0, I’m just raw dogging /all (minus whomever .world is defederated from)
Med student here. I probably would’ve failed a lot of in house exams/step 1 if I didn’t use anki. IMO it’s best for solidifying knowledge and quick recall of facts, but doing a shitload of practice questions is the best way to apply what you’ve memorized through anki (this last bit is most applicable to med school/mcat prep).
Really the main cost with it is your time. If you miss a day or two it can be daunting to get back in the groove and work on your review backlog. I usually have enough downtime during the day and time on the shitter to get through my reviews + whatever new cards I add. Anki itself is free but they do have a paid iOS app that I got just to use whenever I had a few mins of spare time.
As for the learning curve, this will vary if you’re making your own cards vs using a premade deck for a large standardized exam. Once you know the formatting it isn’t that difficult to make cloze cards for what you’re trying to learn.
He’s just a skeegy little guy
Some nice colors in the sky If you’re north enough. Sadly I doubt this will be as strong as the aurora back in May, but maybe one day well get them down in Atlanta again
NGC 4490 is a galaxy colliding with the smaller NGC 4485 galaxy, and both are about 25 million light years away. This image was taken with a monochrome camera through filters for luminance (all visible light), red, green, blue, and Hydrogen-alpha (656nm), which were combined into a color image. The Hydrogen-alpha was combined with red (described below) to make the HaLRGB image. The pink Ha regions are star forming nebulae within the galaxies. This got cropped out of the final pic, but I ended getting some gorgeous diffraction spikes on this star near the edge of the full FOV
Places where I host my other images:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 27 hours 37 minutes (Camera at half Unity Gain, -15°C)
Ha - 128x360"
Lum - 464x60"
Red - 152x60"
Green - 150x60"
Blue - 123x60"
Flats- 30 per filter
24 JimmyFlats per broadband filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Processing:
BatchPreProcessing (with premade JimmyFlats)
StarAlignment
ImageIntegration
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
DynamicCrop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
duplicated each image and removed stars via StarXterminator. Ran DBE to generate background model. model subtracted from original pic using the following PixelMath (math courtesy of /u/jimmythechicken1)
$T * med(model) / model
Luminance:
BlurXTerminator
ArcsinhStretch + histogramtransformation to bring nonlinear
RGB:
ChannelCombinaiton to combine monochrome R, G, B stacks into color image
SpectroPhotometricColorCalibration
BlurXTerminator (correct only mode)
HSV Repair
making clean Ha
loosely following this guide
This basically subtracts any broadband signal from the Ha pic, leaving only the Ha emission, which is then combined in with the red and a little bit of the blue channels
Ha-Q * (Red-med (Red)), Q=0.75
Red = $T+B*(Ha_Clean - med(Ha_Clean))
Green = $T
Blue = $T+B0.2(Ha_Clean - med(Ha_Clean))
B variable = 0.6 (this controls how strongly the Ha is added)
Nonlinear
ArcsinhStretch + histogramtransformation to bring HaRGB image nonlinear
MLT for large scale chrominance noise reduction
shitloads of curve transformations to adjust lightness, contrast, saturation, etc (with various luminance and star masks)
slight SCNR to remove some greens
LRGBCombination with stretched Luminance
DeepSNR
more curves
ColorSaturation to slightly desaturate the Ha regions (they were very pink compared to the rest of the galaxy
slight noisexterminator
LocalHistogramEqualization
even more curves
Resample to 75%
DynamicCrop onto just the galaxy
annotation
Iirc the original goal was ‘at least 10’ but maybe up to 100 flights for a booster. No way to really know without flying them a lot
It may not be as big or well known as the other well known cluster in Hercules (M13), but it sure looks nice. Captured over 4 nights in July/August 2024 from a Bortle 9 zone
Places where I host my other images:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 6 hours 55 minutes (Camera at half Unity Gain, -15°C)
Lum - 209x60"
Red - 78x60"
Green - 62x60"
Blue - 66x60"
Flats- 30 per filter
24 JimmyFlats per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Processing:
BatchPreProcessing (with premade JimmyFlats)
StarAlignment
ImageIntegration
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
DynamicCrop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
duplicated each image and removed stars via StarXterminator. Ran DBE with a shitload of points to generate background model. model subtracted from original pic using the following PixelMath (math courtesy of /u/jimmythechicken1)
$T * med(model) / model
Luminance:
BlurXTerminator (correct only mode)
ArcsinhStretch + histogramtransformation to bring nonlinear
RGB:
ChannelCombinaiton to combine monochrome R, G, B stacks into color image
BlurXTerminator (correct only mode)
SpectroPhotometricColorCalibration
HSV Repair
ArcsinhStretch + histogramtransformation to bring nonlinear
Curves to saturate it a little
MLT for large scale chrominance noise reduction
Nonlinear:
LRGBCombination with stretched L as luminance
DeepSNR Noise reduction
Several CurveTransformations to adjust lightness, contrast, colors, saturation, etc.
