Carbonstar 150 first light

[Jose Urias]

Good morning HAL,

I just wanted to share with you the first attempt of the Orion’s nebula with the Carbonstar 150.

I have to admit that at first I was not convinced about this new telescope and I have been thinking about just returning it and getting another C8, but after getting this image I feel a lot better about it, actually quiet impressed.

There are some differences in imaging with this scope compared to the C8, like the exposure times and now having those refraction spikes which I kinda like but I want to make a little smaller.

This image is made of 1300x5seconds frames at gain 100 with the ASI533MC Pro. It took me some time to arrive to that exposure time because this scope is an astrograph and gathers light faster than my old C8. I was used to a minimum of 3 min exposures for some things so I had to try on every configuration to not blow the stars and the center of the nebula. I may even try 3 seconds because I do not see the 4 stars in the middle so it may still be over exposed. The details look fantastic though.

I also noticed that despite being able to frame the moon on this scope, I cannot image it even with the gain at 0 and the shortest exposure time possible.

I am planning to collect data on Orion for a long time so right now it is just the testing phase. 

Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

I am also including the just stacked version without any other processing so you can see the out of the batch results too.

I used pixinsight to stack, de noise and stretch it, and photoshop express on my iPad to work on the light and colors.

[John Nagy]

Congrats on the first light. I think you'll grow to love the fast F/4 aperture, especially on dim targets (M42 definitely isn't). I'm sure you'll be back up to two and three minute exposures in no time. Getting new equipment always has a learning curve!

I can't help much with the Moon but you can probably add a neutral density filter to knock down the reflected light intensity and increase exposure length. I know that's what I've done for visual. I don't see why the same filters wouldn't apply for lunar imaging.

What are you using for image processing? You might try some sort of HDR integration. I've used that successfully with M42 to retain the core and show the Trapezium while also allowing for the dimmer nebula and nearby Running Man.

John

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[Kurt Bauch]

That’s excellent work, Jose! 

IMHO, you can go longer with your exposures (1-2 minutes) and use HDRMultiscaleTransformation (6-8 layers) for the core. There’s a few good tutorials on YouTube (I think Shawn’s Visible Dark has a good one) on 

HDRMultiscaleTransformation. Your file size has to be enormous with all of those subs!

Kurt Bauch

On Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 9:48 AM Jose Urias <juria...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Kurt Bauch]

Oops. I’m not sure why my second paragraph is larger and bold. 🤷‍♂️

Kurt Bauch