Who's on the Pier Queue?

Hi Brian, 

Welcome to the forum and your first post. I guess this no longer makes me the forum newbie now.

It may well be that you will very shortly receive your data, but in the meantime there is a free dataset available to process in the meantime. It is on the sites Homepage and is data for ic434. You've probably already seen it, but I'm not the most observant of people and only noticed it several days ago. I could quite literally walk down a deserted high street early in the morning and not notice a bright green alien standing in a shop doorway!

If you haven't downloaded the data and wouldn't mind having a go, here's a few things about it. 

There is Ha R G B data and the Ha data is rotated correctly assuming you'd like the horse's head the right way up. Most of the rgb images are the reverse so I rotated their integrated images before alignment. However, a very few of these rgb frames are aligned the same way up as the Ha so I rotated these prior to star alignment. Three frames of M81 appear to have infiltrated the green filter data, so just don't include them, could be messy otherwise. Next, if you've got this far, there appears to be a glitch with the blue filter data with regards to framing. Those from the 19th February match the other filters but there are only 4 of these. The remaining ones taken between 24th and 27th February all align to one another, but not fully to the Ha Red and Green. If you use these, then after combining the RGB channels it will require a crop to the RGB frame and similarly to the Ha integration frame. You won't lose much doing that. (Frame, data and image are the same thing.  I'm inconsistent at times.)   

As I mentioned earlier, if you can remember that far back, I only recently downloaded the data and am now tweaking  for the umpteenth time my attempt. 

Anyway, hope you get your data soon, 

Regards, 

Ray

Hi Ray,

Thanks for your reply. I did NOT see the downloadable data on the home page. My eyes aren't what they used to be. (That's what my wife tells me.)

I ordered 20x 120s lights of LDN 1251 (a dark nebula in Cepheus). I am not expecting anything great out of only 40 minutes of data but it will give me an idea of what I am up against. A recent NASA APOD was taken by a AstroBin member who says he has Bortle 5 skies. I too have Bortle 5 skies but the weather has been terrible for over a month. My friend in the UK with Bortle 6 skies and no astronomical darkness this time of year, invested 2.5 hours into it with his equipment. A very nice image using his 183C but none of the "smokey" nebulosity.

From what I read RoboScopes in Spain is Bortle 2 to 3. I am eagerly awaiting my data to see what it can see.

Brian

Hi Brian,
It's quite easy to miss the "Download Free Sample Dataset" between the section on memberships and sample images. It's data from pier 6.

Did you not receive the ten 120 seconds dark frames you ordered? It's a shame you did that and not have gone for 30 2 minutes light frames instead. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  

Cheers, 
Ray 

Ray,

In my haste to put in the order before the weather turned terrible in Spain, I ordered 10 dark frames, figuring that I had to pay for my calibration frames. I should have posted a topic on the forum first. Oh well it is not a terrible loss.

BTW I just downloaded your Horsehead data. Very nice! Just looking at the light frames, that Takahashi FSQ106ED is amazing. Can't seem to buy it new these days but I found someone at Cloudy Nights who just listed one at $4,250.

Also I noticed that the FITS headers lists the camera as a QSI 683WS but the Pier 6 page lists a ZWO 6200MM. Either someone typed it incorrectly or they changed the camera.

Brian

Hello Brian, 

You are correct about the camera. Up until the recent trip to Spain by the Roboscopes guys, a couple of weeks ago it had a KAF 8300 equivalent sensor, that QSI model you mentioned. All of the current calibration data was taken with that camera. With a newer 61mp camera now installed there will have to be a second set created to go with all newly captured data. If you ever use it from now on I hope your computer is up to handling large files, and whatever you do do not create a drizzle integration file. My best guess is that it could be about 2.25 gigabytes. Best keep a fire extinguisher handy if you do so. 

Regards, 
Ray 

Ray,

Good point about these large sensors. Neither of my machines have more than 8GB of RAM. My Linux laptop has a decent 4-core CPU but I wouldn't say it is blindingly fast. My Windows desktop has only 2 cores and is likely to catch fire.

Thanks for the heads up,
Brian

Brian, 
A bit more info in case you're not up to speed with recent changes. 

Prior to the recent visit to Spain pier 6 had a 4/3 size sensor, a QSI683, and calibration files are all available for download for that set up. That camera has since been replaced with a 61 megapixel monster, but as to where the calibration files for that camera will eventually go I don't know. 

The scope that was on pier 8 a 12.5 inch RC is now on pier 12 where the 'micro' 17 inch Planewave originally was. At present the calibration files for pier 8 are those for its original scope the 12.5 inch RC. There weren't any such files for the Planewave when I last looked. I imagine that when those latter files are ready they'll replace the ones currently on pier 8 which will be moved to pier 12. 

In the absence of any information in the pier maintenance section of this forum, I'm simply using the existence of calibration files as to whether or not a scope is fully available. Those for pier 4, as we both now know, are now available. There are, again when I last looked, such files for the following piers :

Piers 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 12. (Remember those for pier 12 are currently held in pier 8) 
The only caveat I have is that there may be a long queue on pier 3 for data, the point of your original post, since I am still awaiting such from an order placed on the 4th of May, plus a couple of others placed at the end of June. 

There is so much to do at present so it's understandable that there are currently hold ups, but it would be nice to have official confirmation regarding the status of each pier.

Hope you are progressing well with that data you received yesterday. 

Cheers, 
Ray 

Ray,

My friend in the UK is going to give it a shot. He's quite the expert at APP and post-processing. I never took a great interest in it. I like tweaking things at image acquisition time at the telescope. I guess that is going to have to change.

Brian

A new abuser here anxiously awaiting his first dump of data.

As I await, my first impression is wouldn't it be nice to know how many people/jobs are queued up ahead of me on this pier?

I'm not sure how the scheduling algorithm works but I assume that it is FIFO.

I would be pleased if I could see:
1. The number of jobs ahead of me and the total imaging time of each.
2. A delay due to weather.

Speaking of weather, I checked the 'telemetry' link. It seems to be old data.

Hi Brian,

I am currently in the process of building such a feature for a queue that will be displayed on each pier order page It's not quite FIFO as we take into account many variables such as visibility/ moon avoidance and atmosphere. 

Any delays due to weather should be communicated with you directly or in very adverse cases in the Warm Room announements.

Ray,

I downloaded the Horsehead data from the home page. I asked for help from my friend in the UK who is far better at this than I am. It took a couple days but I think we nailed it. The only thing I don't like is how overwhelming bright that one star is. The RGB frames were acquired at 900s and Ha at 600s. If I were to do it, I would reverse it. RGB filters let in so many more photons than the Ha filter that the sensor badly saturated.

I am posting two images in the Gallery now.

Brian

Hello Brian, 

Good to hear from you again and that you involved yourself in the processing of the nebula. That bright star, Alnitak, is a real pain and doesn't help when stretching the image as I'm sure you found. Those with more experience know ways to substantially get around the problem employing various techniques I've yet to learn about. When I attempted it it needed to be a compromise between taming the flair from that star and revealing some of the fainter nebulosity. The image I posted as you can see suffers from both flairing and rather weak nebulosity, which reveals itself clearly in the hydrogen alpha data.  Best compromise I can do right now though. 

Cheers, 

Ray 

Pete will likely be able to shed a little light on how best to process it and avoid the flare