Apologize in advance for the lengthy post...
Just finished imaging M57 for the year and am turning to various objects in and around the constellation Cygnus, starting with the Veil nebula. Here's M57, about 10 hours integration time (800/8, 8s subs), at 1:1-
there are a few features to note (which is why M57 is over to the side)- not just galaxies IC 1296, PGC2024204 and LEDA 2029852, but also the small asterisms near the center of this image- these are useful for gauging the angular resolution limit of my system (about 0.5 arcsec) and 'magnitude threshold' (magnitude 16 stars are visible).
Before moving on, I wanted to explain why I stop down my lens from f/5.6 to f/8: aberration control. It's most apparent in the corners- here's a 1:1 crop, from the upper corner of the (FX) frame, resulting from imaging at f/5.6:
I should point out that all things considered, the lens designers did a great job- this is a high-performing lens, and it's 40+ years old. Stopping down to f/8 gives this result:
Considerably better! The improvement diminishes as the image center is approached, but there is always better control of blooming.
Ok- moving on. I had a few nights where I could experiment using my 105/1.4 lens, again shooting at f/2 for aberration control. Tracking is less critical and so I can easily obtain 30s sub-exposures. Here's (almost) the full frame:
The color gradients are problematic, not sure where they are coming from. Honestly, I wished this lens performed a little better- upon close inspection, it appears that the lens image plane and sensor plane are slightly tilted with respect to each other, not sure if it's within spec or something requiring a repair. Here's M57 at 200% (no interpolation):
The color rendition is fantastic, but the lens performance falls off fast towards the edges, and not symmetrically (the lower left corner is by far the worst), coinciding with the large-scale color shift. On the other hand, in the central part of the frame (about a DX-sized region), the lens is fantastic- way outperforming the D810 sensor. Here's a single shot (30s exposure) at 800% so you can really see how well the lens does:
M57 is clearly resolved, color is great, and the stars have these weird PSFs that I think reflect the Bayer filter structure. According the APP, this frame has a star PSF FWHM of 2.5 pixels (2.48, if you must know), and I suspect the Bayer filter is large enough to interfere with the RAW-to-TIFF conversion.
However, I'm now turning to the Veil nebula (imaging at 400/4, 15s subs), I've only been able to acquire 30 minutes or so of exposure in 2 nights, but have been pretty happy with how initial results appear- here's a full-frame image with the stars removed:
This will only get better.