first light, Antennae galaxies

[Somnium]

Okay, let me get my excuses out of the way first. i originally planned to take a small amount of colour data (bin 2x2) and a large amount of Lum data (Bin 1x1), building a highly detailed lum layer. that didnt go to plan when the clouds came in at midnight and i got 0 Lum subs. i did however manage a few RGB subs. about 40 mins of each. given this is quite a dim target please excuse the horrible noise. also, i wasn't able to take flats due to cloud cover during dusk and my flats pane was not set up for the new telescope (as you can tell i am well planned). finally i have not trained my mount for PEC, i noticed some consistent PE so i will need to train that out, the data should be much better after that. so excuses aside i am really happy with the detail i was able to pick up with the new telescope. There is simply no comparison to my previous set up. my rig is way better than my skills, it is something that i am hoping to develop into, but right now i am really happy with its performance.

higher...ish res available https://www.facebook.com/618688161540178/photos/a.734031263339200.1073741833.618688 161540178/991202150955442/?type=3&theater

[raymo]

Looks promising Aidan. If you have any special images, such as this first light one, that are noisy, the freeware Neatimage will quieten them down
significantly.
raymo

[Somnium]

yeah, i hardly thought it was worth doing much on it given the small amount of data i collected and the lack of flats, just happy to see the resolution of the package. next one will be good

[billdan]

Looking Good Aidan, I don't know why, but I always thought the Antenna Galaxies was a Northern Hemisphere object.

Definitely worth adding more data to it.

P.S. I just gave up on M83 and came inside, just too much dew.

Bill

[Somnium]

They are a fascinating target,

Good imaging nights are at a premium. I am going to head down and fix up my flat board next weekend, the next target should be a heck of a lot better

[raymo]

I think you might be surprised by that image if you quieten it down.
raymo

[glend]

Collimation looks ok, despite the 'dive' it took. You have nothing to excuse with t:hat image. Good luminance of the gas tails.

[Somnium]

Thanks glen, it definitely deserves more sub time and flats but I am happy that the dive didn't seem to mess things up too much. I think the collimation could be tweaked a little but i will do that next weekend.

[RickS]

That's quite deep for data through colour filters, Aidan. Well done! The colour balance is a bit iffy but you probably already know that :)

Cheers,
Rick.

[Somnium]

Yeah, it is a bit pink. I am going to have another go of post processing, applying artificial flats, adjust the balance and try to reduce the noise. I will post the results tonight

[rustigsmed]

congrats with the first light aidan. unlucky you missed out on L it would have made a huge difference. weather has been a killer lately!
you've pushed it pretty hard to bring out the tails - will be good when you can add some more data to it! - you've got some good details coming out in the galactic cores.
might be worth creating an artificial luminance from all 3 channels and blending it that way perhaps.

cheers

rusty

[Somnium]

Yeah I will give that a go tonight, unfortunately the day after I took this my usb hub died which runs my filter wheel and autoguider so I won't be able to add much to it until next week. I really love this target so I jumped the gun in posting something. There is just way too much to image and not enough clear skies

[rustigsmed]

no worries would be interesting to see if it helps at all - worth a go.

I agree I love this target too, and really wanted to get it this season - I haven't been able to image in months :sadeyes: earlier in the year i also put together an undercooked image of these galaxies made up of 25 mins of old old dslr colour data with 30 mins of Luminance on the qhy22. perhaps we should combine my L with your RGB! :question:

[Somnium]

meh, i give up with this. i cant get the colour right, the noise is ridiculous. when i combine the colour image in ccd stack the noise is horrendous, when i do it in Photoshop it is a bit better but i get issues with my stars because they are not perfectly aligned ... anyway

[astronobob]

Good going there Aidan, the last image is actually a good improvement, in a few ways too,
1st the noise is less, especially being a larger file dimension size, noise still shows up less :thumbsup:
2nd, you have rid the image of them 2 or is that 3 donut dark rings, one left center, other low left with one half next to it ?
3rd, the stars are smoother - without rings in them..

Over all, a rather good jump forward in many ways, well done , maybe some loss of signal in the fainter extensions, but in reality, one can't just get all factors of processing at once, that is this hobby's challenges :thumbsup:

All the best & kind Rgrds !

[Somnium]

thanks, i tried to sort out the noise best i could, unfortunately that meant i couldnt stretch as far as i would have liked. the colour is still a bit off but this could only really be considered a test, given that i didnt have flats etc. the next one will be imaged a lot more carefully.