Leo Triplet LRGB

[Paramount]

Hi
With all the bad weather imaging has been a luxury over the last few months and then 3 clear nights in a row crop up and I was off duty, as the moon wasn't about I thought I would have a go at the Leo Triplet. It was taken over three nights with 30x10 minutes Luminance, 19x10 minutes Red, 14x10 minutes Green and 12x10 minutes Blue. It was taken with the FSQ106ED at f5 on a Paramount ME with a FLI Microline 8300, auto guiding was by a Lodestar and OAG using dithering. Light pollution was a bit of a problem as I had to shoot directly over our neighbours roof and their bedroom light was on frequently so Gradient Xterminator earned its keep in the processing.
This a crop of the full field of view image which can be seen at the following link
http://www.pbase.com/imaging_the_heavens/image/149535753/original
I have only ever tried the triplet one before when I first started imaging, this "effort" can be seen in the image gallery on my website http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk for comparison (what a difference a few years and practice makes!)
Thanks for looking
Best wishes
Gordon

[Larryp]

Lovely image, Gordon!

[rogerg]

Very nice :thumbsup:

[astroron]

Nice Gorden,:) you can just see Supernova 2013am in M65 ,did you know about it:question:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[DavidU]

Awesome work

[AstroJason]

Fantastic image Gordon. The Leo Triplet is one of my favorite sights to see through a scope. Something about seeing these 3 islands of stars so far away but in the same field of view is a very rare sight to behold. I really like the detail in your image and the stars on the outskirts of each galaxy. Guess they have been flung out into the void of "true deep space" by the interactions of the 3 galaxies with each other. Great work capturing this.

[Paramount]

I only found out about it from another forum where somebody had shot the triplet and pointed it out on an enlarged section of their image
Best wishes
Gordon

[Ross G]

Great photo Gordon.

Nice detail and colour.

Ross.