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Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

February 13, 2008 01:02 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Rosette with more color in stars

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hi All,
I was told that my Rosette looked good except not enough color in the stars. So I tried to process it so that the stars were more colorful. This is the result of my efforts. What do you think, does the star color look more natural? :S

February 16, 2008 05:32 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

DSI III Darks, Envisage vs. Nebulosity

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hello all,
I recently read a few threads concerning the Amp Glow of the DSI III cameras. I have the DSI III Pro and was very aware of the Amp Glow and it did concern me even though the dark frame pretty well eliminated it.

Then Craig from Stark Labs gave a lengthy explanation of the consequences of the Amp Glow and how his program Nebulosity had eliminated it by writing new drivers and program code for the DSI III.

Well, I decided that his program at $45 would be a pretty good deal if it did what he claimed, so I downloaded the free trial software and applied the upgrades. Then I took a couple of identical darks, one with Envisage and one with Nebulosity to compare them.

To my surprise, the Amp Glow was completely gone from the dark and the dark looked quite normal compared to other cameras, where before the dark was strangely lacking hot pixels and was filled with Amp Glow.

I will post each dark frame each taken at 13.5c CCD temperature and 339 seconds exposure time. The first is the Envisage dark frame.

February 17, 2008 08:01 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Nebulosity and the DSI III

Posted By Floyd Blue
Ok, last night in the back yard I did some testing. Seeing was not great and the Moon was high and bright. Lots of light pollution too especially to the north. But, I wanted to see how the program worked so that the next dark night I would be ready.
I found that anything over 120 seconds just caused more noise than signal due to all the light. I always have problems when the Moon is overhead and more than 1/4 phase.
Here are two photos. 120 seconds x 15 subs. Taken with everything set default in Nebulosity.
I used Nebulosity to apply darks as well as used it with Drizzle to stack and align the subs.
Here is the first one, M44.
This is luminance only, so bear with me on this. :^)
Seems that it did a great job, considering all the seeing difficulties, it is very good I think.

February 19, 2008 01:46 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Synthesized color from Luminance

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hey, what do you think of this photo. I made color subs from luminance subs and combined them to get this.
Just playing around to see what could be done with just luminance. Always fun to play with data, but I have always wondered if it was possible to make a color shot when you did not have all the subs for it.

February 29, 2008 12:35 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Permanent pier is in and setup at LAAS!

Posted By Floyd Blue
Well, just got home from the LAAS site where I setup my permanent pier and concrete pad. The pier is about 50" high and has the G-11 top so the mount just slips in and I am done. I aligned it to true North with my GPS, so it should be close. grin Now I can just take up the G-11 head and not need to take the tripod anymore.

Next to it there is another pad with no pier for my Dobs to set on when I go, so I can look and image at the same time. 8)

Each pad has two power plugs for 110v ac so you can run everything from the local power, which is really nice. I do take the big 115 amp hr battery as back up though, just in case.

I have been wanting to set something up for quite some time, but I had to qualify and then be granted Star Membership, which I just received! smile

No pics, but I will try to get some next time up.

March 2, 2008 10:00 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Dark frame effects when gain or offset is changed?

Posted By Floyd Blue
What I am wanting to know is, if I have a dark frame master for a exposure time and I change the gain or offset from where it was set when the dark was taken, does this cause the dark frame to no longer be usable or proper for the exposure time?
Example,
Dark taken with gain = 63 and offset = 120 exposure 480 seconds

Light frame taken gain- 48 and offset = 120 exposure 480 seconds.

Floyd

March 6, 2008 06:01 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

IC410

Posted By Floyd Blue
Had some pretty bad luck Tuesday night. Went out to a local site and it looked pretty good. But after dark high clouds started to appear and they drifted trough all night.
3 hours and 40 minutes of IC410 and nothing to show for it due to high clouds screwing up almost all my exposures, especially the color ones.
Here is all that I got from 100 minutes of luminance. cwy The transparency was just not very good. 10 frames of 10 minutes. Not too good, stars were not crisp, so might not even be able to use it on a later exposure set.
The RGB frames were so bad that I just could not use them. sad
220 minutes pretty much wasted. >sad

March 10, 2008 12:55 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

My first image from my new pier at LAAS!

Posted By Floyd Blue
Well, the conditions actually were pretty bad! But I managed to get a single series of exposures on Saturday night of M81-82.
What do you think? I am going to try the subs again with Drizzle used for combining to see what the difference is, will post later.
I have these subs, auto guided
R=37 min x 170 sec
G=37 min x 170 sec
B=37 min x 170 sec
L=90 min x 170 sec
HA=40 min x 340 sec
WO 80mm F/6 APO
DSI III Pro, TV .8 Focal Reducer
Losmandy G-11

March 12, 2008 12:13 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: 15 v.s 20

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hi Dave,
I was just viewing through a 24" Starmaster this weekend and it is certainly a step above the 14.5" Starmaster that I own. Pun intended! wink The 20" Starmaster that another friend owns is also a step above. The objects are brighter and more resolved in the larger scopes. However the step ladder used is a pain for me, but the climb is worth the effort I guess. 8)
I prefer standing on the ground, but I do enjoy a trip up the ladder, but I am always happy that I do not have to transport and setup the larger scope.
Worth it? Yes of course, but do you have the time, space and physical strength to deal with the larger scope is a big question that you also must answer.

March 12, 2008 06:37 PM Forum: Religion

Original sin?

Posted By Floyd Blue
I feel the original sin was when Man decided to state with word and pen what God feels and expects from Man. This was the beginning of all religious strife and persecution as I see it.
When a few men decided that God was talking directly to them and commanded that he tell all the people what his plan was, they were placing themselves above all others and implied that they alone knew the truth.
There have been many of these people in the past, even in the recent past, some started cults that ended tragically and some religions that still prevail. But in the end, I really wonder whether they were conversing with God, or just delusions from within?

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