSC camera for use (mainly) with a SY 135 f2 lens. One night during an unexpected break in the clouds I managed to get just over an hour's worth of data of the same region. No filters (were on order) or guiding ( with my set up I can get about 45" exposure before trailing occurs) I only did this to test the camera but was surprised with the result which was much better than expected. I did not notice the area of reflection nebula though but maybe with the set up used it would need more exposure time or would not be visible at all? Imaged the same area two nights ago with the same set up but with an L-Enhance filter, guiding and 60" subs. I managed to get 81 frames before the clouds rolled in. Much better image but again no sign of the reflection nebula. I was thinking of imaging the same area with an L-Pro filter the next clear night.
Thanks so much for the info mate! - Interesting to hear all that! :-) I'd say shoot it without a filter again if you get the chance and compare directly! could be a good experiment and probably turn out nicely if you combined both sets of data too eventually!
Great video, Luke! This target is on my list as well, but I wasn't bold enough to try it in my B8 skies without a dual-narrowband filter. Now I'll give it a shot! Clear skies, Matt
Nice image Luke. I've found the same results. I thought with Bortle 5 skies I "had" to use LP filters. However, I have had a great deal of success using a UV IR filter, cutting back on exposure times and using more light subs. Like always, enjoyed it and keep them coming.
Thank you Mike!! - I'll definitely be delving deeper into this and shooting more targets with just uv/ir cut, - I really like the appearance :-) Clear skies!
Good evening, Luk I really liked your work. Although my comments on previous videos may not be to your liking, I still enjoy what you've shared. And I will continue to follow you, very sincerely. As I told you a while ago, I have a great friend with a PO taking pictures with the 585 Uranus C with the IDAS GNB filter. You have done an excellent job very sincerely. I just bought the new IDAS DTD which is very good at, or recommended for a 585 although I've only tested it with my 533MC Pro. But as I told you I really want to buy the PO 585 -C Pro. I'm loving what I've seen with it PO 585 Uranus C. Big hug from Portugal/ Algarve.
Hey there Tiago! - I can't think of any time where you've offended me mate so please don't feel that way my friend! :-) Hope you are having lots of clear skies in Portugal!
Thanks for explaining this. I have a new color camera and dual-band filter and wonder when I should use it. It appears the answer is test it on and off. I'm assuming we're looking at a live stack in sharpcap or similar program? please more tips for dual-band filters!
Hey mate! - indeed those first shots were just 4x1m exposures each live-stacked from Sharpcap using 'save as seen' mode - the last shot was captured in NINA and stacked using astropixelprocessor, and processed in pixinsight :-) Cheers!!
Hey Luke this reminds me of Corona Australis Very similar Next clear night (when oh when???) it's on my to do list now I have a better filter and the 533 for a tighter FOV Great image!
Thanks Nik! :-D Ah mate I hear you RE: the weather! we've had two half nights this past week though and it felt incredible to see the stars again haha! (but it's back to cloud now lol!)
@@lukomatico Thanks much. For various reasons recently I only get around 2h on the target per night. Good for RASA, not so much for 8HD. However, with L-Ultimate what I am getting is much better than what I used to get without filters, even my location is worse than the one I used to go to. Apart from the noise, it is the magic in real time😂
Really interesting target Luke and a great image ! A uv/ir filter is about the only one I haven't got so may well get one. I've got the optolong l pro for galaxies but have always been slightly disappointed with it so a uv/ir filter would probably work at least as well on galaxies 👍
Hey Paul mate! - I was the same way with my old L-pro really, works for some folk but not really for me I think - much better with just uv/ir! :-) Good luck for some clear soon hey mate!
Ah mate the Poseidon has been such a great cam! - really hoping you get some clear skies soon, we've had two half-nights here and it's felt amazing haha!
Thanks so much mate! :-D Glad you like the shot! - I definitely feel like I'll be trying some more nebula shots with just uv/ir cut, I love the natural colours on display!
I'm sooo surprised by this result, Luke! I'd expect the UV/IR cut to be completely washed out with LP at f/2 with a 4 minute sub under B7 skies! I did a similar experiment myself between a UV/IR cut, L-Pro and L-eNhance under B6 skies, and the UV/IR produced a LP saturated image on 90 second subs at f/6. The L-Pro was an improvement, and the L-eNhance was the clear winner as I was targeting an Ha dominated region. Off the back of your result here I will re-test on a region with both Ha and broadband targets in the frame. Just to check, was it a 4 minute sub or 4 minutes total integration time? Thanks as always for the very interesting video.
