NGC 2442 The Meathook

[Lee]

After noticing Andrei's great effort on this one, I though I had to try, I love spiral galaxies.....

Thought I'd try out binning with the Atik also, given this will still give 2.2 arcsec/pixel, shouldn't really be losing anything by binning, the sky here has been really great this week, but I doubt 1 arcsec/pixel great....

This is through the (freshly collimated) f/4 newt, and is 30x3min exposures, luminance only, binned 2x2, Atik 420m, with the Baader MPCC also.... darks substracted, no flats, which is why the sky looks uneven I think.....

Comments?? :)

[h0ughy]

great image Lee.

ran your small image through Pixinsight and removed the background since you didnt do flats, then tried to play with ACDNR to get rid of the noise - it would have work a whole lot better with the original, but you have a great capture there

[Lee]

Thanks mate - I'm going to check out PI soon.... as soon as we get some clouds! :) Then I can stop getting photons, and start working out what to do with them properly!
Seriously - a great 4 days just gone, have you been out??

[h0ughy]

not really - still suffering from a little leftovers from up north back in November for the eclipse. it comes and goes ;)

[Ross G]

Great capture Lee.

Nice detail.

Ross.

[David Fitz-Henr]

Nice shot Lee; some good details in there. Flats will help a lot - I just use two layers of white cotton cloth (eg. pillow case type material) with elastic on the front end of the tube and point the scope over 90 deg away from the sun when the sun is low. Seems to work really well.

[Lee]

Thanks guys....

I'm going to make a new flats box of some sort soon, I made one once for my ED80 and it was pretty good.... I'd love to be able to just use the sky, but with young kids, leave passes for me to get out to the observatory when the sun is low (ie dinner/bathtime) just aren't going to happen any time soon!