Ron/All,
OK. Just returned from a supposedly Bortle 2 site (Mojave National Preserve). 8-hour drive.
It was dark alright (new Moon too!) but there was some light pollution (Las Vegas was glowing 50 mi away and some other light sources).
Shot the Markarian's. Much better of course. This time I might've underexposed a little.
120 sec x 60. AT72EDII, ASI294MC, -10C, 200 gain. Stacked in DSS. Processed in Photoshop. Cropped.



Single fits file. Debayered, resized and saved as jpeg.



Location. Las Vegas is on the left (50 mi). I-40 on the right (12 mi). My telescope in the center.



Thanks!

Max,

I still think the raw image is too bright, particularly for a dark site. It should be almost all black, with no galaxies visible, just a few, very bright stars. Maybe Andres is on to something? Do you see 12bit in your Indi settings where I see 14bit?

OK guys - thanks for helping! The main thing I got out from all this - it's hard to get good results @ Bortle 8 site. Interestingly enough, yesterday, I got a decent picture of the Owl nebula with just 45 x 60 sec (it's high up in the sky - maybe less pollution reaches there). Leo Triplet was OK too two weeks ago. Just Markarian's Chain was awful (shot next day after the Triplet).
I'll play with gain, offset, exposure time to get better results.
Thanks!

Sorry. Just one more. Here's one of my fits (from the dark place) processed in Regim. It's pretty dark.
Different softwares handle fits files differently. Apparently. The files themselves are the same just representation is different.

It looks like a linear (i.e. unstretched) image to me and it is supposed to be so dark. What happens if you stretch it to a non-linear image? I don't know of any free tools to do that. I always use either PixInsight or AstroPixelProcessor.


Wouter

Wouter,
A stretched image is shown a couple of posts up (it's not stretched really and also linear but processed with a different philosophy).
There's no problem except for my Bortle 8/9 location and different people using different software to look at fits files.
All is solved and settled.
Thanks!

The Regim debayered frame looks perfect!

Great milkyway shot Max. I bet your Markarian's Chain is going to turn out great also with that kind of data.
One thing I've found out is unless your ready for narrowband (mono camera, filter wheel, spacing issues, filters, three to five set of everything and another processing learning curve) a decent filter for light pollution does have it's place. I use an astronomic's lp filter for galaxies and clusters to remove a bit of sky glow and a DMG Omega NB filter to pull out much greater detail in HA (the dmg even works with a lot of moonlight). They have some new ones for osc that are supposed to be really nice like the triad but they are expensive.
But then my suburban sky is a Bortle 7. The thing is my backyard is just so much easier to use.
Have fun and thanks for sharing those shots.
Casey

Ron that is beautiful and not just for the simplicity of it. Mind sharing your settings for live stacking. I’ve never done that nor knew it was available. I guess you’d just have DSS monitor a folder and anything new is just added on top of the last as long as they line up? Then bring the black levels up/sky glow down in photoshop? And of course you could just watch your project coming together in a kinda rough draft work flow?

with DSS live (free) you set the path that it will monitor. I had some issues with it debayering at first. There are no settings. Someone told me I had to go into DSS (not live) and set those settings... and DSS live will use the same settings. I have no idea how to use DSS... I tweaked a couple settings to debayer and stack a test. I then exited and then DSS LIVE worked. I use pixinsight for stacking normally... but I do love to use DSS live during acquisition. This is one of the first OSC images I did with the 094 and the only one that was any good. Other targets were to weak for my LP.
I've moved this camera to a little 80mm and a little mount that I plan to use at my daughters (darker skies) this summer.
The only time I ever used DSS was to set debayer. Else should be defaults. (the two programs confuse the hell out of me). Luckily - DSS LIVE has no options. Just set the monitor folder... let some get saved and hit go... or stack. And let the fun begin.

When I downloaded and unzipped DSS there were two .exe programs. DSS for manual stacking. And DSS LIVE. The later monitors the dir your capture program is saving into. You can stack the mono NB subs as well. I love doing that too.
For OSC it's awesome to see your right a.s.a.p. That M42 is the fastest image I ever aquired and finished. It was exciting to have something in 30 minutes "shot n done".

Here are the 8 subs I stacked. You can see by the hot spot the different exposures. I threw the worst out into the non stackable folder and kept the best 8.
DSS LIVE will look at these and produce a color stack.

hahah I just noticed. These were not even shot as a sequence. I often just test new gear by shooting "frame n focus" shots with the focus and framing tool in SGP. That's why they're named frame and focus