M83 in mono

[codemonkey]

Tried out the all star polar align routine on my CG-5 last night and captured this afterwards. I have to say, considering how long it took to align using that method, I'm pretty damned happy. I think I'll use a variant of it going forward rather than drift aligning. I did have a significant number of throw-aways, roughly 50%, but I think I can fine tune that and again, effort:reward ratio was high.

I took about 30 more 120s subs but fog rolled in and killed those.

Capture details:

22x90s, -13c, 100 sub bias, 100 sub dark
4x120s, -13c, 100 sub bias
Mount: Celestron CG-5GT
OTA: Skywatcher BD ED80

Full res: http://www.astrobin.com/full/109729

And for the sake of comparison, here is the best I was able to do with a dSLR and 30 second exposures... 101 frames with a stupid amount of noise reduction:

http://www.astrobin.com/full/88421

[codemonkey]

16-bit fit file is here if you want to try yout hand at editing my data. I'm keen to see what you all make of it!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/no5qlulkz9bqjcj/M83_original.fit

[RickS]

Nice work, Lee. That's quite a decent M83.

[cometcatcher]

A very nice M83 indeed. Still your DSLR or CCD?

[jsmoraes]

Lee, I never had worked with FIT files, and needed to download the plugin to Photoshop from ESO-NASA. http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/download_v23/

I liked the light blur shape of stars in http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=166789. I didn't get that reproduction.

I did two different conversion from FIT and processed in Photoshop. And attached are them.

[codemonkey]

Thanks Rick :-)



Thanks Kevin :-) I knew I was forgetting something important when I put in the capture details... this is with the Atik 314l+



Good work, Jorge! Goes to show that you don't need PixInsight to get good results.

[graham.hobart]

That is one cool M83 already mate, would love to see a bit of colour on it!
Fine effort
Graham

[jsmoraes]

:D Please, don't take my process as serious. It was a play with the idea of a colored image from a gray one. There aren't real correspondence with the red areas.

But it would be possible to color with some precision and reality.

[codemonkey]

Thanks Graham :-)

I'd love to see some colour on it too but I'm afraid that could take a while. First things first I'll be getting set up for guiding, and only after that will I be looking at a colour filter wheel and filters.





Hey that's really cool! I was actually planning on doing that myself if I could find the time, but now you've saved me the trouble. Nice work!