First go at PixInsight

[ChrisM]

This pic of M83 is my first effort with PixInsight and in fact my first effort at combining subs. I saw PI demonstrated at AAIC two years ago and decided that I needed to learn that rather than Photoshop. In lieu of any sort of software manual, I found Harry's video tutorials very helpful, so followed his workflow and experimented a bit.

The picture is not cropped, and comprises 11 x 60 sec subs taken last Thursday with my D7000 at ISO 1600.

I know that the tracking was not perfect; I need to tweak the polar alignment. It's obviously quite critical at long focal lengths with no guiding.

I tried to look up the two little galaxies at about the 4 o'clock position but they did not feature in my star atlas.

Anyway, comments welcome.
Chris

[alpal]

Hi Chris,
Nice job.

The two faint galaxies are PGC48132 and PGC724525 -
these are both 613 million light years away.

cheers
Allan

[Ross G]

Great looking galaxy photo Chris.

Nice colours.

Good luck with PI.

Ross.

[ChrisM]

Thanks Alan.
What reference did you use to look them up?

Chris

[RickS]

Nice work, Chris! The AnnotateImage script in PI will label all the small fuzzies for you.

Cheers,
Rick.

[peter_4059]

Well done Chris. The stars and colour look pretty good.

[h0ughy]

great job, might give it a slight saturation boost to taste ;)

[RobF]

Nice image Chris.

I suspect Rogelio sold many a copy of PI for Juan and the team based on demos at AAIC!

[dvj]

That is a very detailed image. Well done and not too saturated to my taste.

[stevous67]

Chris,

11 x 60sec subs? What scope are you using? Very good detail for this short exposure length.

Steve

[ChrisM]

Thanks David, I did give it a little boost but didn't want to overdo it. Maybe I should refer to a HST image for reference.
Chris

[ChrisM]

Thanks Rob. What sold it for me (not owning or having tried anything else) was the fact that it was written specifically for this purpose, and that it does everything (supposedly). I'm sure others will have varying views though.
Chris

[alpal]

Hi Chris,
I had no reference other than google & so many other people
had named those two faint galaxies in the same way.
I used that info in my write-up on flickr photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24719437@N03/7112212011/in/photostream

cheers
Allan

[ChrisM]

Thanks Steve, John and Peter for the comments on colour and detail. The RAW frames from the DSLR show some detail but I must say that PixInsight works very well to pull out more and control the noise. Also used ICNR for each frame. Imaged through a 14" LX200 ACF at 3556 mm FL.

Chris

[strongmanmike]

Really nice result Chris, those elongated stars aren't to bad and could be fixed easily. Saturation and detail extraction are a subjective thing and whether you upped it or downed it would just please some eyes but annoy others so your eyes are the ones that really count :)

M83 was my first CCD image (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/56900338/original) too way back in 03 yours is much better :thumbsup:

Mike

[ChrisM]

Thanks Mike. I think that when we are starting out, a classic spiral appearing on the screen does wonders. You must have been thrilled with yours 10 years ago!
Chris

[IanP]

That’s really incredible result for such short exposure. Well done!
:eyepop:

[multiweb]

Very nice rendition. Cool pic. :thumbsup:

[rogerg]

Looks good Chris.

I'm currently going through the learning process with PixInsight myself. Tutorials and trial to see if I can get my head around it's way of working :)