Hey there Chris mate! - Me too honestly, I really didn't expect too much from it but I feel like I ended up with one of my best shots yet haha - what a surprise I had when the stacked image appeared on the screen! RE: the 4m total, it was 4x1m exposures on those test shots mate, - the final image however was made up of 2m shots :-) Cheers for your support as always mate!
I’m a bit surprised at how well the Ha regions came out despite not using a NB filter. Being in a B4 région myself, I will try to repeat this if ever it stops raining. Very curious to see the results.
@@lukomatico As promised. storage.googleapis.com/dso-browser.com/astrophotography/picture-94ecb2b0d104b13f2431efa9fb3f58dc-original.jpg. Quick and dirty process, a bit widefield. 70 x 180 sec lights UV/IR cut only. Bortle 4.
Hey Luke.Thanks for your videos.Helped me a lot especially those with data included.I hope you'll make a video about the new update from PI which it seems,ruined some scripts like EZ suite and some other processes .But the signals are mixed.Would you recommend updating or waiting for things to settle? Clear skies.
Thanks for the lovely comment mate! - I'm very much in the 'wait for the dust to settle' camp, haha - I can do everything I want to with my older install of PixInsight so why rock the boat hey? :-D Clear skies!
Hey Luke mate i recently took some dark nebula from here in london. Goes to show if you keep the subs short we can get these fainties. I used mono with the rgb filter so no filters as such and just a L Pro for the OSC. Was no rasa mind lol. But we can get the difficult fuzzies. Clear skies bud
Hey Rob mate! Hope you've been keeping well :-D That's awesome to hear you've had some success from London too, - I've not shot a traditional nebula with just uv/ir cut for ages, so this came as a real nice surprise and a big spur to make me want to shoot more like it! Clear skies to you mate :-)
Great experiment and fantastic final image. I originally assumed I had to use a light pollution filter to take decent images and used the Optolong L-Pro with my 2600mc. I've mentioed before that I've never been entirely happy with my images (especially on broadband targets like galaxies) in that something just felt 'off' (technical term!) with them. I now realise its the L-Pro messing with the colour, so I have gone down the mono LRGBSHO route for my new rig, which is now finally finished🤣I guess there is still a case for LP filters in heavily light polluted skies, but with the latest tools and techniques you can certainly get away without them. I don't really see myself using one again.
Hey there Pete mate! - I honestly found the same thing with my old l-pro, seems to work for some folks but just didn't do it for me really! I'm dead impressed by how the uv/ir cut filter picked out all regions of this target though, honestly totally unexpected - when I finally stacked the data and saw it for the first time I nearly fell out of my chair LOL! what a shock!
You should check out LBN 409, it’s a series of reflection nebulae surrounded by dark nebulae in an area of sky between Cygnus, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia. I’m currently capturing it with my ASI533MC and a UV/IR Cut filter. So far so good!
This looks like a great target will be sure to try this. Can I ask how do you locate the dark nebula? I find that Stellarium names them but doesnt show them and Telescopius doesn’t name them which makes it hard to choose FOV or even locate
Hey Simon!! - Sometimes I just google the target itself and find alternative catalogue names to find things in telescopius for example, but when it comes to getting my framed ideas into nina I do sometimes just import the RA & Dec from telescopius' preview window over into NINA and do it that way :-) Cheers!
@@lukomatico It is! I'm trying to figure out which exposure times are best at the moment, since I have an f/6 refractor and a color camera. It would probably be a lot easier with mono!
Thanks Luke I just realised you can change the survey used in Telescopius then go crazy with the contrast etc to show up the dark nebulas which makes it easier to frame. Thanks to @marimbaman-md9rn I will crack out the mono and redcat combo! A possible clear night tomorrow in the UK we can dream!@@lukomatico
The L-Extreme filter will not work with the RASA, there is a phase shift that occurs at F2.0. It;s a known "feature". However the L-Enhance works quite well.
Hey Karl! - The filter i mentioned wasn't a normal L-Extreme, I used the unreleased L-extreme F2 that optolong sent to me for testing for earlier shots :-D
Ah mate RASA's yup they're a pain alright I did warn you lol, I've still got horrible vignetting & tilt due to using an M48 imaging train but it calibrates out just fine so I'm just not going to worry about it. Nice image you got & I've gotta say having some clear skies has been a welcome relief. I may have a go at something like that myself sometime, clear skies matey
They certainly are Tich mate, haha!! :-D Still, I'd find it hard to give mine up now! Agreed RE: the clear skies mate, I've had two half-nights but it's felt like bliss after so many poor nights lol!
