Some clustery goodness

[codemonkey]

Had another crack at Omega Centauri tonight... managed to pull out a lot more detail, partially due to a better image, partially due to better processing. Pretty happy with the result!

http://cdn.astrobin.com/images/thumbs/0337448d8470cd13e675e3ab03a0df43.18 24x0_q100_watermark.jpg

Also got these guys:

NGC 3532
http://cdn.astrobin.com/images/thumbs/adb64592e73e460f8e3fb0152dd6a1c0.18 24x0_q100_watermark.jpg

NGC 2516
http://cdn.astrobin.com/images/thumbs/73e1770ce1dd564ee72d712903f93971.18 24x0_q100_watermark.jpg

[cometcatcher]

They are great! What sort of refractor did you use?

[nebulosity.]

These look great :thumbsup:

Jo

[codemonkey]

Thanks Kevin :-)

These were taken with a Skywatcher BD ED80. Although I have a confession to make; I kinda like the diffraction spikes caused by reflectors and I wish I had a reflector for shots of open clusters...



Thanks Jo :-)

[LightningNZ]

You've made a typo there, the last one is NGC 2516, "the sprinter" or "running man" cluster. Super image too (they are all brilliant!).

NGC 2216 is a galaxy in Canis Major.

Would you mind posting some details of how you took your images Lee? Which scope/lens and sensor, and the exposure settings. I'd love to be able to get cluster images like these.

Cheers,
Cam

[LightningNZ]

Fine fishing line over the aperture will give nice diffraction spikes with a refractor.

[codemonkey]

Good catch, thanks Cam, I've corrected the original post :-)

All images were captured with a Skywatcher BD ED80, Celestron CG5 GT, Nikon D5100 (all images were cropped slightly, also).

Specifics for each image are:

Omega Cen: ~61x30s @ ISO 800

NGC 2516: ~62x30s @ ISO 3200

NGC 3532: ~32x30s @ ISO 640

Note that all exposure counts are approximate; those are the number of frames captured for each target, but several were discarded while stacking due to tracking errors or obstructions. I'm not sure how many were discarded for each, but Omega Cen did have at least 6 because I caught something (maybe a satellite?) going through quite a few frames.

Each image was registered and stacked using DSS, then processed in Photoshop. I pulled out a lot of detail from NGC 3532 and Omega Cen as I'd had problems before with clipping too much, so I intentionally made those exposures darker in the hope that the improved SNR would mean that I could push it more in post processing without damaging the results (which I think worked quite well in the end)



Thanks for the tip! :-)

[LightningNZ]

Thanks very much for the details Lee. I have a D5100 myself now so I must try to replicate your work. You really should post these in the Deep Space Images section if you haven't already done so. They don't look like beginner's shots!

[codemonkey]

You're most welcome :-)

The D5100 is a great camera, you'll not regret that acquisition, I'm sure, especially now that Nikon is getting more support in this area (e.g. BackyardNIKON)