Steve Paxton's photos

This show the center of the large nebula If you look closely you will see a lot fine wispy details. I had to try again I did not like my edit So sat down with a glass of red and music on don't edit to what I know it looks like from Colour camera edit how you see it. I have to say I am enjoying this camera and the detail it produces. I have found the Chicken that's running if you look in the lower left corner you can just make out the horizontal chicken. Click on the shot below you see the chicken. QHY268M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over 4 nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Rotated 90 degrees Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps, Lr

This is the new Astro camera QHY268M ASP-C size sensor ...... Unlike a DSLR where you pick up the camera and go, a deep space camera requires a lot more set up. As this is the first shot I thought for those interested just what is required. At the very start you have to make sure that your rings match the back focus of the particular camera. in this case it is 55 mm from camera sensor to the corrector that picks up the image from the mirrors. So all the bits between filter wheel and Off Axis Guider all have to fit in that 55 mm spacing ... Remember this is a cooled camera I try and always use -10 c but on hot night i have also to use 0c a second set of darks. DARKS : These are shot that are taken at the times you will be using in you photography Eg 300 sec . So you have to take your exposure time you would be using BUT with a cap on the camera so there is no image but what there is is an image of all the noise that the camera creates in those times. You create a library of about 40 shot of each. This is a 300 sec dark master I did 7 different exposure times 7 x 40 shots = 280 shot from 10min to 30 sec... quite a few hours shooting. FLATS : These are taken at about 1/4 exposure above the Dark point in between to the middle point. The good part is the program is able to work it out. Each filter has to have the same 40 shots. This is used to show up any imperfections in the optical train such as Vignetting, dust, scratches. This is a master flat made from stacking the 40 shots with also how many bias files you took. This is for the red filter you can just make out the slight vignetting in the corners center is brighter..... 7 filters x 40 shots = 280 BIAS : Bias frames are taken with the camera lens fully capped, at the shortest possible exposure time, to ensure only the sensor noise is recorded. These are use with the flats to create the master flat. I did 100 as they where timed at 0 sec... While Darks and Bias files show up noise they are both very different patterns. OFFSETS : The all important focus point the clearest filter is Luminance so this is used to get focus . Offsets are made by running through all the filters to get perfect focus 3 times each about 60 min cycle. Then in the end it calculates the difference of each focus point for the filter to Lum and applied as the offset. To make it easier to understand if lum is your base or 0 if Red is +1 focus point then filter focuses on lum 1600 but when its Red filter it adds +1 to the focus point 1600 +1 as worked out by doing the offset run for each filter. This is the new part to me as I am only just starting with filters. NOW YOU CAN TAKE A PHOTO and why most photographers will shy away from this type of photography. Is it worth it to me yes ..................... enjoy the shots. When the shots of the nebula are taken checked they are all stacked with the Darks, Flats and Bias to remove all the optical faults and noise to get the clean shot that you have seen before and above. You can not start with out all this info and shots just to get the one Perfect photo. All part of the learning curve of the last 5 years. Enjoy the result of about 1 hours editing and all the shots that make up this single image, all the very best to Ai you never can better the original or stand as proud of your work. This is un ashamedly the result of a lot of work. Do look at this as big as you can, look at the detail, not one bit of noise straight out of camera enjoy the shot. Coloured Shot QHY183C and EB80 QHY268M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over 5 nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Rotated 90 degrees Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps, Lr

We went to see my wifes brother and take him a few things . Sadly when I got in the car at 5:30 PM I did not take the photo 43c. This was the temperature when we left at 8 PM to come home. But we where positively cool at 43c Onslow 50.7c.. www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-13/onslow-in-the-pilbara-equals-australias-hottest-day-on-record/100754082

The Statue Of Liberty In Narrow band. This was a 90 degree rotation to the shot of the Christmas tree Nebula so the "lady" stands up straight and is not on an angle. The detail of the "dress" shows up a lot more in narrow band that it ever did with a one shot camera. The shot is well worth a look large. This is the longest focal length that I can get from the 8" Newtonian and the 1" sensor of the QHY183M, this is almost same view that a 10" and ASP-C camera will get. QHY183M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over 9 nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Rotated 90 degrees Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps, Lr

I noted today on my walk around our lake South lake one part has been burnt out. You can just see the foot path we walk around the lake lower part of the photo. The lake has a small ring of bush all the way around it this will take some time to recover. the Extent of the fire is a bit more each end of the shot.