Just goes to show that taking test shots with different filters and without is worth doing. I almost always automatically assume that a light pollution filter will make my images look better.
Luke, may I ask please? So I shot at F10 using a 200/1000 newt. reflector fitted with a 2X Barlow, and a DSLR Camera ( unmodified ) shooting M82 Galaxy, some time ago. When I stacked my subs ( each about 90secs each ) at around 55 subs/82.5 mins in total integration, the resulting stacked image had the exact same obvious ring in it, but even worse than yours. My confusion, is you also got a similar result at F2 with the RASA? Is this just a result of extreme FL either very short or very long, that causes these ringed artefact's? * I apologise for dropping this big question on you Luke, and I'll totally understand if you choose to ignore it!? LOL. Thanks so much either way. Wes, Liverpool UK ( Bortle 7 )
Hey Wes! - I expect in this case that the ringed artefact is either caused by the barlow itself or the mirror cell of the scope letting light come through from the sides or behind, i've had that happen before on my newts! On my RASA I think the problem might be down to the sides needing flocking now, too much light bouncing around in there! Hope that's some use to you mate!
@@lukomatico Thanks so much Luke! I think the bit about light coming in through the back of newt really makes sense for my circumstances because i actually forgot to cover it, and there was a street lamp shining right into it, I recall. Plus the barlow could have magnified it, making it even more pronounced. Thanks again for taking the time Luke! Wes.
Couldn’t we do this with say two sets of stacks……one broadband and one narrow, overlay the narrowband on the broadband and use masks in Ps to expose just the broadband reflection nebula ?…..seems like a small soft brush would get the job done?
Absolutely you could do that mate yeah! that'd probably be the best way to do it honestly, - I really liked the views from the 'unfiltered' shot though myself! :-D
Hi Luke This was indeed surprising to me too, and has changed the way I think about light pollution filters. I heard Cuiv mention several times that for broadband targets it's better not to use any filter (i.e. UV-IR only), but in this video by Julien (Dark Sky Geek) he really gives the intuition behind it. th-cam.com/video/SiTLB2-m5Hg/w-d-xo.html
Thanks so much mate! - I'd really always agree RE: traditional broadband targets & shooting unfiltered, I found the same thing too - I found this one especially surprising given that the region is so rich in traditional emission nebulosity that I expected to be giving up much more by shooting broadband, but it turned out as one of my best images I think haha! :-D I appreciated the helpful comment!
Every now and then a project surprises you so much that it makes you step back and reassess things! - For me, this was the project that did it!
This was very insightful info, Luke and the final image is beautiful! I love the delicate blue hues you were able to capture in the reflection nebula. Thanks for sharing your experience with us on this. Cheers!
Glad you enjoyed it Sarah! - Thanks so much for the lovely comment mate :-) Clear skies!
The best nights are often the surprise ones. Astro keeps you on your toes for sure. Keep em coming luke and yes I've had 2 clear nights in a row here in southern Ireland as well....can't believe it
I totally agree Peter! it's easy to get stuck in a rut so when a surprise result pops up like this it's a real shake-up! :-D Thanks so much for watching & commenting mate, and good luck for some more clear skies!!
Incredible image, brother. Appreciate the thought process going in! Keep it up
Thank you so much brother!! :-D that means a whole lot to me!
Clear skies 👍👍
I really feel like I'm just chilling in the obsy with you enjoying the night sky when you make your videos. Really raw and authentic. I love watching them when I'm chilling in my car with my telescope set up beside me in my dark sky site. It's like we're both chilling and doing astro at the same time! Really enjoy your content Luke, clear skies!
Ah mate that's a seriously awesome thing to read :-D So glad that feeling comes across from my videos my friend, it really is all about just sharing the night sky with like-minded people! :-) Really happy to read this one!
Clear skies mate!
Absolutely stunning work once again Sir!!!!!!
Wow, thank you! So glad you liked it mate :-)
It's great seeing you do a video on this nebula as I also recently imaged it and it turned out to be one of my absolute favourites.
I just got a new camera about a month ago, switched from an ASI533MC Pro to an Altair Hypercam 26C. And as I was scrolling through Stellarium to find the first target to try the increased FOV of my new camera out on, I actually settled on this exact same region, NGC 6914 and the surrounding Ha, with the blue nebula slightly offset from the centre of the frame. I ended up combining two nights of UV/IR cut data and a single night of l-eNhance data for its Ha signal. And I have to say that turned out to be probably my favourite image I've taken so far.
