PIER-14 Am I alone?

Hi Ray,

Joining you on Pier 14. I will be thinking about targets with Stellarium and Telescopius. I will let you know my thoughts soon (keen to get started).

Main interests to start with are to get some much better images of nebulae. Never seem to get enough data in my cloudy location!

old_eyes

Hi old_eyes,

Thanks for replying. Now without wishing to turn this into a competition, maybe I could have called myself older_eyes.

I am on the same wavelength as you wanting better images of some of those nebulae, which as you say need more data than we can usually get here. Having said that, I'm assuming that like me you live in the UK or somewhere equally blighted by long periods of cloudy weather, excepting for the odd night when there is a full moon.

This setup has a lot going for it particularly for any large emission nebula, but there is a price to pay in terms of file sizes. If you've already used pier 6 you'll already know. 

I was going to make a few suggestions but have since received from Peter (Shah), the resident imaging god, a list of what is currently to be imaged. This is the list, which I hope he doesn't mind me sharing, and does contain some of mine. So for the time being I'll wait for you and others to submit yours before suggesting anything else. I'm sure that anything you submit will be of great interest to me.

ic1871, ic348, ic405, m33, m78, ngc1333  ngc1579, m31, Sh2-240 (Simies 147) and ic410.

This is the list as I received it, but assume ic405 and ic410 will be imaged together since they are easily accommodated within the fov. There are many applications available for framing I use Cartes du Ciel with a width of 320 arc mins and height of 210, allowing for a bit of dithering. 

Just for information, the North American and Pelican nebulae are easily accommodated as are the Heart and Soul nebulae with the sensor horizontal. Pier 6 has its sensor vertical which does not quite work in fitting both in. 

I've taken up enough of your time already, but if you think I might be able to help in any way, I'd be more than willing to do so. 


Cheers, 

Ray 

Hi Ray,

A goodly list of targets!

IC410 and IC405 look a good target.
Sh2-240 looks a brilliant fit to the imaging frame.
M31 and M33 - yes.
M78 - a very interesting area of sky. If we did it as a 2-pane mosaic (mosaics being something I would like to learn more about), with the second pane to the south, we could get M78, the Flame and Horsehead nebulae, and a good chunk of Barnard's loop into one picture.

Couple of questions (where I may not have understood what you intend).

IC1871 is a small region in the Soul Nebula. Don't we get that automatically with the whole heart and soul in one frame?
NGC1333 and NGC1579 look very small for this scope. Is there a lot of interesting stuff around them?

A couple of possible additions.

It looks like you can get virtually all the veil complex into one frame. That would be a super shot in narrowband.
I would like to image the California nebula in narrowband. It is an easy fit to the frame.

I am sure there are lots of others and I need to work out what is visible when from the Roboscopes site. For example,  I would love to image the Antares and rho Ophiuchus gas cloud area. But right now it is about where the sun is, and I am not sure it ever climbs high enough.

What have you got cued up already?  Looks like it is pretty solid cloud at the moment, but it would be good to get our queue organised

old_eyes

Dumb question - how do we queue imaging time on this pier?

old_eyes

Hi, 

Just a quick reply for now to your posts. Initially I sent emails to Steve and since then been waiting for an opportunity to discuss further targets with other syndicate members. So far you are the only other person I'm aware of. I suppose in future there may be a booking system for this pier, but for now it's either emails or posting details here. 

The first three targets you mention in your reply are the three I submitted. The remainder come from persons as yet unknown to me. I agree with you about the Heart and Soul nebulae and to do a 2 panel mosaic in Orion makes good sense. A couple of the others I've looked at in Astrobin by typing each name into the search box. I believe a couple are reflection nebulae and look nice. Possibly there might be other areas of interest within the fov. The advantage of the sensor size is the ability to crop to fit each target. 

The California nebula is on my list, I was considering narrowband only, but it can be imaged in both. The veil complex fits nicely with the sensor horizontal, but I need to check with Steve first as I had it booked for pier 6 about 6 weeks ago. Due to their visit to Spain and awful weather conditions it hasn't been done yet as far as I know. I had mentioned to Steve to transfer the booking from pier 6 to here but I need to check. 

I'll put all the ones you mention plus your comments on the mosaic and the Heart and Soul in a separate post for you and anyone else to see and let Peter and Steve know. 

In the meantime, cheers Mr/Mrs/Ms etc old_eyes

Ray 

Another area we could consider is the stretch between the Rosette Nebula and the Christmas Tree Cluster in Monoceros. There is a vast array of emission nebulae, reflection nebulae and open star clusters. You could get two nice individual frames centred on the Rosette (NGC2239) and the Cone/Christmas Tree (NGC2264), but it would also make a very nice mosaic project. I need to look in a bit more detail as neither Cartes du Ciel nor Stellarium cover all the objects around there.

Gosh - this is fun trying to spot the best areas to image!

old_eyes

Hi there, 

Have looked at your suggestion and it would unfortunately require 3 images.

