M27 C8 Antlia Gold from Bortle 8+ (Cosmetatos)

M27 C8 Antlia Gold from Bortle 8+

One hour of data, Celestron 8 (Classic), Starizona SCT IV reducer/corrector, Toupcam IMX571 color camera and Antlia Gold 5nm filter.

After struggling for a year with my old C8 and the Celestron f6.3, I got the Starizona corrector and a good light pollution filter. My only words: WOW. It feels like another telescope all together. Autofocus works, stars are sharp. I have a bit of tilt and a few collimation issues to fix, but I hope to get to that soon. The Starizona corrector has been a revelation for me, especially as it allowed good star shape even when using the OAGuider.

Details of capture:
19 images of 4 minutes each using the Antlia Gold 5nm filter. Guiding with OAG and ZWO 385. Used NINA, Onstep and DIY motor/autofocuser.
Telescope vintage C8 on Super polaris mount, modified with Onstep and belts/pulleys. Guiding RMS <0.5 arcsec.
Stacked in DSS with darks, flats, darkflats, bias.
Processed lightly in Photoshop - just levels, curves, color balance and mild star reduction.
Shot from within the city of Athens, Greece, target at elevation between 30 to 50 degrees due to shooting from balcony.

I just love the red clouds with their bubbly features of the Ha channel. The narrowband filter definitely helps with this.
This is an RGG (not RGB) image. After noticing that the Blue channel was close to identical to the Green, but far more noisy, I replaced the Blue channel with another copy of the Green channel. Image was close to identical, but less noisy.

Astrophotography in Greece

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	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

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	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

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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.

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Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
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