The Christmas Tree Nebula in narrow band a lot more detail than a colour camera below. You also will note they are both very different telescopes Above is a Reflector and the tell tail spikes and below is a Refractor like a glass lens so no spikes. This shot is made possible becasuse of the extra weight to balance the filter wheel and the markings on the focuser . This was an 80 degree rotation but the program told me the error was 79.58 for the requested 80 degrees. The next shot is also an even bigger rotation. This shot was very long winded as it was cloudy early mornings and the Palm three next door getting in the way at 2 am. so the usual 5 night went out to 10 1/2 nights. To give you an idea this is about an hours editing to build the different components then put it all together to make a Hubble background and RGB stars. QHY183M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over 10 nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps, Lr

This came up in the pot of standard Rose, Blue Moon. I had to get a shot before the Great grand children saw it and pulled it out.

Sadly Venus got tangled up in the TV ariel I took the two great grand children out to see the planets.. last night they where even further apart. You have a preview of what is still a work in progress now completed. on the scope.

While the Old year Ended and the New Started my final shot of the year edited 5am this morning. This is the Horse head nebula in the view we are more use to seeing but not in the colour's we would expect. This is the Hubble pallet with RGB stars. What is different about this to the last shot of the Horse head in November was being able to Rotate the focuser and also have a counter weight to offset the filter wheel. Where the filter wheel ends up the weight is opposite. This was rotated 40 degrees straight up because of the scale I put on to suit the body of the focuser. The scale is long lines 10 and the small 5 degrees of rotation. The trial will continue and get slowly better refined so rotation will become the normal to suit the image much the same way on a DSLR we compose the shot we want. This was much the same way I used the ED80 and my Nikon lens all views rotated to suit the target. Happy new Year to all the readers here and Look forward to 2025 and our shots, clear skies and cool nights QHY183M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over five nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps, Lr

I had to buy a new lens for night work as my old one has decentered. This is first try with the lens . I think the lens is better suited on my old D600 24M pixels than the D810 35M pixels as the pixels are very close and very small. The D600 I should be able to increase time with far less movement in the stars across the pixels of the camera as they are bigger..... I would rather get the time above 10 sec than around 8 sec and less stars trailing . This is pure trial work out under the stars while the photo detail is good the stars at the edges are very slightly trailed to get that fixed is drop the exposure time to 5 sec or go to Bigger pixel size so less movement between pixels.

The closest part next to the city I can go to to test out the new lens. The panorama worked out not so bad as the photos get cropped when they join each other. A lot of detail from the Samyang 14mm F2.4 AE lens. Next trial will be D600 as I did not think to take it with me. This is a summer bow far left you have Perth far right there is Southern Cross and Carina area, you cant miss Orion in the very center sitting as the Pot.

The fire looked a long way away but it was two streets away in a pocket of bush next to the road. Thankfully in a very short space of time it was under control. I got my wife to check on family in the area but it was closer to us than them when we where able to drive the area. Thankfully this one did not get out of control not like some that have already happened in Australia and WA.

The day started windy then it got very noisy we had a line of planes and Helicopters flying over head.

science.nasa.gov/image-detail/hubble-nebula-bok-display This is a close up of the center of the Rosette nebula with a slant of trying to get all the Bok Globules that are across the bottom of shot and appear very prominently in the Rosette. Once again the Hubble pallet in good use but not trying to get a strong Blue or green in the shot. Once again Narrow band and RGB stars QHY183M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over five nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps

My wife chose the day to set up the tree, It looks cool but on a 41c day it was any thing but, lucky nothing here melts. Even the snow was Melt free around this tree. Enjoy the light show. Merry Christmas to Every body, hope you all have a great time with family and friends, reflect on this one BIG family here and the world we live in. Enjoy this time of year.

A very small target but I had time to kill and the name rose how could I resist.... Next is going to some thing to behold. QHY183M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over five nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps

The shot that got my interest in deep space but not quite as you would normally see it. The traditional view with a one shot colour camera RGB. This shot is SII as Red Ha as Green O3 as blue but RGB stars. As the Ha is the dominant element its usually very green but I have only kept a hint of Green. This shows you just how green the Hubble pallet is. Glad to see this in real life I have never see the Horses beard before. Look closely you can see the shadow cast by the Nebula Back lit from behind. I have to work on getting the focuser set up and filter wheel balanced to be able to rotate the whole train to get the better view. The Filter wheel is very heavy so if you move out from inline the whole rig is thrown out of balance very badly. QHY183M -10c 100 Odd shots 5 min each filter over five nights .. 30 shots each RGB 1 min exposure. QHYCFW3 and 7 Antlia filters LRGBSHaO MeLE Mini PC Pegasus Astro Pocket Mini power box Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser Skywatcher 200 F4 PREMIUM PHOTO QUATTRO REFLECTOR OTA Skywatcher F4 Aplanatic Coma Corrector Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Hypertuned SVbony 50MM Guide scope QHY5L-II-M Guide camera Guided PHD2, Nina Pixinsight, Ps