More Xterminator II Testing

The Xterminator II continues to wow me with its sensitivity. These images are stacks of 3 x 4 second (yes, 4 second!!) integrations at gain 5, with the exception of the M56 globular, which is just a single integration.

I tried some settings in the camera control software (Miloslick) that should have fixed the elongated stars, but it didn't work. Sometimes, the software does not override the camera firmware settings (thank you for the tip, Rock Mallin!), so I'll make sure I set the firmware values next time.

Overall, the results for the Ring and Dumbbell nebulae hold up well for public viewing, which is what the Xterminator was designed for.

Note that the central star in the Ring Nebula is clearly visible--at magnitude 15.7, that's not bad for a 4-second integration!

A night with the Mallincam DS16C

I make no bones about the fact I am a devotee of Mallincam cameras.  Hand made in Canada, they fill some unique niches, from ultra-high sensitivity video cameras like the Xterminator, to single-cable USB cameras like the sensitive and high resolution DS16C. And then there is the Universe, which is in a class by itself for producing superb, magazine-ready images without hours of post-processing.

All the  Mallincams share one thing in common--they allow you to create excellent images with minimal processing, but if you want to spend lots of time in post processing, their first-rate imaging chips will allow you to go as far as you want.

Last night, I hooked up the DS16C to my 14 inch ACF.  I used (unfortunately) a rather inferior, no-name .5x focal reducer which introduced enormous vignetting and coma distortion beyond the central part of the image. I did not use any filters in a sky that was moderately light polluted close to the horizon.

My goal was to image the brighter nebulas in the southern part of the sky--the Eagle, Trifid, Swan (Omega), and Lagoon. My goal was to capture them with minimal exposure times, and to process the images to an acceptable level in close to real time to see just how fast the DS16C would enable me to produce decent images that are a step or two up from love capture. My goal was NOT to achieve the same levels as those astrophotographers who spend hours pursuing perfection.

For each image, I did the following:

• 5 images of each object with a max integration of 25 seconds at max gain. No darks or dark field correction.
• Stacking, histogram adjustment, and color balance in Nebulosity 4 (max of 2 minutes for each object imaged)
• Cropping (due to inferior FR)

So each image here took less than 4 minutes from capture to final result:

Swan Nebula

Trifid Nebula

Eagle Nebula

Lagoon Nebula

These images are cropped to be about half the size of the full capture to eliminate the vignetting and coma distortion. Again, I took no darks, so the only noise reduction is due to stacking. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results. Not prefect, but good enough to please me.

Test of outreach system

I'll be doing a public outreach event for our local Niches Land Trust next month at a dark sky site about 8 miles out of town (actually the site where my old observatory runoff shed still stands). After getting some good advice from the experienced folks on the Mallincam Yahoo Group, I decided on the following setup:

• Mallincam 8 inch f/3.9 newt astrograph
• Mallincam Xterminator II camera
• laptop, projector, and screen

One of my concerns about the Xterminator II is that, while it is very sensitive, it has a limited FOV. I was worried that GOTOs would not put objects on the imaging chip and that I would be fiddling around a lot. In my tests last night, I only ran into this problem twice and it was easily fixed with a quick adjustment with the finder scope. Otherwise, I found every object, even those widely separated that required long slews.

The Xterminator II tradeoff is that its high sensitivity comes with relatively low resolution. While that's not good for pristine images, it gives fast (typically less than 10 seconds), colorful images that are perfect for public outreach events. 

In this first image, I stacked 5 x 9 second exposures (averaged, not additive). The result is a pretty decent image of the Whirlpool in an urban sky (note that I did not have the imager as orthogonal as it should have been to the focal plane--hence the elongated stars).

For comparison, here is a single, 9 second integration:

What's also interesting is that I captured 2 other galaxies in this image, IC 4277 and IC 4278. Their magnitudes are 15.7 and 15.4 respectively--not bad for a 9-second integration under hazy, light-polluted skies!

I also imaged M3, M13, M92, and the Wild Duck Cluster. These images were all taken with 5-second integrations. These kinds of images will, I think, work well at a public event, especially as it takes only a few seconds to capture them. Add to this a decent dark sky, and the results should be pretty decent.

M3

M13

M92

Wild Duck Cluster

Bye, Bye AR2665 and AR2666

AR2665 and AR2666 are captured right on the edge of the solar disk in this image.

Both areas are considerably foreshortened as they approach the limb. Many spots show evidence that they are actually lower than the surrounding photosphere (they appear as depressions), but this does not seem to the be the case with AR2665. When these areas disappear, the sun will return to being featureless again.

Saturn with the ETX90 OTA

Friday (July 14), was our last night in Muskegon and we had very good conditions with a clear sky and good seeing. Here is an image (cropped and full frame) taken with the ETX 90 OTA and DS 2.3+. This is a stack of 230 avi frames, stacked and processed in Registax with tweaking in Photoshop. I'm pleased with the results from such a tiny scope!

Today's Image of AR2665 and AR2666 from Muskegon, MI

This is a quick image snapped between clouds with the 90mm MAK and DS 2.3+:

AR2665 from Lake Michigan -- 7/13/2017

AR2665 is decaying, but it is still an impressive sight in white light. A new active area, AR2666, is visible above and to the left of it at the top of the frame; it looks like a few small black specks. This is a stacked image (250 AVI frames) taken with a 90mm MAK and Mallincam DS 2.3+. Stacking and wavelets in Registax.

AR2665 with 90mm MAK & H-Alpha

AR2665 is the biggest sunspot of 2017, stretching over 125,000 km across the solar surface.  This image was taken on July 8, 2017, and, like all images, was captured with the superb Mallincam DS2.3+ imager:

Here is a crop:

The sunspot is a complex of many cores, capable of producing M-Class flares.

The H-Alpha image shows a little more of the underlying structure:

And here is the crop; it's interesting to compare it to the white light image:

There was also a nice "hedgerow" prominence visible on H-alpha:

I took another image on July 9, but for some reason, it does not show as much detail. This was a hurried shot, and I suspect the imager was not orthogonal to the optical axis of the scope.

Weather permitting, I'll try to follow this spot over the next few days.

ETX 90 OTA Test 7/1/17

Despite very poor seeing, I decided to put the 90 OTA through its paces. The results are not bad--I'd like to try in better seeing.  Here is the moon, taken with the 90, a EQ Pro mount, a Mallincam DS 2.3+ camera and a 2x Barlow:

Although it was like looking through choppy water, this image still has some fairly good detail. Jupiter, however, was a different story:

Here's a crop:

Not much detail is visible, but stars directly overhead were scintillating wildly and the planet was caught in thermals above a neighbor's roof. I'm hoping to try again next week in Michigan where I may be able to image through laminar airflow off the lake.