Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Carina (Car)  ·  Contains:  Carina Nebula  ·  NGC 3372  ·  eta Car Nebula
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NGC 3372 Carina Nebula Project with Antlia ALPT Filter ( Full Moon ), Martin Dowd
NGC 3372 Carina Nebula Project with Antlia ALPT Filter ( Full Moon )
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NGC 3372 Carina Nebula Project with Antlia ALPT Filter ( Full Moon )

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 3372 Carina Nebula Project with Antlia ALPT Filter ( Full Moon ), Martin Dowd
NGC 3372 Carina Nebula Project with Antlia ALPT Filter ( Full Moon )
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NGC 3372 Carina Nebula Project with Antlia ALPT Filter ( Full Moon )

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Description

My recent project over the Easter Holiday "full moon" period, was to find out how much data was required (using the Antlia ALPT OSC filter)  to achieve a high SNR image with very little noise reduction required. Luckily there were 3 consecutive clear stable nights to image. My capture time was limited each night due to my roof blocking the view to the South from 0 to 55degrees Alt

Location : Back yard Sydney, Australia
3 consectutive Nights
Skyglow : Bortle 8
Conditions : Good seeing and transparency
Weather : Generally clear with some scattered high cloud
Moon : Full to waning 95%
Telescope : 6' f6 GSO Newtonian Reflector
Mount : Skywatcher EQ6-R pro
Imaging Camera : ZWO 2600MC , cooled to -10C , Gain 101
Filter : Antlia ALPT OSC 5nm narrowband dualband filter
Guide scope : Orion 60mm with helical focuser
Guide Camera : ZWO120MM - S USB3
Focuser : ZWO EAF
Tracking and Goto : EQMOD and Ascom Stellarium
Capture Software : APT
PHD2 Guiding ( 0.40 to 0.50 arc sec total for 3 nights )
252 x 3 minute dithered guided subs ( 12.5 hours total )
3 x 40 Flats
1 x 100 Bias
Subs checked using ASTAP
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker ( OSC Multiple nights stacking )
Processed in Startools V1.8 ( via Compose , Linear OSC Bi Color )
In Color Module used 4th SHO matrix option

Startools Basic Workflow
Bin 65%
Crop, edges
Wipe used Narrowband preset
AutoDev final stretch , Gamma 0.98 , Shadow Linearity 60%
Contrast Basic 30% 30%
No HDR
No Sharpening
SV Decon sampled using 21 good stars, 15 iterations , ringing detect 90% , de ringing 0.90
Super Structure Isolate Local Median 25% , Brightness, gamma 0.22 Min distance to 1/2 Unity
Color : Artistic , 50/50 Layering CIELab Luminance , 4th SHO Matrix
De noise , the final result was that clean that the image didn't really require any noise reduction, however I  chose a 2 pixels reduction anyway.

The Antlia ALPT OSC filter performed extremely well under heavy light polluted moon lit skies. The medium to larger stars only have a very small halo ( my previous L Extreme OSC filter always left big halos )
Although not in the same league as the 2600MM with filters , the 2600MC did the job well.
Startools V1.8 Spatially Variant PSF Deconvolution worked really well to "De Blur' the image. Kudos to Ivo !!!

In summary , my previous images of Emission Nebula  over the past 12 months using the Antlia ALPT were always around 3 to 5 hours of data max which required a De noise of between 4  to 6 pixels to smooth out the noise grain to an acceptable level. The 12 hours of good data was virtually noise free from the start. 3 minute subs at Gain 101 seems to be the sweet spot for my set up and local conditions. Ive tried 5 min subs previously which yield a little bit more detail but more noise as well.
Very pleasing result !!

Comments Welcome
Thanks for Looking

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NGC 3372 Carina Nebula Project with Antlia ALPT Filter ( Full Moon ), Martin Dowd