My first TLPOD
I feel very honoured and pleased that my Rosette Nebula in SHO, the Hubble Palette, became the Telescope Live Picture Of the Day (TLPOD) on Feb. 13, 2024. Thank you Telescope Live!
On Jan. 30, 2024, I joined Telescope Live, a website for remote imaging, and purchased datasets from 4 different deep sky objects. One of them was the Rosette Nebula (also known as NGC2237 or Caldwell 49) recorded with HSO-narrowband filters. The H-filter stands for Hydrogen filter (Ha, H-alpha), the S-filter stands for Sulfur filter (S-II) and the O-filter stands for Oxygen filter (O-III).
I first edited and posted this astrophoto of the Rosette Nebula on Telescope Live. A website for remote imaging. I never thought that my first Telescope Live astrophoto would already be chosen by the judges to become the TLPOD – Telescope Live Picture Of the Day – because surely there is strong competition on Telescope Live, hence my joy. You can see so many beautiful astrophotos there from other astrophotographers.
It is also the very first time for me that I have ever edited an astrophoto in SHO, the Hubble Palette.
Image details
- Telescope: ASA 20N 500/1900 Astrograph OTA
- Camera: FLI PL 16803 (CCD)
- Location: Rio Hurtado, Coquimbo Region, Chile (EL SAUCE OBSERVATORY)
- Date of observation: 2020-12-24 & 2021-03-29
- Filters: HSO (Astrodon) / Integration time => H-alpha: 6x600s; S-II (Sulfur): 6x600s & O-III (Oxygene): 6x600s
- Processing: PixInsight; GHS; RC Astro Tools
- Credits: Dataset: Telescope Live / Processing: Beatrice Heinze
Here is the link to the used equipment: https://help.telescope.live/hc/en-us/articles/360004953397-CHI-4-50-cm-F3-6-Reflector
What software did I use for my astrophoto of the Rosette Nebula in SHO? (Summary)
For both editing and stacking, I used the software PixInsight.
The Telescope Live Data is already calibrated, so I didn’t need to make calibration frames like darks, flats, flat darks and/or bias.
Therefore, I could start to upload the HSO-narrowband data right away using the Weighted Batch Preprocessing Script (WBPP).
I can select all the HSO-narrowband data from my computer at once and upload it. PixInsight is clever enough to assign the HSO-narrowband data to the right channels (H-alpha, OIII and SII).
The next step was to use the channel combination tool in PixInsight to create an RGB image from the HSO-narrowband data (Halpha, SII and OIII). SII will be assigned to R(ed), Halpha to G(reen) and OIII to B(lue).
After clicking on the Apply Global button (F5), I get a false-colour RGB image of my HSO-narrowband data, an SHO image.
From here on, I further process my image with cropping (if necessary), using GraXpert to get rid of the gradients, etc.
Btw, GraXpert is a great tool to easily remove the gradients in your image in a fast way. This standalone software is very popular among astrophotographers.
I also used the astrophotography tools new to me such as GHS (Generalised Hyperbolic Stretch) from ghsastro.co.uk, built-in as PixInsight script, and the AI-powered RC Astro tools such as BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator and StarXTerminator from Russell Croman.
For the RC Astro Tools, I am currently taking advantage of the 30-day trial period, but I am definitely going to buy these tools as I consider them a real asset to my astrophotography workflow.
My initial findings on Telescope Live
Telescope Live is a fun way to train your astrophotography editing skills when the weather is bad, or you have a lot of light pollution in your region, and/or if you want to test certain telescopes and/or cameras.
It’s not the same as doing astrophotography from your backyard, but that’s not the point here. You can see it as a nice addition when you don’t have new data to edit yourself, for example, or if you want to know what it’s like to edit data from a mono astro camera instead of a colour astro camera. At the moment, I have only colour astro cameras. A mono astro camera is more expensive to buy than a colour astro camera because you also need to purchase additional filters and a filter wheel.
I can also use high-quality telescopes far beyond my budget that look out on the most privileged skies in the world, such as in Spain, Chile or Australia.
Even if you are not an astrophotographer, and you want to know what it is like to edit astrophotos, I can highly recommend Telescope Live. It’s an affordable way to explore a new fascinating hobby, astrophotography. Doing astrophotography can drastically improve your life because you will expand your mind and therefore it will have a positive impact on your personal development.
Currently, you can buy datasets through Telescope Live starting from €6 per month ($6.46). This is the Bronze subscription that I currently use. There are also more expensive subscriptions to Telescope Live but I have no experience with those myself.
You can try Telescope Live for one week for free but after the free trial, you have to pay €24/month ($26,2555) at the time of writing.
Here is the website to Telescope Live if you want to get started editing astrophotos yourself: https://telescope.live/home.
Here is my page on Telescope Live if you’re interested: https://telescope.live/user/44172
Should you take the plunge to edit your astrophotos with Telescope Live’s datasets, please let me know in the comments as I am very curious about it 😊. Who knows… maybe one day, you’re astrophoto will also be selected as TLPOD – Telescope Live Picture Of the Day :-D.
*I’m not paid by Telescope Live, PixInsight, GIMP, Siril, the team behind GraXpert, ghsastro or RC Astro so my opinion on this is unbiased.
*If you notice any errors in this article, please let me know via the contact form on my website. I will be grateful to you for it.