There's just something about the mix of that bright blue reflection nebulosity, surrounded by so much red Ha and all of it combined with streaks of dark dust, it all makes for a very colourful frame. And then all the stars in the region, scattered all around the frame, gives the scene a special sparkly quality as well, at least with my quattro's diffraction spikes. I absolutely love it and highly recommend it to anyone to try and image. I even ended up getting it printed and hung it on my living room wall :)
Aw mate that's fantastic to hear, you got an image that you were so happy with that you literally hung it on the wall! - I'm happy for you! :-D
Totally agree that this region is a true beauty, so much going on - feels like I can notice something new every time I look at the image!
Thanks ever so much for watching and taking the time to share, I appreciate it!
Beautiful image, thanks Luke!
Thanks ever so much!! :-D Clear skies to you!
Thanks for this one Luke. I appreciate your enthusiasm and unflagging interest in this hobby, it convinces me that imaging the night sky never has to grow stale.
My pleasure Joe mate, as always! so glad you get value from my videos :-) Clear skies!!
👏👏👏 Luke so happy for you mate! Nothing like a clear sky out of nowhere and the excitement to find something to image! I like seeing you light up with happiness and sharing it with the world! Enjoy mate while it lasts! Clear Skies!
Chuffed to hear that Dave my friend! :-D I'll certainly make the most of it!!
Awesome, mate! Yes, I have been using my old Baader Moon & Skyglow filter and the results on faint reflection nebulae improved a lot, even from my Bortle 8 balcony. I will give it a shot to try with no filter... of course when I have clear skies. Cheers!
Awesome to hear it Enrique! :-D Good luck for your future shots my friend, I hope it turns out well! :-)
Great job Luke, I have found similar under my B7 skies too, I have been playing with shooting with just a IR/UV cut then using a dual nb filter and extracting the Ha and merging it in just to boost the Ha regions. I can then use the RGB data to get the nice stars and other nebula detail. Bill Blanshan has some great pixelmath scripts to merge Ha into RGB really easily.
I look forward to seeing more of these!
Thanks so much mate! Really glad to hear it's working so well for you too, and that the combinations are working out 👍👍
And now you've discovered why I argue so strongly against using light pollution filters. The three test subs you showcase really highlight how differently the same target appears when imaged through various filters. Oh, that and having 11" of aperture at f/2 helps as well :). I think you'll find there are quite a few "narrowband" targets that display some lovely structures when shot in broadband. This winter, do a broadband of the Flaming Star nebula... and discover the wonderful blue reflection that's revealed.
100% agreed mate yeah! I'll definitely be returning to my roots a bit and doing more of this kind of capture - it was a ton of fun seeing it come to life once stacked! :-)
Hopefully we'll get a shift in the weather before long and I can do more!
Really appreciate your efforts Luke, its really encouraging to see that filters aren't always required and for the very budget conscious, its nice to know we can still get great results with just a colour camera.
I appreciate that Chris mate! - It really surprised me how well it turned out, honestly going to be doing a good bit more of this! :-) Clear skies!
Nice image! I've had problems with light pollution rings on all my images from my Bortle 8 back yard. I was trying to create a mask that would remove them and hit on the idea of just shooting the sky in a 'diffuse' way to capture the glow. One thing led to another and now I'm using a semi-transparent piece of plastic (paper protector from a binder aka UPPDMAT) to cover my scope and shoot flats at night with the same exposure/gain and duration settings as my light frames. I've been using these frames as my flats and skipping over darks since these flats capture amp glow and bad pixels. I've noticed two issues so far, one being if you are looking at something particularly bright, then the light seeps through the 'diffuser' and you end up removing some of it when applying flats, and the second being if your light conditions change, for example as you slew around and start to catch street lights from an angle, the flats won't compensate for this. However for regular sky glow I've had pretty good luck using this approach with a 6SE and ASI294MC Pro. Would be awesome if someone else could duplicate what I'm seeing. Cheers, and Clear Skies!
Hey there mate! - That's a good approach aye, they are sometimes referred to as sky-flats, or night sky flats - you could perhaps point to a deliberately chosen 'empty' spot of sky first before using your diffuser, that should stop the target accidentally being partially subtracted along with the flat operation.
as you likely already know, the 294 needs very long flats to work properly, and generally speaking requires full calibration frames to be at it's best - you may want to try using the back side of an led-tracing panel at minimum brightness as your flat source, that's what I did with my own 294 :-) try to get flats to be 4+ sec long and it should really help with calibration, then you just need darks to match your lights and dark-flats to match your flats of course!
