A quick (and dirty) M104 - 30/12/13

[Screwdriverone]

Hi all,

I was revelling in some rare clear skies on the 28th and the 30th of December so I stuck with some tried and true targets and played around with taking some twilight sky flats, which do help but dont seem to be perfect.

Here is 1 hour and 15 minutes of 5 minute subs of the Sombrero, taken with the Atik 314L+ through the 8" newt on the HEQ5Pro. I did try to collect up to two hours worth, but everything close to dawn got washed out and some subs had satellites going through them....:(

Guiding was an issue so I am looking into an OAG to try and remove the flexure I am getting between the guidescope and the end of my newt which has had me banging my head on the ground more than once recently.

I am having trouble with processing as my brain hurts, still very noisy so I am not 100% happy with this.

Thanks for looking.

Comments and criticisms are welcome. I have added a second attempt at processing just to see how it looks, a little darker, trying to hide some of the sludge...?

Cheers

Chris

[stevous67]

Good effort Chris. Like for us all, practice and more practice.

Great start on a great object.

Regards
Steve

[RickS]

Looks good, Chris! Galaxies require quite a lot of exposure time. A few more hours of data will certainly help reduce the noise.

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Rick, I have some older data with the same orientation so I may have a look at combining it later on, or capture some more next time out.



Thank you Steve,

Cheers

Chris

[peter_4059]

I like it Chris - well done.

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Peter,

Cheers mate :)

Chris

[Larryp]

Good work, Chris-I prefer the second one:)

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Laurie,

Yep, me too, although I only processed the first one a bit brighter as some of the images I have done lately on this laptop seem to come out a bit dark, so I amped it up a bit.

I just tried combining this data with some from January last year but it looked a bit shoddy, so I may just wait to capture some more next time out.

Cheers

Chris

[batema]

I think the first one is a little over done but definately like the second one a lot. Well done.

Mark

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Mark,

I just combined an additional 20 mins from January last year and reprocessed to see if I could improve it. See what you think,

Cheers

Chris

[strongmanmike]

Nice work Chris, I think the last one is probably the best of all worlds..a great galaxy to image, well done

Mike

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Mike,

Yeah, I think its not too bad, but I can only do so much with it, I have been playing with flats which do help a lot with the gradients and vignetting, but they arent quite right.

Still, a bit of fun and all in all a learning (or re-learning) process for my rusty processing. :P

Thanks for the comments,

Cheers

Chris

[Ross G]

Nice galaxy photo Chris.

The best of your current series.

Ross.

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Ross,

Good ol' M104.....I can't resist when she pops her head over the neighbour's house :D

Cheers

Chris