PIER-14 Sime 147

Thanks.

I look forward to it. My first data from this pier. Exciting!

old_eyes

Hi Steve, 

I had just prior to reading your post looked at the queue and was pleased to see that. I came to the warm room to plead with Peter to tackle this as I know he could process it into a masterpiece. Having now read your post, please do whatever you believe it needs. The same goes for M82.

I was up until after 2 am conversing with Brian Morgan as I recalled that he recently posted that mono video of M82. Using his skills he applied the data from that image to our pier. I only saw his reply after I got up and found he had used 600s exposures to maximise the Signal per sub. What is useful though is that the calculations show the amount of signal required to approximately emulate the IFN in that image in his video as an RGB image. Once the data from M82 is back and Peter gets the time to process it, he can decide if more time is required. Using Brian's app we could calculate what additional time is required to boost each filter channel. Personally, I'm not sure if my poor laptop would be very happy trying to process all those subs. Might need to have a fire extinguisher close by. 

I'm convinced that we have in this setup a great opportunity to get roboscopes known to a wider audience, but that requires the skills of people like Peter and Mike. I truly hope that we will get to see this happen, with postings of those images on sites like Astrobin and maybe an APOD. 

Cooperation right now on targets with potential should be high on our priority list. I'm sure Richard would be open to this and willing to suggest targets. Mine was Simeis 147 for now and I'm happy to wait for others to put in theirs next. 

Whilst writing this I received an email from Richard and he will now be submitting some more targets,which is good news. 

Apologies for the length of this post. 

Cheers, 

Ray 

Ray, thats fine

However, honestly I need you not to wait to put imaging requests in, the software works best when fully loaded with;

jobs for now

1, rise early, rising later etc so we have a good spread of the night so its not sleeping

Also the software also works best with forward planning so look at Feb March April May June. As the seasons change and the items get into the correct part of the sky, the schedular will automaticly begin imaging them.

I plan 2/3 months ahead with the other piers with data input normaly (weather aside) as this optimises the use of the software

So jobs jobs and more jobs over a 3/4 month period of whats rising please

Steve

Further note, the software does have a prioritasation system but in general we leave them all at the same number but when an object starts to get time critical we do bump it up. we do not do this as a broad sweeping thing but more of a personal eye casting procedure if we feel it needs a nudge as we have found the software works best 95% of the time when left to do its thing

however we will go in behind the scenes every now and then to tweak the odd one we feel needs it. Cant give the Robots all the power now can we

Steve, 

Duly noted.

This target if you recall I requested via email as that then was the only way to submit our choices. I proposed, I believe, a small choice of integration times up to the 19 hours. Thanks for doing that, as I didn't find out what was going on until given access to the queue. 

I still believe in the interests of promoting this site that some cooperation between us all be given to acquiring a large amount of data from several mutually agreed targets.  They need not necessarily be iconic ones, but those that when processed would draw a great deal of attention.

There are images of M82 with M81 everywhere, but an extremely wide image showing the extent of the IFN is one I cannot recall seeing. It's likely it has been done as a multipanel project, but imagine the overall integration time that would have needed. There are a few spectacular images of Simeis 147, but not many, and this pier can image it without the need to do a mosaic. This is a great advantage this setup gives us. 

Would it be worthwhile setting up a separate post in our lounge area for such targets to be suggested and discussed. We are not talking about many of these, and as you quite rightly said Steve we should look at the months ahead for these. I'm not suggesting that there be a restriction on the time anyone requests for their own choices, but we all need to be mindful of others when doing so. 

Cheers, 

Ray 

ray, I hear you :0

However I would like to keep syndicate users separate from the main piers

Don’t forget in the next month data from normal piers will not be shared with P13 or 14 users and they will all go back to the standard hourly purchases or we will be selling data sets to outside users with any spare time left on the normal piers.

