Deep Space Photography Part-2

 

It’s so easy in some ways it almost feels like cheating.

So much has changed since we tried astrophotography with huge leaps in telescopes and cameras as well as software. Our normal routine now is to place the telescope facing north, take a 2-second image making certain the camera sees stars. The closer to Polaris the better. The camera, mount and software will basically tell you where to set everything; up or down, left or right. We can do this from our backyard in under 5-minutes; away from home takes longer.

The next step is to tell the telescope where to go – what’s our target for tonight. Once there, begin the process of guiding calibration which generally take several minutes. The next step is to check autofocus which can take upwards to 5-minutes. Once all this is done the next step is autorun. Setting autorun is the processes of telling the camera the duration of each shot. We generally use 300-seconds (5-minutes) and the number of images to capture; we generally capture for at least 4-hours or more.  All this time the telescope, camera, and mount are locked onto the target, tracking its movement snapping images. No star trails, no movement blur. Four-hours equal 48-sharp images that will be stacked and processed in Pixinsight.

The main software program we use for stacking and processing is Pixinsight and 3-RC-Astro plugins. Pixinsight and RC-Astro isn’t cheap however it is a onetime buy in and works very well. There are free programs out there however free isn’t always mean better. We don’t know Pixinsight well enough as yet to go into any depth thus we recommend a search on YouTube (that’s how we learned).

The only image shared today is M1, aka “Crab Nebula”.  We captured the M1 over a period of 4-nights. We were fortunate to have several clear nights and decided to do a test.  The first night began February 18^th with the second February 21^st.  The third was February 23^rd and the fourth, February 24^th. A total of 19-hours at 300-seconds each were captured.  The first 48-captures were stacked in Pixinsight which took 6-minutes 35-seconds.  The final stack of the entire 229-FITS took 29-minutes, 28-seconds.  The first 48-images totaled 2.33-GB while the 229 totaled 11.11GB. These were all captured from our back yard well after the moon had set with a near dark sky just north of Tucson, our Bortle rating is somewhere between 5 and 5.5.  The moonset was early afternoon and sunset was approximately 6:15 PM.  We sat the telescope up around 6:45 to 7 PM, setting the polar alignment, go to target, set the guiding the check autofocus. We used the previous night’s shooting “go-to” for precise alignment.  

M1-"Crab Nebula" 

The following is a general list of equipment, software and computer(s) used by us to process not only our deep space images but those of our landscape, nature and wildlife.  The main studio computer might be considered by some as a bit of overkill however it works for us.

Equipment/Software

Askar SQA55 telescope

ZWO ASI2600MC Air wireless smart camera

ZWO AM3 Harmonic equatorial mount

ZWO TC40 Carbon fiber tripod

ZWO PE200 Pier extension

ZWO EAF (electronic auto focuser)

ZWO CAA Camera Rotator

Antial Triband 2” filter

Samsung Galaxy S9 FE+ Plus 12.4” 128gb Android Tablet (began using this with the Seestar S50)

ASIAIR software on the Samsung

ASIStudio on our laptop

Pixinsight software for processing

RC-Astro – BlurXTerminator; NoiseXTerminator; StarXTerminator

Capture One

Adobe Photoshop

Topaz Labs including Photo AI

Battery power

Studio Computer:  DigitalStorm Workstation

Intel Core i7-14700KF (5.6 GHz Turbo) (28-thread) (20-Core) 3.4 GHz (14^th Gen)

ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero Motherboard

128GB RAM

NVIDIA T1000 4GB - (just ordered a Nvida RTX 4070 Ti 12GB as an upgrade)

We also have 2-Crucial T705 NVME drives for photo processing and 1-drive as the main

We run the nights activity on a Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ Plus 12" tablet running ZWO ASIAIR Android app.  

  

Recommendations:

Visit STARIZONA for everything you need for deep space images.

We’ll be the first to admit our computers are not for everyone. Large and pricey yet super-fast when processing large image files.

If you need a new computer, you may wish to visit DigitalStorm.  We found ourselves in need of a new workstation in our studio and are very pleased we found DigitalStorm.

 

More to come….