Sorry that's a bit of a messy paragraph to read, but I'm in a hurry haha!
All the best,
Luke
I actually did not know that about the 294, so thanks for the tip! You are right, it is a sky flat, I've just never seen them done with anything other than a t-shirt or other fabric which doesn't give you enough definition to account for rings. I was actually using t-shirt sky flats up until that point :) CS!
Awesome final image Luke I too imaged this with the same idea in mind just a UV IR cut. I was a little closer in, but I think your widefield image does it better justice!
That's very kind of you to say Simon! - thank you mate :-D I really was torn on whether to shoot it with a tighter FOV using the Uranus, or go wide with the Poseidon, but I'm glad I ended up doing it this way! :-) Clear skies!
Very nice image Luke from such light polluted skies
Thanks so much Tony! :-D Really chuffed with it mate!
Great video! Crazy to see how well the UV filter did for the light pollution I usually use the Triband for my B5 backyard and then use UV/IR for dark sky sites I might have to try in the backyard now too thanks for doing the experiment.
Thanks ever so much man! :-D I was so surprised, and honestly pleased at how it turned out haha! definitely gonna be doing more of this!
Meteor shower tonight, clear skies fella... milkyway is visible with the naked eye here. Jaw dropping this universe of ours.
I've really gotta go on a journey sometime and see the milky way naked eye again, it's an amazing sight hey! :-) Thanks so much for watching!
Thanks for sharing this unfiltered experience 😃
For reflection nebulae I am sometimes using the Baader Nd filter.
My pleasure mate, thank you for watching! :-)
Cool target Luke and the final image looked awesome!
Like the new logo! 👌🏻👌🏻
Thanks ever so much mate! - Hope you've been keeping well and I'm glad you like the new logo! :-D Clear skies!
It’s always interesting to see it in broadband. It’s my preference but impossible unfortunately where I live. I like your target. Anywhere where blue pops off red is gorgeous.
Thanks for watching Garnett my friend! :-) I was honestly shocked at how this came out for bortle 7 skies, probably one of my best shots to be honest!
Hope you're keeping well buddy!
Luke Like you I also enjoy a RASA 11 and it took me 2 years to figure out why I had those what I call RASA Rings... ;-) Those darn things are hard to handle. First up you seem to have taken care of your internal reflections. I made 3D printed sleves for the Clear Glass Window Threads and another 3D Printed sleve for my Astro Hutech RASA 11 Adapter. I flocked these parts as I didn't want the sticky stuff on any surface near the corrective optics where the thread sleve went. It is easy to add and remove if need be. The same goes for the Adapter sleve. Once the adapter collor is in palce. The adapter is holding it in place against the flat side of the collor area. Works woderfully and no more reflections for this guy...
The next thing on the list is a must with faster scope. That is making your flats a little hotter than you would for say something at f/5 and above. My RASA loves the Histogram Mean to be close to 40,000. Yep, I said 40,000... If you use the NINA Flat Wizard to make your Flats. In the Histogram MEAN Target, you will see the mean target number and next to that is a percentage number of 50%. Make that 60 and you will be in RASA heaven... ;-) Hope this helps Love the Channel!
Hey there mate! - Glad to see another fellow rasa enjoyer haha :-D
I had a bit of a nightmare with the reflections and donuts early on - they were uncorrectable! - I went through various fixes to get the donut to be weak, and fully correctable with flats - I'm currently using a 3d printed & flocked baffle too as you mention, along with a flocked interior for my baader UFC system, that seems to have done the trick!
I did my best to document these in a recent video I published called 'Flock yeah!', haha
If I start to run into issues with flats I'll bear that in mind about needing to have them a little brighter, thanks for the tip mate!
Thank you for watching and taking the time to share a helpful comment, it's appreciated!
Clear skies :-)
Interesting, about ten days ago I received a new 533 sensor OSC camera for use (mainly) with a SY 135 f2 lens. One night during an unexpected break in the clouds I managed to get just over an hour's worth of data of the same region. No filters (were on order) or guiding ( with my set up I can get about 45" exposure before trailing occurs) I only did this to test the camera but was surprised with the result which was much better than expected. I did not notice the area of reflection nebula though but maybe with the set up used it would need more exposure time or would not be visible at all? Imaged the same area two nights ago with the same set up but with an L-Enhance filter, guiding and 60" subs. I managed to get 81 frames before the clouds rolled in. Much better image but again no sign of the reflection nebula. I was thinking of imaging the same area with an L-Pro filter the next clear night.
