Two New Panels of LMC in RGB

[avandonk]

Moon and LP interfered a bit with the RHS panel. I will just have to be more careful.

You can tell by the colour of the dust.

Large image here 8MB FoV 6.1 X 3.4 degrees.

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2012_12/LMC_2P_RGB.jpg


Bert

[Larryp]

Awesome, Bert!:thumbsup:

[Ross G]

It's looking great Bert.

Ross.

[avandonk]

I managed to get a better match between the two panels.

Here 12MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2012_12/LMC_2P_RGB_F.jpg

Bert

[CometGuy]

The detail in that is amazing Bert. Wow!

Just a minor point, thought, is that the background in the RHS has less green than the LHS, so I think this makes the 2 panels more evident. But even so the image is something else.

Terry

[Regulus]

This is beautiful.

[PeterM]

It's just damn good.
Thank you for sharing.

[avandonk]

You are quite correct Terry it is a combination of light pollution and a 30% Moon in the RHS. The LHS was taken with no Moon and through the zenith.

Once I have more panels I can isolate the LMC and hopefully reduce the gradients with gradientXterminator.

If you look carefully you will also see a slight elongation of the smaller stars. This is due to not locking down the frame that holds the camera or ITS. I unlock the small dovetail that holds the ITS to the main dovetail plate that holds the imaging camera to allow free focus adjustment. This set up a slight wobble of the image train in RA as the guider tried to track. This wobble was about 9 micron, which is one pixel of the imaging camera and therefore about 3' arc! This showed up as 2' arc guiding error rms.

With the dovetail locked down the guiding error was about 0.6' arc rms.

Bert

[avandonk]

Thanks for the comments all. My only reward is that others can see what I can capture. Hopefully I will get better at using this fine system. It is all a very steep learning curve for me. With Melbournes weather of late I forget some or more than I have learned during all the cloudy nights.

My aim is still the same.

To make high quality mosaics of the many large objects in our southern sky.

Bert