To reasonably accommodate both in the fov it requires 8 degrees, 480 arc mins, without any overlap. With each target placed on the top and bottom edges, again with no overlap, requires about 7 1/3 degrees.  The height of the sensor is probably around 3 1/2 degrees allowing for dithering, hence 3 sets of data.  Hope this helps. 

Cheers, 

Ray 

Ray,

Yes, I understand. I was just having fun playing around with what would make amazing images. I guessed it would be at least three panels, but there is plenty to go at with an image centred on the Rosette and another on the Christmas Tree to NGC2477/IC2167/IC2169 area. They could be combined into a larger panorama by adding panel(s) later.

I need to have a look at all this stuff with a proper mosaic planner!

Not pushing for large mosaics early on. Just thinking about the possibilities of this pier.

I guess we will know a lot more when the first data sets become available. Steve said that with such a large chip there was some vignetting and curvature of the field at the edges. So we will probably lose data, but I don't know how much yet.

old_eyes

Hi, 

Just replied but I don't know what happened as it hasn't shown up. I'll try again a bit later as there was quite a lot in there. It's all positive stuff. 

Ray 

Hi, 

I'll now do this in a couple of chunks. One explanation for earlier is that I inadvertently touched cancel by mistake instead of submit! Alternatively often on this tablet touching the Submit button does not work and if you then back out of the post it gets lost. 

Part 1

As previously mentioned I will probably have to submit our list in an email so will need to know some details first. What is a bit problematic is that the list of targets I received of those currently queued up, doesn't mention the integration times. I really cannot estimate how many hours in total need to be captured before any of these, our bookings, can be started I'm afraid.

The Veil nebula and California nebula ought to be our first submissions due to their positions. Now with a lot of targets there will be choices with regards to narrowband and/or broadband imaging. Please indicate what your preferences are for each one we submit.

For any booking on a public pier the exposure length and numbers are required.  For any narrowband booking I'd probably stick with the maximum exposure length of 300 seconds. For broadband this would need a bit of investigation first. This leaves the number of exposures. I'd be happy to do what I do for my own bookings and base them on images others have done and have provided the capture data. This I adjust according to the optics used and image scale to give an approximation. 

A mosaic of the Cone and Rosette region would make a fantastic project and in the next post I'll suggest how we undertake it. 

These are all only my suggestions based on a little knowledge and experience, so please don't hesitate to make your own. 

Hi, 

I'll now do this in a couple of chunks. One explanation for earlier is that I inadvertently touched cancel by mistake instead of submit! Alternatively often on this tablet touching the Submit button does not work and if you then back out of the post it gets lost. 

Part 1

As previously mentioned I will probably have to submit our list in an email so will need to know some details first. What is a bit problematic is that the list of targets I received of those currently queued up, doesn't mention the integration times. I really cannot estimate how many hours in total need to be captured before any of these, our bookings, can be started I'm afraid.

The Veil nebula and California nebula ought to be our first submissions due to their positions. Now with a lot of targets there will be choices with regards to narrowband and/or broadband imaging. Please indicate what your preferences are for each one we submit.

For any booking on a public pier the exposure length and numbers are required.  For any narrowband booking I'd probably stick with the maximum exposure length of 300 seconds. For broadband this would need a bit of investigation first. This leaves the number of exposures. I'd be happy to do what I do for my own bookings and base them on images others have done and have provided the capture data. This I adjust according to the optics used and image scale to give an approximation. 

A mosaic of the Cone and Rosette region would make a fantastic project and in the next post I'll suggest how we undertake it. 

These are all only my suggestions based on a little knowledge and experience, so please don't hesitate to make your own. 

Hi, 

I'll now do this in a couple of chunks. One explanation for earlier is that I inadvertently touched cancel by mistake instead of submit! Alternatively often on this tablet touching the Submit button does not work and if you then back out of the post it gets lost. 

Part 1

As previously mentioned I will probably have to submit our list in an email so will need to know some details first. What is a bit problematic is that the list of targets I received of those currently queued up, doesn't mention the integration times. I really cannot estimate how many hours in total need to be captured before any of these, our bookings, can be started I'm afraid.

The Veil nebula and California nebula ought to be our first submissions due to their positions. Now with a lot of targets there will be choices with regards to narrowband and/or broadband imaging. Please indicate what your preferences are for each one we submit.

For any booking on a public pier the exposure length and numbers are required.  For any narrowband booking I'd probably stick with the maximum exposure length of 300 seconds. For broadband this would need a bit of investigation first. This leaves the number of exposures. I'd be happy to do what I do for my own bookings and base them on images others have done and have provided the capture data. This I adjust according to the optics used and image scale to give an approximation. 

A mosaic of the Cone and Rosette region would make a fantastic project and in the next post I'll suggest how we undertake it. 

These are all only my suggestions based on a little knowledge and experience, so please don't hesitate to make your own. 

Lol. Wanted to make sure it got posted and pressed Submit a few times!!!! 

Part 2

Mosaic of the 2 targets. 