Thanks so much for the info mate! - Interesting to hear all that! :-) I'd say shoot it without a filter again if you get the chance and compare directly! could be a good experiment and probably turn out nicely if you combined both sets of data too eventually!
Great video, Luke! This target is on my list as well, but I wasn't bold enough to try it in my B8 skies without a dual-narrowband filter. Now I'll give it a shot! Clear skies, Matt
Awesome to hear it Matt! - Good luck to you my friend, it's gotta be worth a go still hey! :-D
Nice image Luke. I've found the same results. I thought with Bortle 5 skies I "had" to use LP filters. However, I have had a great deal of success using a UV IR filter, cutting back on exposure times and using more light subs. Like always, enjoyed it and keep them coming.
Thank you Mike!! - I'll definitely be delving deeper into this and shooting more targets with just uv/ir cut, - I really like the appearance :-)
Clear skies!
Good evening, Luk I really liked your work. Although my comments on previous videos may not be to your liking, I still enjoy what you've shared. And I will continue to follow you, very sincerely. As I told you a while ago, I have a great friend with a PO taking pictures with the 585 Uranus C with the IDAS GNB filter. You have done an excellent job very sincerely. I just bought the new IDAS DTD which is very good at, or recommended for a 585 although I've only tested it with my 533MC Pro. But as I told you I really want to buy the PO 585 -C Pro. I'm loving what I've seen with it PO 585 Uranus C. Big hug from Portugal/ Algarve.
Hey there Tiago! - I can't think of any time where you've offended me mate so please don't feel that way my friend! :-)
Hope you are having lots of clear skies in Portugal!
Thanks for explaining this. I have a new color camera and dual-band filter and wonder when I should use it. It appears the answer is test it on and off. I'm assuming we're looking at a live stack in sharpcap or similar program? please more tips for dual-band filters!
Hey mate! - indeed those first shots were just 4x1m exposures each live-stacked from Sharpcap using 'save as seen' mode - the last shot was captured in NINA and stacked using astropixelprocessor, and processed in pixinsight :-) Cheers!!
Hey Luke this reminds me of Corona Australis Very similar Next clear night (when oh when???) it's on my to do list now I have a better filter and the 533 for a tighter FOV
Great image!
Thanks Nik! :-D Ah mate I hear you RE: the weather! we've had two half nights this past week though and it felt incredible to see the stars again haha! (but it's back to cloud now lol!)
Loving your video, your photo and your RADIO Broadcast voice😏
Hahah!! :-D Thank you again for those tips Lubo, it's definitely improved my videos quality I think! :-) Clear skies!
@@lukomatico Thanks much. For various reasons recently I only get around 2h on the target per night. Good for RASA, not so much for 8HD. However, with L-Ultimate what I am getting is much better than what I used to get without filters, even my location is worse than the one I used to go to. Apart from the noise, it is the magic in real time😂
very cool shot Luke!
Thanks so much Caleb!! :-D Appreciate it bud!
Really interesting target Luke and a great image ! A uv/ir filter is about the only one I haven't got so may well get one. I've got the optolong l pro for galaxies but have always been slightly disappointed with it so a uv/ir filter would probably work at least as well on galaxies 👍
Hey Paul mate! - I was the same way with my old L-pro really, works for some folk but not really for me I think - much better with just uv/ir! :-) Good luck for some clear soon hey mate!
Interesting results....👍 I have the Poseidon-C Pro as well, and I like it very much. But, as always, the weather is not great...😪
Ah mate the Poseidon has been such a great cam! - really hoping you get some clear skies soon, we've had two half-nights here and it's felt amazing haha!
Could you try to do a huge mosaic of the sadr region? Like 4x4 frames or more?
I could indeed mate aye! I just haven't been getting enough clear skies to make it doable yet :-( Cheers for watching!
UV/IR is my goto filter for broadband targets. Killer shot
Thanks so much mate! :-D Glad you like the shot! - I definitely feel like I'll be trying some more nebula shots with just uv/ir cut, I love the natural colours on display!
I'm sooo surprised by this result, Luke! I'd expect the UV/IR cut to be completely washed out with LP at f/2 with a 4 minute sub under B7 skies! I did a similar experiment myself between a UV/IR cut, L-Pro and L-eNhance under B6 skies, and the UV/IR produced a LP saturated image on 90 second subs at f/6. The L-Pro was an improvement, and the L-eNhance was the clear winner as I was targeting an Ha dominated region. Off the back of your result here I will re-test on a region with both Ha and broadband targets in the frame. Just to check, was it a 4 minute sub or 4 minutes total integration time? Thanks as always for the very interesting video.