As it is, syndicates for me are more fun as I get to talk turkey and coerce people down a more sensible path for there chosen image. if you choose an object without enough or even to much integration time I can prod behind the scenes LOL

It also means that more unusual objects can be done, as the normal piers I fear being hourly will repeat many humdrum normal object each month as they get busier which is the nature of things. So go on surprise me and get some weird stuff done as you know I enjoy strange objects and unusual parts of the sky

Ps a mosaic of the Galaxy areas coming up would be good as we are early enough talking about it to do it without impinging on singular object times, like wise when neb season is back from the veil area back to to the crescent and NGC7000 etc would also be interesting

steve

Ray

While I think about it your order 177 has just been completed and zipped up. Pier 3 focuser is being glitchy so I swapped the order over to Pier 13 more res but slightly less FOV as I wanted to get your order done and out my hair after the weather hiatus. I did not ask but likewise did not think you would moan as its a similar pier in essance ?

I did try to ring you a few days ago about pier 14 to explain what was hapening with orders, the new software and submission form, as well as to dicuss some of your other orders from other piers but you must have missed the call..

Perhaps when you have 5 mins you could give me a call?

Steve

Some issues, but probably to be expected at the beginning.

This is a challenging target and I now realise that it requires absolutely perfect sky conditions. Bit puzzled by the fact that the queue said 19 hours, but I counted a tad over 15 hours of data, not that that is an issue.

From 48 Ha frames there was only session where I believe the sky conditions were adequate. from that session I took 10 frames, 50 minutes. Looking briefly at the O3 data, of which there is 7 hours, I reckon 3 hours are usable. Again sky conditions.

Having had limited time to look into another problem, I abandoned using the Flat frames. This left a problem, but not as bad as using a master flat. This may be something I did wrong, but given that it is late I'll pass for now.

The resulting image, apart from an obvious flat frame image issue, is very encouraging given less than 1 hour integration. Currently unable to share due to a never ending issue I have with images saved in Photoshop. It's too late right now to spend the time to sort that out. I'll have a go after some shut eye.

Postscript:

Appears it was lying to me, and was accepting images. Now you've got 5 of them!!!!!

Ray, I assume the zip worked ok for you?

kind regards

Good morning Phil, 

The zip worked fine thanks. Understandably it took quite a while on the ancient laptop I use when downloading and unzipping, but no problems. 

To save making an additional post, I hope you don't mind me putting a bit more information about the Dataset and the image I posted, 5 TIMES!

The processing steps used. 

Cosmetic correction, alignment, stack, stretch and a dabble in Photoshop. 

I was a bit disappointed when I found out that the subs did not match what I had optimistically asked for. The ticket I sent when suggesting this as a target had 3 options. 

1:  4 hours ha (mono) 
2:  8 hours additional O3 (bicolour) 12 hours total 
3:  7 hours additional s2 (full hubble palette) 19 hours total 

Very grateful that option 3 was chosen, but there was no s2  data, but 4 hours of RGB.

I believe the above integration times would have produced a spectacular result. I now realise though that that would require 19 hours of almost pristine skies! 

Given the total imaging time this has already taken up, perhaps an hour or two of ha data during excellent sky conditions, and resolving of the flats issue, would still produce a great result. I don't want to use up too much more valuable imaging time as this has already taken 15 hours worth. 
Cheers, 

Ray 

Morning Ray, we got the extra HA that we recomended last night so thats ok

Will stack today and have a play as all the data looked good to mine and Pete's eyes, some expected signal variation in a dim object but still good

PS this object has as much SII as I have gold bullion lying round my living room, so a folly would not even begin to describe that exercise

its an RGB - star colour etc
Bicolour Narrouwband object for Simi itself

Lets see what today brings  after the stack. As they say the proof is in the pudding

Steve

Hi Steve, 

Thanks for the good news. 

Regarding the sulphur channel, I'm afraid I beg to differ. So do you keep the stash under the floor boards?

I spent many hours researching this, the majority in astrobin. What struck me was that the images that appealed most, nearly all had s2 data. I felt that this gives a slightly wider palette. 

I'm a fan of Astro anarchy, J P Metsavainio who also used the full hubble palette in an early APOD in 2009. My main source was Astrobin. 
I just revisited that site and here are a few authors to help finding examples, should you wish to check them out. 

J P METSAVAINIO 
PAUL BORCHARDT
JYRKI
JEFFREY K LOVELACE
TOSHIYA ARAI

This is purely FYI as a counter to what you said. I think the price of gold is quite high right now.  

