Seized the opportunity to go to Leyburn dark site on the weekend. Wanted to give the new Williams Optics Flattener IV a real workout on the ED80 doublet. I'm very happy with the results - I think the little ED80 knew what was coming if I couldn't get these flat fields sorted out so she really turned it on for me.
The second hour of data has all been corrupted, something was going on with the downloading of images from the camera to computer. By the time I sorted that out, it was late, M45 had flipped, and my battery was running low. I had planned to just image this most of the night, but equipment issues meant I only ended up with 9x4mins plus darks and flats. Still a bit of noise around, but did my best to tease it out. Still learning little PP tricks.
First time I'd used flats too. Very happy with the results of that too.
All in all I'm pleased with the result now and look forward to collecting more data to enhance this beautiful and serene cluster.
Only cropping was just trimming off the border from the stacking process - like, what, 10 pixels or something off the full sized one.
800kB 100% version here. Sorry about the noise at that scale. As I said, not enough data. But the stars look nice in the corners to my eye which was the primary reason for the image.
Only cropping was just trimming off the border from the stacking process - like, what, 10 pixels or something off the full sized one.
800kB 100% version here. Sorry about the noise at that scale. As I said, not enough data. But the stars look nice in the corners to my eye which was the primary reason for the image.
Yeah the field looks awesome The FF delivers the goods. I checked the price though. Bit steep. It's the one a bit over $400? Correct?
On Ya Troy but I think you might be being a bit humble
Let me inform everyone that there was very nasty smoke haze over Leyburn on Sat night and occasioal wisps of high cirrus to get this sort of data through holes in rubbish is quite an achievement.
I was imaging M45 as well Troy and lost about30% of my images - In some the Merope section doubled in size and turned red (HII region in m45? ).
Good to meet you and hope to catch up again.
PS yell out if you have battery problems again - I have some spares out there.
Very nice effort for that amount of data Troy. I can relate totally to Mark's comments about smoke and haze. I'm currently struggling with NGC 300 taken to the south into the same muck from 10 Chain Hill on Sat night.
Glad to hear the new flattener is working well too
That's a good start Troy. Pity about losing data though. Hope you had a great time out there, it's a nice site. Pity I couldn't tee thingsup with Andrew
For starters, considering the conditions, that is a mighty fine image indeed! You should be very happy with that!
The flattener seems to do a brilliant job, that field looks stunning in the 100% size image..
Tell me, did you notice a focal length increase when using the FF IV vs the scope at native F/L? From what I understand the type IV gives a 1.1~1.2x increase in F/L as opposed to the 0.8x~0x reduction given by other flatteners.. What are your thoughts?
Thanks guys. I haven't done a measure of what effect it has on focal length, although I have read that too, Alex. Might do some tests of my own, but I think citivolus(?) did some testing and it was around that range.
So this is uncropped right? Got a highres one? I'm considering getting this WO IV type FF. 
