M 83 Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

[Arthur Coombs]

As I am interested in viewing images taken by members in light-polluted sites, I make my first image contribution to IceinSpace. This image was taken from Heidelberg, a northern suburb of Melbourne, on May 9th 2013 using an SBIG ST-8300M camera on a 250-mm f/6 Newtonian telescope.
Total exposure of 2hr 48m in L RGB Ha in the ratio of 48:24:24:24:48 (min) Processed in CCDStack and Photoshop with the appropriate dark,bias and flatfield master frames. Both a full size frame and a cropped frame are attached.

[Rod771]

Nice image Arthur.

What a great way to start your image postings :)


Well done :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Nice work Arthur -
were you using a coma corrector?

cheers
Allan

[Larryp]

Very nice, Arthur

[astronobob]

Fantastic, Really like theat 1st one Arthur :thumbsup: Good Show ! !

[johnnyt123]

I tried to image M83 last night and it took me 3 hours just to find it.
It was a full moon and there were hardly any stars in the sky to guide me.
When I managed to finally find it, I had trouble guiding and could not image it before it was too low to the horizon.

Better luck next time I guess

[Arthur Coombs]

Hi Bob, Laurie, Allan and Rod, Thanks for your encouraging comments. As this system is an f/6 one, I have not used a coma corrector. If it was operating at f/4 then a corrector would be advisable. Later in the month when the Moon is closer to new, I hope to get more data. Regards; Arthur

[Arthur Coombs]

Hi John, well done in finding M 83 during the full Moon. Chances of getting data in RGBL is not good, and as you said guiding was difficult. I would wait for a week or so and start imaging just after dark. Hopefully the weather will cooperate better than it has of late here in Melbourne. Cheers Arthur