M51

[Pierre]

Hi folks,

a small contribution as m51.

Technical data:

Date: 29-4-2006
Location: Champ du feu (North East of France)- Alt: 1100 m
Temp: -6°c
Imager: Toucam Pro - 1/4" bw sensor - Capture by Desire.
Astrograph: Tak Mewlon180 f/6 (focal reducer)
Mount: em200Temma2
Pictures: 130x30s - no darks and no flats
Processing: Iris v5.10 (French processing powerful software : http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm)

Special note: RA error due to massive people around, this has been imaged during a public star party.Picture croping has been needed.

http://astrosurf.com/pierre/Ciel_profond/m51-masque.jpg

Edit: Year (2006) and temperature.

[Varyonyx]

Hello Pierre,

Really good picture with nice resolution down to core of the Spiral.
In the future i will turn my interest to observing of variable Stars but
from time to time i will do a little bit Deepsky too.

:D wating for my first contribution to this board?. Here it is M51 :thumbsup:


Optics: 6" f12 BOMAK(Maksutov/Cassegrain with Reducer at f6)
CCD: Custom modified WATEC WAT-120N
Integration: 60x10.24sec
Calibration: Darkframe plus Flatfield
Notice: Telescope completely remote controlled via Internet ;)

Look here
http://vsu.dyndns.org/m51gross.jpg

[Kieken]

Quelle photo magnifique, cet image va certainement servir comme example quand je vais photographer moimême.

Nice pic, gives me a nice example for when I'm going to take astropics. Say, where do you live in Frnace exactly? Perhaps we could hold a IIS starparty on the continent :).

[h0ughy]

Gee Wizz all you foriegn guys, welcome and what an excellent image. Thanks, is that really pushing the toucam?

[Varyonyx]

Hi houghy,

well if Pierre did the SC3 mod (which is not easy and requires a lot of knowledge in electronics) reaching so good picture quality is possible. After a SC3 (replacing the color-ccd with a bw-ccd with much higher sensitivity)mod the ToUCAM is far away being a simple Webcam :D . This tuned camera can compete with dedicated Astro-Cameras especially when cooled with a peltier element :thumbsup: .

But dont forget the other components that a good picture needs: good equipment, good skies and a routined astrophotographer.;) .And not to forget a very clever Postprocessing Software. I like "IRIS" very much, so my picture was processed with IRIS too :D . Thanks to Christian for his outstandig work :rolleyes:


By the way:
Do you know the WAT-120N CCD :D ?. This is a surveillance camera from WATEC Corporation with super high sensitive SONY-CCD and my absolutely favourite for imaging.
Currently i use the WATEC for more than 2 years and imaged hundreds of deep-sky objects with it. :whistle:

[Dennis]

Hello, Pierre

Wow - what a superb image with so much detail in the spiral arms and you have very cleverly managed to avoid burning out the galactic core. Great job.

Cheers

Dennis

[Pierre]

Hello all,

thanks a lot, i am happy you enjoy this picture.

Varyonyx: your picture sounds not bad too ;). One of my friends uses a Watec camera. Iris is a very useful software. My webcam is only sc1.5 modified as i did not replace the 1/4" sensor by a 1/3" but only a 1/4" bw sensor. As i have recently tried a real ccd imager such as the Audine, i should go into this one: cooled regulated sensor, sensitivity and also 16 bits sampling rate.

Kieken: i live in Haguenau. A european star party is already engaged twice a year ( http://astrosurf.com/astrocdf67/ ). More than one of your compatriots have come there ;)

H0ughy: pushing the camera? Not yet, only 3900s cumulated exposure time for this picture ;). Not enough to show all possible details.

Dennis: the core is not burned out while using an "opacity mask": create a gaussian (value 4) save it and you divide the picture with a coefficient. This is one of the possible tips with Iris Software.

Pierre.

[Striker]

Great image Pierre.

130 x 30 seconds....thats a lot of exposures.

Pierre...is everyone in France named Pierre...I have a friend who comes from France and his name is Pierre.....lol

[ving]

gawd ur silly tony!
nice pic

[Pierre]

Striker: Lots of exposure?? Erf not enough, we should have not 30s time but 90s for a better s/n ratio, the Tak mount enables it, without selfguiding.....Unfortunately, passing people have put their feet around the installation connections so i had to dim the exposure time, arf....

Pierre is a 2000 years old name. Lots of people have been named Pierre, Peter, Pedro, Petrus, Pietro etc....


Ving: i cannot understand (slang?) words :)... But nevertheless i have understood the second part. Thank you!!!

[mickoking]

Great shot pierre :thumbsup: I would like to view M 51 soon but it will be a challenge as it doesnt rise very high above my horizon (15 degrees above the light polluted northern horizon).

Cheers:cool: Mick

[Pierre]

Mick, i have simulated the culmination of M51 in Australia on Skycharts software: although you australian people are fortunate to observe deep space gems (Carina, Tucan and so on), some objects still resist ;). That is why i posted this galaxy, to share unusual objects in your country...

Even in the nothern latitudes, M51 requires a good clear unpolluted sky to see obtain the large spiral arm curve and details on HII regions. The 460mm/4.4 dob of our club did even not revealed a dense spiral arm at this star party.

[mickoking]

Thanks for that :thumbsup:

[spearo]

Pierre,
felicitations!
C'est une tres belle photo de M51 avec beaucoup plus de detail que j'aurais cru possible avec la Toucam pro. C'est tres impressionant.

Je remarque qu'il faisait -6 ce qui peut avoir aide a reduire le "noise" en gardant le CCD bien froid.

C'a me fait penser a ma soiree d'astrophotographie il y a une semaine il faisait aussi froid a quatre heure et demi du matin malgre le fait que je suis en Australie (j'en ai meme mis une photo sur mon site web personel)

Belle photo, envoies-en d'autres bientot!

salut

frank

translation: Well done...keep 'em comin' (loosly translated/abridged version)
:]
frank

[Pierre]

Yes Frank, -6°c at 1100m alt. on the end of april, quite unusual:eyepop: for that period (season: spring!!!). In fact, the weather has gone insane since approximately one month, clouds, wind and cold (average temp. are about 6 to 80°C under the norm) !!! We have rarely saw that in my country:screwy:

I see that your post is translated? Is that yours? The text is clear and understandable even without accents and ponctuation ;)...

Edit: just forget the translation thing, being Canadian may help you uh??

[ving]

lol, sorry. I was teasing tony (aka striker). as for the second part... vous êtes bienvenu. degré de solvabilité où le degré de solvabilité est dû.

i hope thats right :)

french text by: http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr

[spearo]

HAHAHA
nope, no translation, and you're right Pierre, having grown up in Montreal Canada does mean that French is my mother tongue.
I just couldn't be bothered figuring out how to work the accents on the keyboard
good work on the image and keep 'em coming

cheers
frank

[Pierre]

lol, my little finger told me.... I guess your keyboard is accent free?

[spearo]

That's right,
there's always ways around it but i couldnt be bothered...I'd rather spend my time taking pictures!
:]
cheers
frank

[Pierre]

Sure!!! I understand what you mean ;)

[CoombellKid]

Great shot Pierre, thank you for sharing

regards,CS

Rob