Really looking forward to more Ha. I used blink to carefully go through all the narrowband images, and found that only those taken, I think, on January 15th around 8 pm were worth using. Just 10 of those gave what I consider a pretty good result. For me quality over quantity. 

Cheers, 
Ray 

Hi Ray, 
I will add some more S2 for S147 not a problem. 
Forgive me if you have already mentioned this as I've only very quickly scanned over the thread. It was just one thing that might help with processing all data sets, more so something as faint as S147. It is very important to normalise the light frames prior to stacking to cope with varying background ADU's caused by sky conditions etc. If you don't it can destroy the data in the final stack. There are various options in PI that will do this for you during the pre-processing stage. If you use Maxim DL I think there is a plugin for it.
Hope this helps
Peter

Honestly Ray

I am not bothered if you tell me you want 200 hours of SII, i will just add it if thats what you all want but its also my job to keep p14 running and collecting data sets of

1, A good quality
2, well balanced
3, enough data sets so when other members come on board they feel they are getting there monies worth from their subscription

So from time to time I may play devils advocate with (you) the members

Yes I know S147 does have some S2 but its very very faint and requires many many hours of data to get which is why 99% of people do bicolour for the nebulosity.

At an educated guess for every hour of OIII you collect you will require 4+ hours of SII, so I was simply invoking the law of diminishing returns at the detriment of collecting data on other objects as my fear is you will end up with a 50+ hour monster in order to get "hubble Palette" in  a good enough quality. As super nova remnants are not known for their wonderful amounts of SII emissions

However, as I said at the top if you all want a 300 hour M31 in HA despite the folly of that then thats what you will get but remember we also want new members to join and grow P14 syndicate and the best way for that is to do quality well processed data sets of all ranges

I hope this clarifies and expands upon my normal blunt/direct approach LOL

Steve

Thank you Peter,

As you know I still have a lot more to learn about many aspects of processing, so any help is gratefully appreciated. 

With many ways of doing things in pixinsight I often wonder if I've missed something out. When running integration in pixinsight I'm relying on the Normalization option "Additive with scaling" to perform the normalization. Should it be performed earlier somewhere else in addition.

However, when it comes to narrowband images when typically there are less subs, (this one I believe has over 80 oxygen, but not a few hundred) , I carefully inspect each one in Blink. First a slow automated run to identify larger issues. After that a manual step through partially zoomed in to assist in identifying out of focus and/or bloated stars. I basically carefully cull the inferior frames. Quality over quantity is my approach. 

When it comes to broadband I tend to use sub frame selector to quickly identify outliers.

Please, please keep informing me/us at anytime if you suspect I may be doing something wrong. 

Best regards, 

Ray

When inspecting the frames using blink use the auto stretch function, this will give you a better idea of what is in the frame. If you don't do that the background will vary so much from filter to filter and changing sky conditions that it can give you false impression of the quality of the sub.  Essentially it will normalise the screen stretch.
It sounds like you are doing the stack correctly with the normalisation but as you say there are so many different way of doing the same thing it can be difficult when making your settings choices.. Tha way you create your master calibration frames also have a big impact on the pre-process.
Also use cosmetic correction with caution as it can also damage  the signal...careful measurements of pixel values must be applied.

Peter, 

Thank you. All these tips you give us are essential to know if we want to keep improving. 

I do the auto stretch all the time and tend to only view one filter set at a go. In cosmetic correction I will do a real-time preview, and on large images select a couple of small preview windows. I had to use it this time as the dark frames are only now going to be collected and weren't available. 

Any advice on the flat frames for this pier?I have in the past in similar but not as bad situations, tweaked the master flat using placed curves adjustments. When I used the master Ha flat I ended up with the original dark area being bright. It was after midnight by then so I ended up not doing any calibration. 

Best regards, 

Ray 

Steve,

Just a quick update. I don't know what the problem was with the archive download, but I rebooted my machine stripped out all traces of the previous attempted downloads and reinstalled the archiving software. Now it is happily unpacking the archive.

Apologies!

old_eyes

Cool ?

Steve

Yep! Cool.

A quick look at a few subs says they are OK (well complete anyway!).