PIER-05 Witch's Head Nebula (NGC 1909)

Hello Richard, 

Brilliant image, I'll start calibration on this asap. You'd likely have had to spend too much time dealing with the flare, so good decision, and I feel it doesn't really affect the image. 

Regards, 

Ray 

Hello!

I'm very fascinated about that image. I love it. Congratulations. 

I need some advice because it's the first time for me in roboscopes. I usually take images with my star tracker and my mirrorless, and I want best captures for processing later in home. So, which PIER do you recomend me, time, filters, configuration...? Thank you so much.

Tony 

Hello Tony, 

Welcome to the forum. I'm sure that you'll get some helpful advice from others over the next week or two, but in the meantime... 

It would probably make most sense to start off using a pier that uses an OSC to ease you in, and then if you intend to go further use one with a mono camera. I imagine that it is an OSC that you're intending to start off with. Should you want a change from your what you are currently doing and want to capture small targets such as galaxies and smaller nebulae, then you will need to choose from piers other than discussed here. What follows assumes you want a setup similar to what you have now. 

The options open to you are to submit an initial target of your own choosing to pier 11, or, make a commitment to a Syndicate pier, pier 5 being the only choice and is highly recommended. This will depend on how much money you intend to throw at this 'money pit' of a hobby. :)  You might consider using pier 11 to start off with then decide what you want to do from then on. 

One thing to point out is that upon joining a Syndicate you would have access to any recently completed jobs on that pier. That would allow you to start processing some data immediately and be able to submit your own jobs which you'll receive in time. For the details such as exposure times etc, those you can seek advice from here on the forum, as well as any job you put in on pier 11. As to what recent jobs might be available to you upon joining the pier 5 Syndicate I'm unable to help you, not being a member myself right now,. If it is your intention to join then perhaps a Syndicate member on pier 5 will have a look and let you know. That may help influence your decision right now. 

If your mirrorless camera has not been modified for Astrophotography then you'll see an improvement to start off with, that's besides the massive advantage given by imaging under darker skies. Both piers 5 and 11 will emulate your current camera as they have a similar bayer matrix.

You may have tried one of the available bandpass filters on your camera and been capturing the hydrogen, oxygen and possibly sulphur emissions from nebulae, the so-called Hubble palette. If not, then this is something available on piers 5 and 11 for you to take advantage of in time. You'll always have the data so if you've processed them as RGB images initially, you can revisit such jobs as and when you are ready for the next step, narrowband. Once there, there's probably no way back. Welcome to the world of astrophotography! :) 

Cheers and CS, 

Ray 

Thank you so much, Ray, for your good advices.

Tony :))