I decided to start by creating new calibration frames: I only created new biases, I don't use darks anymore and flats are tricky so I did not try them.
I was motivated by the higher than usual temperature: it was still 75F at 10pm. And the reported temperature by the sensor of the camera when stacking the biases ranged from 27C to 31C (getting hotter the more the camera worked). After reading this guide the next morning, it turns out that only darks are temperature dependent.
I also wanted to experiment with lower gain and with binning so I took biases at low/medium/high gain with no binning (Bin1) and with 2x2 binning (Bin2).
Observations:
- M57 Ring Nebula Lyra - took 30x1s stacks at low, medium and high gain. Medium looked a bit better than the high one but the low gain has a green tint.
- Epsilon Lyrae (double double) - took 55x0.2s stack at low gain. But could not split the close doubles.
- M51 Whirlpool Galaxy - took 80x2.5s stacks at medium and high gain. Had a lot of vignetting to content with. Both pictures were okay (not the best I have taken) with different hues.
- NGC 4605 Faberge Galaxy - Ursa Major - took a 60x2.5s stack at high gain.
- M101 Pinwheel Galaxy - Ursa Major - took a 100x1s stack at high gain. I had trouble getting details, the picture below is boosted using CLAHE in Siril but is still pretty bad. I just now realized that my subs were only 1s.
- C27 Crescent Nebula - Cygnus - took a 56x3s stack with Bin2. The result is very similar to other pictures I have taken of C27.
- C34 West Veil Nebula - Cygnus - took a 54x3s stack with Bin2. Below are the pictures with and without CLAHE filter from Siril. You can see it but there are no colors. Later I took a 67x3s stack without Binning and it was much better - there was no need to use the CLAHE filter. Maybe the binning is not to blame, for the Bin2 stack, I had no flat frame and so I was pushing up the brightness to make the vignetting less noticeable and therefore drowning details to some extent.
- C33 East Veil Nebula - Cygnus - took at 67x3s stack with Bin2. The nebula is visible but quite faint. After that I took another 67x3s stack with no binning and it was much improved.
- C20 North America Nebula - Cygnus - took 30x3s stack with no binning. It's definitely recognizable.
- C27 Crescent Nebula - Cygnus - went back to try without binning. ASILive had some trouble aligning and it was getting late so I kept it at 33x3s.
All in all, a great night (I saw the Veil Nebula !!!) with a slow start.
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| M57 (high gain) |
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| M57 (medium gain) |
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| M57 (low gain) |
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| Epsilon Lyrae (double double) |
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| M51 (medium gain) |
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| M51 (high gain) |
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| NGC 4605 Faberge Galaxy |
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| M101 Pinwheel Galaxy (with CLAHE filter) |
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| C27 Crescent Nebula (Bin2) |
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| C34 West Veil Nebula (Bin2) |
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C34 West Veil Nebula (Bin2 - with CLAHE filter)
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| C34 West Veil Nebula (Bin1) |
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| C33 East Veil Nebula (Bin2) |
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| C33 East Veil Nebula (Bin1) |
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| C20 North America Nebula |
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| C27 Crescent Nebula |