 

Sandy & Don

 

Deep Space Photography

 

IC5070, aka "Pelican Nebula, captured 12/01/2024, our first deep space image using the Seestar S50.  10-seconds x 366 (61-minutes)

2024 was a very odd year for us in that Don was diagnosed with colon cancer Nov 2023 which meant surgery to remove the right side of his colon. Don began chemo treatments January ending July 2024 with recovery still on going.  We basically went 12-months not photographing like we normally would.  During this time, we reevaluated what “turned us on” in the photography world and ended up selling all our medium format gear, returning to a simpler system.  Sandy is now back to shooting a Sony A7r IV while Don returned to using a Leica M11.  All this does not address the title. Yet…

IC405, aka "Flaming Star Nebula", captured 12/02/2024. Seestar S50 10-seconds x 720 (120-minutes)

 

Late last year was the first that Don could actually go out and visit folks we hadn’t seen in over a year (monthly doctors’ visits don’t count).  One of the first people we dropped in to visit is Dean Koenig, the owner of Starizona in Tucson as they had recently moved to a much larger store.  We had bought our first telescope from Dean in 2017.  We learned that technology had changed drastically in 7-years.  A “smart telescope” in 2017 while it may have been available wasn’t affordable. 

12/01/2024 M42 "Orian Nubla" this is a very quick 10-seconds x 18 (3-minutes) using the Seestar S50

 

What began as simple visit turned us back on to astrophotography when Dean showed us the ZWO S50 “smart telescope” that retails for less than $500.  Don can’t buy a lens for his Leica for that money.  Needless to say, we walked out the store with a S50.  To make matters even better the S50 weights right around 8-pounds!

NGC281, aka "Packman Nebula, captured in December 2024 using the Seestar S50

We’ve used the S50 every night that we’ve had clear skies and marvel at the images this small but mighty telescope offers. There is a flaw to this.  We found the S50 to be a gate-way telescope to wanting something “better”, “bigger”, “and more-powerful”.   Notice we said “wanting” vs “needing”.

This is our second attempt at Orian Nebule, on 12/28/2024, this time 10-seconds x 113 (18-minutes) using the Seestar S50

We decided to go bigger and ended up with a 26-megapixel astro camera from ZWO; the ASI 2600MC Air wireless smart camera. This camera combines a guide-scope and Wi-Fi connection and camera in one package.  We are now using an Askar SQA55 telescope along with a ZWO EAF (electronic auto focuser).  The telescope, camera and EAF weighs around 8-pounds and sits on top of a ZWO AM3 Harmonic Equatorial Mount riding on a ZWO TC40 carbon fiber tripod along with a pier extension. The mount and tripod weights around 17-pounds and the total weight is in the neighborhood of 25-pounds. Yes, this weighs around 17-pounds more than the S50 however it is considerably less than the original telescope we used in 2017 which weighed close to 75-pounds.

IC1795 aka "Fish Head Nebula" captured 12/9/2024, 10-seconds x 403 (68-minutes). Seestar S50

The advancement in camera design as well as software mean we can program a night of shooting from a tablet or cellphone (we prefer the tablet as the screen is much larger).  Setup is easy and fast with us being polar aligned in under 5-minutes and shooting our target within 10.  We have been achieving excellent results shooting 5-minute exposures for 4-hours or more. The S50 is not polar aligned thus the capture time is 10-seconds with a lot of rejections in the software from star trails.   A typical 4-hour shooting experience with the S50 will normally result in close to 90-minutes for actual capture rate.

01/31/2025, IC 434, aka "Horsehead Nebula", one of the first images we captured using the ZWO ASI 2600MC Air. 300-seconds x 15 (75-minutes)

01/30/2025 NGC 2335, aka "Seagull Nebula" 300-seconds x 40 (3.5 hours) ZWO ASI 2600MC Air

02/04/2025 NGC 2359, aka "Thor's Helmet Nebula" 300-seconds x28 (140-minutes) ZWO ASI 2600MC Air.

02/06/2025 IC 2118 aka, "Witch Head Nebula" this was a test as the moon was at 61% and this target is best suited for dark skies.  300-seconds x 48 (4-hours) ZWO ASI 2600 MC Air

 

All of the ASI 2600 camera images were stacked and processed using Pixinsight with minor post processing using a combination of Capture One, Photoshop and Topaz Labs. 

Looking back at what we just wrote, and we see that there’s a lot of information overload.  We hope to continue this conversation in future blogs so please bear with us. 

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