Mosaic of Orion's Belt: 2 panes horizontally by 3 panes vertically.
(https://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/2025/OrionBelt_20250102_small.jpg)
Full version can be see on Astrobin:
https://www.astrobin.com/q4pt47/
Shot with Altair Astro AA24CFX on Tak Epsilon 180ED.
This is my first mosaic acquired automatically with N.I.N.A. Each of the 6 panes used 20 dithered exposures of 120sec.
PixInsight's new MultiscaleGradientCorrection process was used to remove large scale gradients in each pane after removing the usual colour shading (caused by colour pixel crosstalk).
Oh Fabulous Mark. I can see we are going to get a lot more from you now you have more time to spare for your hobby.
I see this is from your new OSC camera. How are you finding it compared to DSLR?
How many hours total exposure Mark?
Carole
Fantastic Mark, lovely wide field!
Roberto
4 hours in total, Carole. Yes, it'll certainly be good, having more free time ;)
The Altair Astro AA24CFX camera has the same sensor as my old Nikon Z6. The main difference I'm finding is the ability to use a low gain value without seeing the dreaded Nikon coloured concentric rings. However, I'm experiencing issues with some bright bands appearing in lights and darks. Although they calibrate out, they leave additional unwanted noise behind. Altair Astro support tells me this is a problem with their latest drivers which they hope to fix soon. So it's not the best introduction to the world of dedicated astro-cameras!
Lovely image Mark.
The colours are great
QuoteThe Altair Astro AA24CFX camera has the same sensor as my old Nikon Z6. The main difference I'm finding is the ability to use a low gain value without seeing the dreaded Nikon coloured concentric rings. However, I'm experiencing issues with some bright bands appearing in lights and darks. Although they calibrate out, they leave additional unwanted noise behind. Altair Astro support tells me this is a problem with their latest drivers which they hope to fix soon. So it's not the best introduction to the world of dedicated astro-cameras!
I have only once tried a OSC cooled camera which was CCD. I had already started using Mono CCD and thought it might speed up capture if I could do colour on the OSC and add Luminance to it. But it caused me so many problems that I didn't have with mono, that I soon re-sold it and stuck to Mono, but each to their own.