Starizona HyperStar 11 V4

December 26, 2020 was finally a clear night. Of course, I finally wanted to try the Hyperstar V4 with the Celestron 11 EdgeHD.

So I tried it first with the Orion Nebula (M 42). Already after short exposure times the nebula stood out well. Nevertheless I worked with 30s exposure time (as I had done before with f6.3 and f10). So I hoped to capture more details on the one hand, and the image was not overexposed yet.

Raw image stacked in Atik Infinity software (Atik Horizon OSC, 90 frames at 30s low gain)

This is the raw image which the Atik Infinity software had stacked. You can clearly see how the stars are quite round in the center and look more and more like small comets towards the edge. This indicates that the sensor of the camera was too close to the optics. That means I will have to position the camera a bit further away in the future.

Although the raw material is not convincing, I still stacked and processed it with PixInsight. Interestingly, the effect with the comet-like stars was reduced quite a bit.

Processed with PixInsight (Atik Horizon OSC, 90 images at 30s low gain)

The image processed with PixInsight looks much better than the raw image which is live-stacked by the imaging software.

After the Orion Nebula, I then used the Optolong l-eNhance filter and photographed the Horsehead and Flame Nebula.

I was amazed at how out of focus the image was with the filter. So I had to refocus first and then take the photos.

Again, the raw image showed that the backfocus was off.

Raw image stacked in Atik Infinity software (Atik Horizon OSC, 49 frames at 30s low gain)

The image processed with PixInisght looks much better here as well.
 
Processed with PixInsight (Atik Horizon OSC, 49 images at 30s low gain)


However, I made a mistake during processing and processed the image like a normal color image. But the Optolong l-eNhance filter is a narrow band filter, so I would have to process it differently. I'll make up for it when I get a chance and post the image here afterwards. I'm curious to see the difference myself.


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