1st guided image M83

[aarong]

Hi all,

The southern pinwheel galaxy, M83 was used a my subject to test out my new autoguider set up. I'm still working on getting the set up right and trying to get consistent 10 min subs from night to night. I want to add at least another 1hr worth of exposures to this image, ideally using 10 min subs.

Here I took 24 x 5 miin exposures (total 2hrs worth), 10 dark frames and 10 bias. All stacked and aligned in registax and the resulting pic processed in Photoshop. Lots to learn still regarding image processing, but slowly getting there.

Comments and suggestions welcome. Particularly, tips on processing, how adding more exposures may help and at what time e.g. 5 min, 10 min etc.

Equipment: Canon 1D mk3 dslr, Meade LX90GPS 8 inch, DBK 21AU618.AS camera for the autoguider cam, Orion 400mm short tube80 for guidescope.
Software: BackyardEOS, PHD guiding, Registax and PS.

Cheers,
Aaron

[h0ughy]

nice effort there

[Larryp]

Good work, Aaron.

[E_ri_k]

Looks pretty good Aaron :) Well done.

I think 10 minute subs would be quite reasonable. I try for a minimum of 15 minute subs generally. Once you get your guiding spot on you'll be laughing.

Keep it up :)
Erik

[aarong]

Thanks guys! When the weather clears I'll work on my autoguiding.

Exciting times!

[DavidNg]

Very good work Aaron, I always thought only cooled CCD camera would produce nice galaxy images, I am wrong here.

[Ryderscope]

It's great to see the good results that we can get from a DSLR. Nice faint detail and good colour. I only see a slight elongation in some stars. This is well on track for producing a great galax shot.

[Woffy]

Great image Aaron.
John

[BlackWidow]

Good job

[aarong]

It took a while, with the weather and all, but I have taken some more pics to add to my first attempt at this galaxy. I managed to get an additional 2hrs worth of exposures at 10 mins each. This image was 4 nights work plus another to process it! I also tried a different processing method, which did a better job handling the noise.

25 x 5 min exposures and 22 dark frames.
12 x 10 min exposures and 17 dark frames.
10 bias frames all at 1600 iso.
Total 4:05hr!

Images captured in BackyardEOS, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in PS5, using Scott's DSLR-LLRGB Style Processing Workflow.

Comments always appreciated.

[Osirisra]

Nice work!!

Something has gone a bit screwy in the processing of all that lovely 4hrs worth of data. I was going to suggest you try stacking it Deep Sky stacker as it seems to do a better job with deep sky objects than Registax but you have already done that with the new data. The galaxy shouldn't be all smudgy but more like your original 2hrs of data and with less noise and more depth.

[rustigsmed]

Yep i was going to suggest using DSS instead of Registax, is it a combo of the 1st image stacked with the new subs in DSS perhaps :question:

nice effort nonetheless :thumbsup: congrats on getting the setup guiding so long.

[aarong]

oh sorry Registax is a typo. I used DDS for both. must of had planets on my brain :screwy: I added the new data to what I had taken and ran DSS again (if that makes sense).

Thanks for your feedback. I'll have another look at it. Perhaps I can work on the contrast and local contrast a bit more. What do you think?

I'm still can't get consistent exposure lengths with the autoguider yet, but having fun trying to get there :)

[Jon]

Nice capture Aaron. Some beautiful data in there.

I agree with Ken though, your "new processing method" seems to be creating a blurring effect. The original has much more detail. Can you go into some more detail about how you stacked and processed? I'm no expert, but it alsmost looks as though you've added a heap of Gaussian blur there somewhere at the wrong place - like blurring the luminance layer instead of a colour layer, something like that.

[aarong]

Thanks for the feedback.

I have processed the image again, but using the same method as the first time. I still want to have another go at the llrgb method but haven't had time.

[Nortilus]

that looks tops...nice job