As the moon is waning and giving more opportunities to image i thought it would take the opportunity to take a quick image of this target. The moon did cause some issues, in particular with gradients on the Blue filter but this was never meant to be a cracker. i am still working through some tracking issues with SB and am also starting to think that i need to work on my collimation, it seems slightly out. regardless i am pretty happy with how this turned out given the little time and phase of the moon. all images were taken on one night. 5 min subs LRGB 36:4:4:4 for a total integration time of 4 hours. FWHM was averaging 3.29" so not great but i think that will come down when i get on top of those 2 issues.
image was taken with
AGO 14.5 iDK
PMX+
FLI ML 8300 (Baader filters)
Lodestar autoguider through MMOAG
and a Gemini rotating focuser
It's looking good Aidan, I can see what you mean with the stars but I have no idea if that has anything to do with collimation.
The galaxy itself is lovely though!
Lots to see! You've captured the very faint face-on spiral at about half-way toward 2 o'clock from centre.
Thanks M&T, i noticed that one when i was processing the image, a really faint galaxy. maybe with some longer subs and more int time i could pull out some detail
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
It's looking good Aidan, I can see what you mean with the stars but I have no idea if that has anything to do with collimation.
The galaxy itself is lovely though!
Thanks Colin, i think the collimation could be tweaked, it is not way out but it could be better
A little bit fuzzy maybe, BUT you've got some very nice colours going on in the brighter parts of the galaxy Aidan and it's a nice result overall.
There's a bit of a red cast going on though - you can see most clearly in the halo. You've also got a fairly wide border with a different colour balance to the rest of the image that you'll need to crop out though before you try too much more colour balancing (it skews the histograms).
A little bit fuzzy maybe, BUT you've got some very nice colours going on in the brighter parts of the galaxy Aidan and it's a nice result overall.
There's a bit of a red cast going on though - you can see most clearly in the halo. You've also got a fairly wide border with a different colour balance to the rest of the image that you'll need to crop out though before you try too much more colour balancing (it skews the histograms).
Cheers, Marcus
That is about as sharp as it gets for me at the moment, hopefully with some collimation tweaks and improved tracking it should get a bit better but regardless, i don't have the best skies. the best FWHM i have seen is in the mid to high 2"s.
the colour issue with the Halo is down to the blue channel being really affected by sky glow and gradient. to make this a really good image i would have to do a lot of clean up with some artificial flats on the individual channels but this image was never meant to be an APOD .
i must admit, i missed the boarder issue, i have cropped that out now.
In the end we have to take the conditions we are thrown and try and make the best of'em and you have produced a good image here from yours Aidan and the colour in the galaxy is excellent
In the end we have to take the conditions we are thrown and try and make the best of'em and you have produced a good image here from yours Aidan and the colour in the galaxy is excellent
Mike
Thanks Mike. yeah, i am frustrated by the quality of my conditions. i would probably get better images from Sydney. don't be surprised Mike if you go out to your dome one day and find my observatory sitting there . i would kill for the conditions you get.
Nice job Aidan. Seeing is a battle and I hear ya. FWHM's up my way are generally never better than 3, more common is mid to high 3's. You did a good job and the final image looks very natural.
Hi Aidan,
You're going to do well with all that premium equipment in your observatory.
Imagine what it could do with one night of fluke seeing?
cheers
Allan
it is definitely not being challenged at the moment. i am not sure if can cross my fingers and wait for the perfect conditions. i might have to look at other options for a location ... i might eventually bring it back to Sydney and contend with the sky glow
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