A belated Happy New Year to everyone.
I've had a good start to the year, bagging a couple of targets, one new to me and one that I haven't imaged since my urban light polluted DSLR days several years ago, before I relocated to my current much more rural location

I realise that since Mike Unsold stopped developing and supporting ImagesPlus that it probably has has a dwindling customer base, so I thought I share these recent (2022) images in part to show what can still be done with it. Certainly, as discussed on another thread the camera control software, IPCC, is now very long in the tooth and won't support many of the more recent Canon and Nikon DSLR, but the IP astrophotography processing suite itself has rich functionality and is still very capable, provided that you are able to capture, or convert images to a readable FIT, or uncompressed TIFF format. For what is now a 'free to download' product, IMHO it is an excellent offering.

The first image is an HaRGB image of Sh2-173 (Phantom of the Opera Nebula) in Cassiopeia. The image comprises just under 5hrs Ha, together with just over 1hr each RGB, captured with my QSI583wsg-5 mono CCD camera, through my 4" TSAPO100Q, over a couple on nights in the first week of the New Year.

The 2nd image, captured over 2 nights last week, is my first return to IC405 (Flaming Star Nebula) in Auriga for several years. It's a tight squeeze in the FOV of my 4" APO/QSI rig, so I concentrated on the business end of the nebula, losing some of the nebula's tail. This is also an HaRGB image with a similar amount of RGB data as Sh2-173 and just over 3hrs Ha, using the same rig as for Sh2-173.

Both images were almost exclusively processed using Images Plus, with IP's Feature Mask tool employed for split star and nebula processing. I opted to retain most of the busy star fields, with very litte star reduction, as I like what the rich, colourful star fields bring to the images overall, something which I recognise can be a matter of personal preference.

Thanks for looking, I hope that you enjoy them. Critique/comments always welcome.
Best regards,

Geof

A belated Happy New Year to everyone.
I've had a good start to the year, bagging a couple of targets, one new to me and one that I haven't imaged since my urban light polluted DSLR days several years ago, before I relocated to my current much more rural location

I realise that since Mike Unsold stopped developing and supporting ImagesPlus that it probably has has a dwindling customer base, so I thought I share these recent (2022) images in part to show what can still be done with it. Certainly, as discussed on another thread the camera control software, IPCC, is now very long in the tooth and won't support many of the more recent Canon and Nikon DSLR, but the IP astrophotography processing suite itself has rich functionality and is still very capable, provided that you are able to capture, or convert images to a readable FIT, or uncompressed TIFF format. For what is now a 'free to download' product, IMHO it is an excellent offering.

The first image is an HaRGB image of Sh2-173 (Phantom of the Opera Nebula) in Cassiopeia. The image comprises just under 5hrs Ha, together with just over 1hr each RGB, captured with my QSI583wsg-5 mono CCD camera, through my 4" TSAPO100Q, over a couple on nights in the first week of the New Year.

The 2nd image, captured over 2 nights last week, is my first return to IC405 (Flaming Star Nebula) in Auriga for several years. It's a tight squeeze in the FOV of my 4" APO/QSI rig, so I concentrated on the business end of the nebula, losing some of the nebula's tail. This is also an HaRGB image with a similar amount of RGB data as Sh2-173 and just over 3hrs Ha, using the same rig as for Sh2-173.

Both images were almost exclusively processed using Images Plus, with IP's Feature Mask tool employed for split star and nebula processing. I opted to retain most of the busy star fields, with very litte star reduction, as I like what the rich, colourful star fields bring to the images overall, something which I recognise can be a matter of personal preference.

Thanks for looking, I hope that you enjoy them. Critique/comments always welcome.
Best regards,

Geof