ATR533M First Light: Witnessing the Pelican Nebula's Splendor
I've made the exciting and significant jump from an unmodified DSLR to a full monochrome cooled camera setup! The ATR533M camera arrived just recently, and as luck would have it, the skies were clear for its maiden voyage.
A Dramatic Improvement in Detail
The first Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) subs were absolutely breathtaking. I managed to capture more detail in just 5-minute exposures than I could have ever hoped for with hours of shooting on my old DSLR. The final Ha stack was simply phenomenal! While the Oxygen-III (Oiii) and Sulfur-II (Sii) stacks were decent, the results were as expected given my severe light pollution situation (Bortle 9, magnitude 17.3). Even with a relatively low integration time, this outcome surpassed all my expectations.
The Gear Behind the Image
Here's a breakdown of the equipment used for this capture:
- Telescope: AT80ED
- Mount: EQM-35 Pro
- Camera: ATR533M Cooled Mono Camera
- Filters: Touptek 6.5nm 1.25" SHO Filters + Filter Wheel
- Guiding: ZWO ASI120MM Mini with ZWO Mini Guide Scope
Acquisition Details
- Exposure Time: 5-minute subs at gain 101
- Total Integration Time: 4 hours and 10 minutes
- Ha: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Oiii: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Sii: 1 hour 20 minutes
For processing, I utilized only flats as I haven't yet acquired dark frames and am still figuring out the bias frame process for this camera. That's definitely on the to-do list!
Processing Workflow
The captured data was stacked using DeepSkyStacker (DSS), followed by processing and denoising in Siril. While I know how to refine the stars, I'll admit I was a bit lazy and didn't focus on them for this first attempt!