Hey there Chris mate! - Me too honestly, I really didn't expect too much from it but I feel like I ended up with one of my best shots yet haha - what a surprise I had when the stacked image appeared on the screen!
RE: the 4m total, it was 4x1m exposures on those test shots mate, - the final image however was made up of 2m shots :-)
Cheers for your support as always mate!
Same situation myself tonight unexpected clear night settled on the pacman nebula first time on target fingers crossed for a good night
Oh nice one mate!! Hope you had a good session! :-D sorry about the late reply!
I’m a bit surprised at how well the Ha regions came out despite not using a NB filter. Being in a B4 région myself, I will try to repeat this if ever it stops raining. Very curious to see the results.
It surprised me too mate honestly! So glad I gave it a go, the natural colours are beautiful I think :-) From your b4 skies it should be amazing!
@@lukomatico As promised. storage.googleapis.com/dso-browser.com/astrophotography/picture-94ecb2b0d104b13f2431efa9fb3f58dc-original.jpg. Quick and dirty process, a bit widefield. 70 x 180 sec lights UV/IR cut only. Bortle 4.
Hey Luke.Thanks for your videos.Helped me a lot especially those with data included.I hope you'll make a video about the new update from PI which it seems,ruined some scripts like EZ suite and some other processes .But the signals are mixed.Would you recommend updating or waiting for things to settle? Clear skies.
Thanks for the lovely comment mate! - I'm very much in the 'wait for the dust to settle' camp, haha - I can do everything I want to with my older install of PixInsight so why rock the boat hey? :-D
Clear skies!
Hey Luke mate i recently took some dark nebula from here in london. Goes to show if you keep the subs short we can get these fainties. I used mono with the rgb filter so no filters as such and just a L Pro for the OSC. Was no rasa mind lol. But we can get the difficult fuzzies. Clear skies bud
Hey Rob mate! Hope you've been keeping well :-D
That's awesome to hear you've had some success from London too, - I've not shot a traditional nebula with just uv/ir cut for ages, so this came as a real nice surprise and a big spur to make me want to shoot more like it!
Clear skies to you mate :-)
Great experiment and fantastic final image. I originally assumed I had to use a light pollution filter to take decent images and used the Optolong L-Pro with my 2600mc. I've mentioed before that I've never been entirely happy with my images (especially on broadband targets like galaxies) in that something just felt 'off' (technical term!) with them. I now realise its the L-Pro messing with the colour, so I have gone down the mono LRGBSHO route for my new rig, which is now finally finished🤣I guess there is still a case for LP filters in heavily light polluted skies, but with the latest tools and techniques you can certainly get away without them. I don't really see myself using one again.
Hey there Pete mate! - I honestly found the same thing with my old l-pro, seems to work for some folks but just didn't do it for me really!
I'm dead impressed by how the uv/ir cut filter picked out all regions of this target though, honestly totally unexpected - when I finally stacked the data and saw it for the first time I nearly fell out of my chair LOL! what a shock!
You should check out LBN 409, it’s a series of reflection nebulae surrounded by dark nebulae in an area of sky between Cygnus, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia. I’m currently capturing it with my ASI533MC and a UV/IR Cut filter. So far so good!
This looks like a great target will be sure to try this. Can I ask how do you locate the dark nebula? I find that Stellarium names them but doesnt show them and Telescopius doesn’t name them which makes it hard to choose FOV or even locate
Thanks for the excellent suggestion mate! - I've had a look at the region and it does look pretty darn interesting, but also challenging I'm sure! :-D
Hey Simon!! - Sometimes I just google the target itself and find alternative catalogue names to find things in telescopius for example, but when it comes to getting my framed ideas into nina I do sometimes just import the RA & Dec from telescopius' preview window over into NINA and do it that way :-) Cheers!
@@lukomatico It is! I'm trying to figure out which exposure times are best at the moment, since I have an f/6 refractor and a color camera. It would probably be a lot easier with mono!
Thanks Luke I just realised you can change the survey used in Telescopius then go crazy with the contrast etc to show up the dark nebulas which makes it easier to frame. Thanks to @marimbaman-md9rn I will crack out the mono and redcat combo! A possible clear night tomorrow in the UK we can dream!@@lukomatico
The L-Extreme filter will not work with the RASA, there is a phase shift that occurs at F2.0. It;s a known "feature". However the L-Enhance works quite well.