To ensure that the mosaic is a full rectangle and not 3 slightly offset images the centre will be approximately half way between the two. So for both the Cone and Rosette defined coordinates will be provided. The RA value for all the 3 components of the mosaic will be 6hrs 36 minutes. The declination values will be :

Cone nebula - +10d 25 m
Filler frame - +7d 38m
Rosette - +5d 00

This will create a mosaic with a 6.25 x 8.75 degree fov and approximately 9300 x 13000 pixels. Hope your computer is up to it, but you can always downsample.   SEE BELOW. *


If we book the 2 main targets, wait for the first to be captured and ascertain whether or not more subs are needed. If this is okay then the middle (filler) frame can be booked. 

These are your suggestions so please let me know what filters you want to use. 
Any questions please let me know. 

In the meantime, 

Cheers, 

Ray 

Postscript :
*
Oops, a lot of finger trouble on my calculator. Originally posted a fov 6.25 x 8.75 degrees which should have been 5.25 x 8.75. This changes things to 9300 x 15500 pixels!!!! 

Hi, 

I'll now do this in a couple of chunks. One explanation for earlier is that I inadvertently touched cancel by mistake instead of submit! Alternatively often on this tablet touching the Submit button does not work and if you then back out of the post it gets lost. 

Part 1

As previously mentioned I will probably have to submit our list in an email so will need to know some details first. What is a bit problematic is that the list of targets I received of those currently queued up, doesn't mention the integration times. I really cannot estimate how many hours in total need to be captured before any of these, our bookings, can be started I'm afraid.

The Veil nebula and California nebula ought to be our first submissions due to their positions. Now with a lot of targets there will be choices with regards to narrowband and/or broadband imaging. Please indicate what your preferences are for each one we submit.

For any booking on a public pier the exposure length and numbers are required.  For any narrowband booking I'd probably stick with the maximum exposure length of 300 seconds. For broadband this would need a bit of investigation first. This leaves the number of exposures. I'd be happy to do what I do for my own bookings and base them on images others have done and have provided the capture data. This I adjust according to the optics used and image scale to give an approximation. 

A mosaic of the Cone and Rosette region would make a fantastic project and in the next post I'll suggest how we undertake it. 

These are all only my suggestions based on a little knowledge and experience, so please don't hesitate to make your own. 

As you say, Veil and California are a good starting place given the fact that they are progressively sinking lower in the West as time goes on.

I would go for narrowband as they are amazing in any variation on the Hubble palette.

The general opinion seems to be that when shooting NB you go for longer and fewer subs as NB images are read noise limited. The Pier 14 recommendation on the website is for 600-900 sec for bright objects. So perhaps 600 sec to start with on each of the three filters? Say 15 subs for each to see how it goes? I think we need some experiments to figure out what works for this rig.

Centering the veil complex in the frame I get current date coordinates of RA 20:38:41 DEC +34:37:07

The California Nebula will fit the frame using 'official' coordinates, but centres in the frame a bit better at RA 04:04 39 and Dec +36:28:40

Thanks for the reply. Will use the coordinates you've provided. 

The recommended exposure times in the place you are referring to relate to when pier 6, the Takahashi FSQ106-ED, had a camera with a KAF8300 fitted. During a visit to Spain prior to the most recent, a new ZWO 6200 camera replaced it. From then the maximum exposure time has been restricted to 300 seconds. You can see that near the top of the page where it is mentioned in red type. If you also look towards the bottom of the page the dark frames only extend to 300 seconds. This was never altered for pier 6 so consequently got copied to this one. 

I've just sent in a ticket to establish what orientation the sensor is in. The field of view examples indicate portrait (vertical), while I was assuming landscape (horizontal). Will need to wait on that for the mosaic.

Cheers, 

Ray 

Ah! OK, I did not spot that!

So 300 sec it is then.

Good plan to find out the sensor orientation. We need to know that anyway.

Still a bit unclear how we know what is in the queue. Nothing in the data folder yet (including calibration files). In an earlier post you said there were three targets that you had already chosen, and that everything was done by email. Perhaps we should share emails so that we can both see all this stuff. Probably less clunky than a forum. If you want to go that route, I can be reached at richard@miller-klein.com

I was thinking about looking at the Pier 6 flat files to see how much vignetting there is. I guess they must be the right files for the current ZWO 6200 so a bit of checking could be useful. How much would we have to crop to get rid of the vignetting?

Morning guys. Just wondering if you could at least make available to us the flat and dark files for pier 14. From experience on pier 6 these can be very large downloads and it would assist us by getting that part out of the way while the weather continues to be uncooperative. Would also appreciate confirmation of the sensor orientation to assist us with planning optimum coordinates. 

Cheers, 

On behalf of Syndicate 14.  

Hope you got the email okay Richard. 

I've now heard back from Steve about the sensor orientation and it very much appears to be vertical. This will require adjustment to mosaic coordinates when they are submitted. 

Attached is a screenshot of the scope and camera Steve sent to me for you to see. 

Ray 

OK Ray. When I get a chance I will look again at the coordinates. Might not change for Veil. California I need to check. I will also review our mosaic suggestions.

old_eyes