M78 - Casper - The Ghost is friendly, but the imaging session wasn't. :)

[JimFox]

I captured this a few nights ago out in Joshua Tree National Park. Finally got a night with clear skies as it's been cloudy almost every night for a while.

I had some issues getting things running smoothly this night. My EAF wasn't showing up in ASIAir. I tried plugging and unplugging the USB cable. I tried resetting the ASIAir Plus, nothing. The EAF did have power as I could hear it beep as I plugged in and removed the Manual Remote into it. I swapped in a new USB B to A cable, still nothing. Powered it off and on again, and now this time it worked. So I was off and running after an hour or two of messing with that. I set it up and tested it out back at home with the original cable, and it worked great. The cable doesn't move once it's plugged in, and it's been used maybe 40 or 50 times? So while you never know, the cable hasn't been in any high stress situations.

I initially wanted to go after SH2-224, but even with a 10 minute exposure I couldn't see it in the preview. After having the EAF issues, I just wanted to get to imaging, so I chose M78 as a reliable target that I haven't captured too many times.

But now with M78, my guiding started going crazy. It would run fine for a few minutes, and then it would spike really high. No cables were being pulled or anything, so I calibrated the guiding. It started okay for a few minutes, and then went crazy, so I calibrated the guiding again. This time it started to guide okay. Nothing to write home about, but it was good enough to work.

Also during the night, the wifi connection to the ASIAir Plus disconnected a few times. The wifi signal was visible, my iPad had it selected, but the ASIAir didn't think it was connected. I corrected that by toggling the Wifi switch on the Ipad.

With all of those issues, I was happy to get a pretty nice image out of it.

I am going to reset the firmware in the ASIAir Plus controller, and see if maybe that corrects it for next time.

77 Lights @ 300 secs with Optlong L-Quad Filter
30 Flats
30 Dark Flats
30 Darks

ASI2600mc Pro - Astro Camera
Askar Fra500 - Scope
ZWO AM5 - Mount
ZWO EAF
ASIAir Plus - Astro Controller
Processed in Pixinsight
BlurXterminator
NoiseXterminator
StarXterminator
GradiationCorrection
Finished in Photoshop

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[AlanLichty]

The image looks pretty cool in spite of your trials and tribulations in getting it. Doesn't the extra effort make the image look nicer to you given what it took to get it?

 

[JimFox]

The image looks pretty cool in spite of your trials and tribulations in getting it. Doesn't the extra effort make the image look nicer to you given what it took to get it?

Ha ha.... no.... It makes it look nicer when everything runs smooth.

Glad you liked it.

 

[Comet Hunter]

spooky nice

 

[JimFox]

spooky nice

Thank you Ed!

 

[Mike Lewis]

A really nice result Jim, especially with all the gremlins about while you were trying to capture it. Love the processing in this one, with lots of subtle detail and color gradations tapering out in a very natural way that lets the truly faint detail be preserved along with the brighter portions of the object as well. Another post processing gem.

ML

 

[JimFox]

A really nice result Jim, especially with all the gremlins about while you were trying to capture it. Love the processing in this one, with lots of subtle detail and color gradations tapering out in a very natural way that lets the truly faint detail be preserved along with the brighter portions of the object as well. Another post processing gem.

ML

I appreciate that Mike. Especially remembering it wasn't that long ago when I used to be taking a sledge hammer to my images when processing.

 

[Andy Elliott]

Nice rendition Jim. Sorry to hear about your EAF issues; these seemingly random gremlins can drive you mad sometimes. I'm currently working on M78 myself with my ASI2600MC, no filters though. I'll post it here when I'm done.

 

[JimFox]

Nice rendition Jim. Sorry to hear about your EAF issues; these seemingly random gremlins can drive you mad sometimes. I'm currently working on M78 myself with my ASI2600MC, no filters though. I'll post it here when I'm done.

Thanks Andy, Everything seems to be working fine now, so not sure what the issue was, it could be connected to the hand controller for it. It beeps when I plug it in or unplug it, but it wouldn't always work. For now I am just manually moving the focus by the control buttons on the ASIAir App. It's not as easy as the hand controller but it works.

I look forward to seeing what you get on M78, it will be interesting to see the difference with you not using a filter. There may not be much difference as that LQuad filter is a broadband filter suitable for reflection nebula and galaxies.