40 minutes of M83

[Maurice]

Hello all

This is a quick 4x10min Luminance shot of M83 taken from light polluted Melbourne..

Camera was a QHY9 + EQ8 + vintage C14 + starizona corrector + ZWO120mm as a guider.

Unfortunately, the primary is quite sloppy on the C14 focusing mechanism which caused havoc with the star shapes at the low altitude of M83 when the data was taken. The Starizona corrector has issues with the changing collimation of the scope & although the FWHM's on the stack were a low 1.7", most stars were little triangles. This was corrected on the more obvious ones with a star rounding routine - a little harsh, but I think it did help.

Sampling was at 0.4"/pixel & this image is a crop from the original data reduced to 80% of original size.

Dark subtraction, flat fielding + curves & contrast adjustment were the only other processing applied.

I know its noisy, but I can hopefully add to this in the next few months for a smoother result.
The file size limit here also detracts from the original data..

Comments welcome.

Best wishes
Maurice

[RickS]

Detail looks very good, Maurice!

[Maurice]

Thanks Rick..
I was surprised at the detail given the short exposure time too..
Good seeing goes a long way.
regards
Maurice

[gregbradley]

That is really detailed.

Greg.

[Joshua Bunn]

That is going to be a cracker of an M83 if you can add some more hrs to that!

[Maurice]

Thanks Greg & Joshua. Hopefully the sky will cooperate with the seeing & I'll be able to maintain the detail...we'll see..

regards
Maurice

[strongmanmike]

Hi Maurice

I looked at this a couple of days ago, thought I'd commented already :question:

This has excellent detail and if translated to the final colour version it should be a cracker. Actually, looking at simple but detailed B&W lum shots of galaxies like this always takes me back to the good old days of B&W film astrophotography and man if we had seen such detail in galaxies then we would have fallen off our chairs :thumbsup:

Mike

[Ross G]

Good looking closeup capture maurice.

You've capture some nice detail.

Good luck.

Ross.