Small Magellanic Cloud (Franco Grimoldi)

Small Magellanic Cloud

Revision title: PixInsight re-processing

First light with my brand new Rokinon 135mm f/2.

Images taken from my usual "dark" spot (Bortle 4), 21km from my home in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Lens set to f/2.8, camera set to ISO 3200.

Having only wide angle (50mm and less) experience, I've found it quite challenging to select a nice target for a first 135mm attempt. The night was all clear and the moon only 2-3 days old, conditions rarely met here, so I took my chances and drove to Puente Canesa to try to get one hour on the Small Magellanic Cloud. Switching from my usual 50mm to this very heavy 135mm made things unusually difficult, I almost gave up after a few failed test shots. The polar alignment got skewed when mounting the camera + counterweight (first attempt with declination bracket and counterweight!). After a second polar alignment, I was able to get decent star shapes with 30" exposures, which is the maximum possible w/o using any external accessories. My plan was to get 120 30" subs but it was getting late and I wasn't much confident on the results, so I ended the session after 35 minutes.

Stacking was done in DSS, keeping 68 out of 69 subs. Having recently seen Cuiv's (The Lazy Geek) video on GraXpert I gave it a try and it really worked, removing the light pollution gradient brilliantly. The stretching was done in Siril, using photometric color calibration and star removal/re-composition. Final touches were done in Photoshop 2024. I'm pretty happy with the result!

Calibration frames:
. 20 darks
. 20 bias
. 20 flats (using white t-shirt and a white computer screen)
. 20 dark flats

=======================================
Final revision edit:
I re-processed the whole raw data with PixInsight and RC-Astro's BX, NX and SX. The original DSS/GraXpert/Siril was pretty good, but PixInsight manages to get much more detail out of the data!
=======================================

Original
Final
B

B

Title: PixInsight re-processing

Description: Full re-processing of the raw data using PixInsight and RC-Astro's plugins

Uploaded: ...

Southern Hemisphere Astro

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9665271
PixInsight job	RNIUT1PFFRILIEV1GANF5LLR4NY234M8
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h50m48s.70
RA (top/left)	00h17m12s.84
RA (top/right)	23h51m53s.22
RA (bottom/right)	01h46m04s.99
RA (bottom/left)	01h27m28s.20

Dec (center)	-72°50′47″.5
Dec (top/left)	-68°12′49″.2
Dec (top/right)	-76°39′04″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	-76°53′23″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	-68°22′20″.9

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):