Espirit 80mm, on unguided HEQ5 mount, ZWO 1600 cooled mono camera, RBG and lum, 60 second exposures for a total each of 25 minutes, 15 dark frames for each, stacked DSS, Startools, Photoshop and Gimp.
Another northern beauty low in the sky for us southerners. A little higher than M31 but still a challenge just the same. That is a great capture Alex, your exposure and focus is spot on and your unguided subs in LRGB are the right mix. The reason I'm saying this is because the data you've collected in this shot makes it worthy of posting in the Deep Space forum. You just need some help with your processing. I did a quick edit on my phone because I could tell you had everything there to make this good shot into a fantastic shot. I'll post what I've done with your data if you like but I'd prefer your permission first. You may like to have another go yourself. Well done on this one Alex!
Good morning everyone and thanks for the kind words.
Permission granted to play with the image.
Gain 350...
The night went well.
Plonked the mount down where I thought it should go and pole master told me it was spot on....I mean perfect...
I did not use a mask to focus as I was trying to avoid being out of bed for too long...still crook...so I zoomed in and winged it.
Have not had the energy to even look at the new scope (115 mm triplet) and set it up.
Stacking 3x drizzle so plenty of naps but the
processing was really rushed, as on battery power and I had to really rush to get it done as stacking ran me low and I could not raise myself to fill the Genny and top up the battery...plus being crook you are at a disadvantage thinking and you accept a result just to move on...
Thanks again.
Alex
Here is my phone processing...I love it so quick.
Alex
Sorry to hear you're not well Alex, I hope you get better soon. Credit to you for getting out there in the cold and dark feeling that way. You must really love your astrophotography! Here is your image stretched and desaturated on my phone editing software. I can only image it would come out better than this in Startools using the correct adjustments and original data.
Interesting to try a higher gain and some shorter shots. I have not got above 205 yet.
I have to say it is certainly very challenging imaging in LRGB. A whole other level of complexity comes into play.
So hats off to you getting all those results. Just getting the colours lined up and the luminance tight is hard without all of the setting up for each filter, tracking , stacking and colour tweaking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave
Good morning everyone and thanks for the kind words.
Permission granted to play with the image.
Gain 350...
The night went well.
Plonked the mount down where I thought it should go and pole master told me it was spot on....I mean perfect...
I did not use a mask to focus as I was trying to avoid being out of bed for too long...still crook...so I zoomed in and winged it.
Have not had the energy to even look at the new scope (115 mm triplet) and set it up.
Stacking 3x drizzle so plenty of naps but the
processing was really rushed, as on battery power and I had to really rush to get it done as stacking ran me low and I could not raise myself to fill the Genny and top up the battery...plus being crook you are at a disadvantage thinking and you accept a result just to move on...
Thanks again.
Alex
Thats a nice shot for only 25mins of data and it being so low in the sky.
Theres so much nice detail, I hope I can get a shot that nice one day.
Thanks Chris... but it was 25 minutes each filter...RBG and L so closer to two hours...well 100 minutes...I only have it for about that long before it goes behind trees.
Alex
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunfish
Interesting to try a higher gain and some shorter shots. I have not got above 205 yet.
I have to say it is certainly very challenging imaging in LRGB. A whole other level of complexity comes into play.
So hats off to you getting all those results. Just getting the colours lined up and the luminance tight is hard without all of the setting up for each filter, tracking , stacking and colour tweaking.
Thanks Ray.
It surprises me how high you can go.
Alex
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant0nio
Another first Alex, M31 & now M33. good on you for taking the lead.
Cheers,
Tony
Lovely image Alex. You've given me hope that I might be able to capture some galaxies with my long focal length (2700mm @ f/15). Seeing what you can do with 60sec exposures is inspirational.
Thanks. You only need one hundred cents to make a dollar. I wonder how short exposures would go with your FL...I have been breaking rules...high gain etc but with more noise control .. with good tracking you can sometimes get away short ones
But I look forward to a permanent set up and auto guide and start doing some long exposures...with 3x drizzle I need to keep the numbers down...probably stacks of fifty...2 minutes or five minutes each...seven filters ...that enough.
Alex
Alex
Your ability to produce incredible images with relatively short exposures relying solely on good polar alignment, framing and focus is a testament to your skill and experience in this hobby
Once you set up your guiding the world of astrophotography and our universe with be your oyster
My recommendation ( take it with a grain of salt if you wish ) for guiding would be PHD2 with a 50mm or 60mm guide scope (guide scale no more than 3 or 4 times your image scale )
Thanks for sharing your AP work and giving us inspiration to do the best we can with what ever level of skill or type of equipment we have
Hope your health is improving
Cheers
Martin
Hey Alex ,
As many have previously stated . Nice capture. I tried this one 12 days ago but the SD card failed completely and was quickly binned along with 6 hours of data including M33! Cheers Wes