Hey Karl! - The filter i mentioned wasn't a normal L-Extreme, I used the unreleased L-extreme F2 that optolong sent to me for testing for earlier shots :-D
@@lukomatico Aah, I heard they were working on one. Hopefully the QC is up for the challenge. :)
Also known as the The Blue Beacons - want to do this target myself :).
Ah nice!! - I didn't know that one John, thanks for the knowledge! :-D
Ah mate RASA's yup they're a pain alright I did warn you lol, I've still got horrible vignetting & tilt due to using an M48 imaging train but it calibrates out just fine so I'm just not going to worry about it. Nice image you got & I've gotta say having some clear skies has been a welcome relief. I may have a go at something like that myself sometime, clear skies matey
They certainly are Tich mate, haha!! :-D Still, I'd find it hard to give mine up now!
Agreed RE: the clear skies mate, I've had two half-nights but it's felt like bliss after so many poor nights lol!
Just goes to show that taking test shots with different filters and without is worth doing. I almost always automatically assume that a light pollution filter will make my images look better.
Absolutely mate! - I was very surprised at the result of the experiment and feel glad I tried! :-D Clear skies to you!
Luke, may I ask please? So I shot at F10 using a 200/1000 newt. reflector fitted with a 2X Barlow, and a DSLR Camera ( unmodified ) shooting M82 Galaxy, some time ago. When I stacked my subs ( each about 90secs each ) at around 55 subs/82.5 mins in total integration, the resulting stacked image had the exact same obvious ring in it, but even worse than yours. My confusion, is you also got a similar result at F2 with the RASA? Is this just a result of extreme FL either very short or very long, that causes these ringed artefact's?
* I apologise for dropping this big question on you Luke, and I'll totally understand if you choose to ignore it!? LOL. Thanks so much either way.
Wes, Liverpool UK ( Bortle 7 )
Hey Wes! - I expect in this case that the ringed artefact is either caused by the barlow itself or the mirror cell of the scope letting light come through from the sides or behind, i've had that happen before on my newts!
On my RASA I think the problem might be down to the sides needing flocking now, too much light bouncing around in there!
Hope that's some use to you mate!
@@lukomatico Thanks so much Luke! I think the bit about light coming in through the back of newt really makes sense for my circumstances because i actually forgot to cover it, and there was a street lamp shining right into it, I recall. Plus the barlow could have magnified it, making it even more pronounced. Thanks again for taking the time Luke! Wes.
@@wesleydonnelly2141 that could definitely be it then mate! No worries, and good luck!
@@lukomatico Thanks again Luke! 🙂👍
Good idea! I will shoot this tonight if the clouds stay away. AT115EDT + ASI533MC Pro. 120 exposures
Awesome to hear it Jack!! - Hope those clouds cleared for you bud :-)
Im stil a bit Stumped at the moment, but I will yes, see you on the next one..
Hopefully nothing is vexing you too harshly mate! - glad to hear you'll be there on the next one bud, as always! :-)
I thought the astrodork in the credits was me 😭
Ah mate if you're a member here or on Patreon and I've missed you on the credits I'm sorry!!
Couldn’t we do this with say two sets of stacks……one broadband and one narrow, overlay the narrowband on the broadband and use masks in Ps to expose just the broadband reflection nebula ?…..seems like a small soft brush would get the job done?
Absolutely you could do that mate yeah! that'd probably be the best way to do it honestly, - I really liked the views from the 'unfiltered' shot though myself! :-D
Your face reminds me of Chris Pratt. (That's a compliment)
Now that's a compliment haha! :-D Thanks mate!
Here's some keywords for you sir: emission nebula / reflection nebula
I'm very well aware of those, and what they mean haha! :-D Cheers!
Hi Luke
This was indeed surprising to me too, and has changed the way I think about light pollution filters.
I heard Cuiv mention several times that for broadband targets it's better not to use any filter (i.e. UV-IR only), but in this video by Julien (Dark Sky Geek) he really gives the intuition behind it.
th-cam.com/video/SiTLB2-m5Hg/w-d-xo.html
Thanks so much mate! - I'd really always agree RE: traditional broadband targets & shooting unfiltered, I found the same thing too - I found this one especially surprising given that the region is so rich in traditional emission nebulosity that I expected to be giving up much more by shooting broadband, but it turned out as one of my best images I think haha! :-D
I appreciated the helpful comment!