Invert > SCNR > invert > SCNR to remove some greens and magentas
More curves
A little bit of noiseXterminator
DynamicCrop in on the clustert
Resample to 75%
Annotation
Oh no! Where will I go to see OF spam bots now???
I love procrastinating on processing my images! I got set up early at a dark site last month and decided to shoot the sun while it was still up. There were a shitload of sunspots, including AR3697 in the bottom right. This sunspot group was the one that gave us the wonderful aurora back in May (back when it was known as AR3664)
Places where I host my other images:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Moonlite Autofocuser
Astrozap BAADER AstroSolar Density 5 filter
Acquisition:
Capture Software:
Processing:
Stacked the best 25% of frames in Autostakkert, 2X resample and autosharpened
Colorized using curves in Photoshop
More lightness/Hue Adjustments
Astrosurface wavelets to remove some grid artifacts from stacking
STF applied in pixinsight
Annotatation
On the last test flight a few weeks ago both the booster and ship did powered soft landings in the ocean (even with the ship’s flap melting a bit)
I’m guessing it’s called that because it’s kinda headphone shaped. It was discovered in the 30’s so I’m assuming only the brightest parts of the nebula were visible to the astronomers.
This image is a combination of false color narrowband images for the nebula itself, plus true color RGB stars (the nebula is mostly red and a little blue in true color). If you zoom in to the center you can see the very blue white dwarf that caused the planetary nebula to form. Also for those curious this is what a single 10 minute long Ha exposure looks like (image total is 83.5 hours exposure). Captured over 33 nights from Jan-May 2024 from a bortle 9 zone.
Places where I host my other images:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-290mc for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 83 hours 30 minutes (Camera at -15°C), NB exposures at unity gain and BB at half unity
Ha - 238x600"
Oiii - 247x600"
R - 54x60"
G - 53x60"
B - 54x60"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Dynamic Crop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction 3x
duplicated each image and removed stars via StarXterminator. Ran DBE with a shitload of points to generate background model. model subtracted from original pic using the following PixelMath (math courtesy of /u/jimmythechicken1)
$T * med(model) / model
Narrowband Linear:
Blur and NoiseXTerminator
StarXterminator to completely remove stars (to be later replaced by the RGB ones)
ArcsinhStretch to slightly stretch nonlinear
iHDR 2.0 script (low preset) to stretch each channel the rest of the way.
here’s the link to the repo if you want to add it to your own PI install.
RGB Linear:
ChannelCombination to combine monochrome R G and B frame into color image
SpectroPhotometricColorCalibration
BlurXTerminator for star sharpening (correct only)
HSV Repair
StarXterminator to generate a stars-only image
ArcsinhStretch + HT to stretch nonlinear (to be combined with starless narrowband image later)
Invert > SCNR > invert to remove magentas
Curves to saturate the stars a bit more
Nonlinear:
R = iif(Ha > .15, Ha, (Ha*.8)+(Oiii*.2))
G = iif(Ha > 0.5, 1-(1-Oiii)*(1-(Ha-0.5)), Oiii *(Ha+0.5))
B = iif(Oiii > .1, Oiii, (Ha*.3)+(Oiii*.2))
NoiseX again
Background Neutralization
Shitloads of Curve Transformations to adjust lightness, hues, contrast, saturation, etc
even more curves
Pixelmath to add in the stretched RGB stars only image from earlier
This basically re-linearizes the two images, adds them together, and then stretches them back to before. More info on it here)
mtf(.005,
mtf(.995,Stars)+
mtf(.995,Starless))
Couple final curves
Resample to 65%
DynamicCrop
Annotation
Sh2-64 is the red nebula to the right of the image. It frames up pretty well with the more golden stars seen in the milky way core. I probably should’ve gotten more exposure time to help bring out some of the dark nebula details, but it was only clear for one night at the dark site (at least the night went perfectly, which is rare for trips out to the middle of nowhere). Captured on June 7th, 2024 from a Bortle 3 zone (Deerlick Astronomy Village)
Places where I host my other images:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-290mc for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 5 hours 44 minutes (Camera at half unity gain -15°C)
L - 76x120"
R - 32x120"
G - 32x120"
B - 32x120"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
ImageIntegration per channel per panel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Dynamic Crop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
Luminance Linear:
BlurXterminator (Correct only)
NoiseXterminator
HistogramTransformation + sketchpad’s iHDR script (low preset) to stretch to nonlinear
RGB Linear:
ChannelCombination to combine monochrom R G and B stacks into color image
SpectrophotometricColorCalibration
BlurXterminator (correct only)
HSV repair
ArcsinhStretch + iHDR script (low preset) to stretch to nonlinear
Nonlinear Processing:
LRGBCombination using stretched L as luminance
DeepSNR
Various curve adjustments for lightness, contrast, hue, saturation, etc (with varying lum/star masks)
Slight SCNR green
ColorSaturation to boost the saturation of the Ha region
More curves
NoiseXterminator
invert > SCNR > invert to remove some magentas
LocalHistogramEqualization
two rounds at scale 16 and 132 to target different sized structures
LOTS more curve adjustments
MultiscaleLinearTransform for chrominance noise reduction
Even more curves
Resample to 60%
Annotation
This is already the highest res (at least in terms of being zoomed in), but here’s the entire uncropped photo
thanks!
