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Orion Horsehead nebula

I’m not utterly thrilled by this result it can certainly better, I need to add additional Luminance data to reduce the noise and increase detail. This was actually more an exercise in combining NEF Nikon D750 color data taken by the C11 with Starizona reducer with monochrome ASI183MM data taken with the Esprit 120. This was done with AstroPixelProcessor 1.071. As you can see it worked wonderful.

The NEF color frames were split along the RGB color channels and combined with the Luminance result using the RGB Combine tool. The luminance noise was still very present as the Gain settings (230) were too high during the ASI183 capture.

There are some artefacts like the obvious magenta colors top left, and the top right cut-off angle: I need to look into these.

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Observing a Magnitude 21,2 asteroid?

When testing out the new ASI183MMPro CMOS camera, I pictured the galaxy NGC3628. This is a well-known galaxy, sometime called the ‘Hamburger’ galaxy, part of the Leo triplet.

When processing the image, I noticed this very faint trace abit to the south of the galaxy. I used the Minor Planet Checker to verify any known asteroids in this area, and I found only one a bith south of the very little galaxy underneath NGC3628 that I used the coordinates from (using SIMBAD and ALADIN).

I doubt the magnitude of 21,2. When I compare to a star nearby that has the same weight on my picture as the asteroid, that star is identified by the GAIA catalogue as magnitude 19,5. So my estimate for the asteroide, since it’s a moving object would be around 20.

NGC 3628 in Leo, imaged with a ASI183MM Pro & Esprit 120. 32 lights of 180s @Gain230 (!) and Offset 30, Temperature -20 °C Processed with flats, darks, bias in APP
The assumed asteroid is at the lower center right of the picture
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ASI290MM first guiding job

I guess the picture below says it all !! RMS values of 0.30″ and 0.26″. The mount was setup in the garden that same night, using PoleMaster to align (one 7-minute session). The PHD2 Guidelog mentions a pole error of 0,5′ I guess that is 30″. Not bad for spending 7 minutes on aligning. Works like a charm.

This is no doubt rather good guiding. I’m happy with this result: a good combination of the ASI290MM smaller pixels and the old Soligor “free” 400mm F 6.3 DSLR telelens (I got it as a gift from a neighbour who found it on a flee market).