Finally done with classes and I got some time to at least star processing my pics. Gonna be a while before I figure out all the HDR stuff, so here’s a pic of the prominences about 10 seconds before C3. It was absolutely nutty seeing them naked eye during the eclipse, and visually through my other telescope. Captured on April 8th, 2024 from Sikeston, MO.
Places where I host my other images:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
Canon T3i (Ha modded)
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition:
Capture Software:
Eclipse Orchestrator Free for automating the capture sequence
NINA for controlling the mount and autofocuser
The saturation is increased, but looking at the moon through a telescope you can barely see some faint blue/tan colorations that line up with this pic. The blue areas have more titanium minerals and the tan/orange areas have more iron
Thanks to my north facing balcony, I can only photograph the moon when it’s at high declinations. Fortunately it was at +27 dec the other day, and it was early enough for me to be awake to shoot it! Captured at 10pm on April 12th, 2024.
Places where I host my other images:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: (Camera at Unity Gain, -15°C)
R - 20000 x 5.4ms
G - 2000 x 4.3ms
B - 2000 x 6.0ms
Capture Software:
Stacking:
PixInsight Processing:
DynamicCrop
ChannelCombination to combine monochrome images into RGB image
ChannelMatch to align G and B color channels to red
ColorCalibration
HistogramTransformation (slight stretch)
SCNR > invert > SCNR to remove green and magenta color fringing
CurvesTransformations to adjust lightness, contrast, colors, saturation, etc.
LocalHistogramTransformation
dynamic crop
Annotation
Decided to just shoot a semi-random part of Cygnus. The large extended Ha region in Cygnus is unofficially called Smaug, and this is a photo specifically of the area around LBN 325/326. The nebulosity in this pic is false color, but the stars are true color RGB. I really love how this turned out with the narrowband palette, especially with the Oiii region on the right side looking almost like a true color Ha region. Captured over a shitload of nights from Aug-Oct 2024 from a bortle 9 zone.
Places where I host my other images:
Flickr | Instagram
Equipment:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-290mc for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 57 hours 40 minutes (Camera at -15°C), NB exposures at unity gain and BB at half unity
Ha - 111x600"
Oiii - 127x600"
Sii - 94x600"
R - 48x60"
G - 48x60"
B - 44x60"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Dynamic Crop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
Narrowband Linear:
Blur and NoiseXTerminator
StarXterminator to completely remove stars (to be later replaced by the RGB ones)
HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
RGB Linear:
ChannelCombination to combine monochrome R G and B frame into color image
SpectroPhotometricColorCalibration
BlurXTerminator for star sharpening (correct only)
HSV Repair
StarXterminator to generate a stars-only image
ArcsinhStretch + HT to stretch nonlinear (to be combined with starless narrowband image later)
Invert > SCNR > invert to remove magentas
Curves to saturate the stars a bit more
Nonlinear:
NoiseX again
Shitloads of Curve Transformations to adjust lightness, hues, contrast, saturation, etc
more curves
Extract L --> LRGBCombination for chrominance noise reduction
even more curves
Pixelmath to add in the stretched RGB stars only image from earlier
Couple final curves
Resample to 60%
Annotation