Omega Centauri with canon 300D

[seeker372011]

My son and I imaged Omega Centauri last night-despite a bright half moon - with the Canon 300D and Celestron C8 NGT, autoguided with GuideDog(Atik 1 c webcam @2 seconds exposure , 60 mm refractor guide scope). Manual focus.

composite of two images at ISO 1600-one exposure was of 224 seconds and the second was a 20 second exposure.

Gradient removed in photoshop, also levels stretched , brightness and contrast tweaked.
Noise removed in NeatImage.

Resized for posting

[acropolite]

I got one word. Magnificent..... Sorry that was 5...... Take note of that you Nikon Lovers.....The original must be awesome. :D

[[1ponders]]

You got that right Phil. :clap::clap::clap: Awesome Seeker.

[atalas]

Splendid seeker !

Louie:thumbsup:

[janoskiss]

Nah, Seeker, that's not good enough. On close inspection your picture is obviously a fake. It is a good fake but it is a fake. There is a photo of NGC 5189 on the wall at Monash Uni Physics Department and it looks nothing like the digital so-called photo you've posted here.

:eyepop:

[johnno]

Brilliant photography,extremly well done,
Regards.John

[Robby]

Beautiful Seeker! Well done.... Focus spot on, which is the hardest thing to acheive on Globs. Your seeing must have been pretty good...
Cheers

[gbeal]

Nice one Seeker, although I am not too sure of the Nikon comment from Phil??

[toetoe]

What a shot, fantastic to look at.

[robin]

Lovely shot - beautiful image....

.....I think it also may have a tiny bit to do with the skill behind the scope set-up, guiding & imaging too.
Regards,Nikon Lover

[ving]

phantasmagorical! :D

really good too :P

[Striker]

Awesome.....I want it....can I steal it and post it as mine...even though I dont have any photographic equipment and most of all no Scope...lol

[seeker372011]

Thanks for the feedback and nice words people

I have to say I think autoguiding has made a quantum difference to image quality...even spending hours trying to drift align never gave me the tracking accuracy to allow really long exposures.

Guidedog rules!

[robin]

It is a fabulous shot Seeker, worthy of any world astro/science mag.
Just a question, you say auto guiding has made all the difference but exactly how good was your polar alignment to start with?Was it spot on, near enough, kinda close, a little bit out, really near to the SCP.....how good was it?
Focusing is brilliant too. Any tricks or masks there or trial & error?

[seeker372011]

for this particular image polar alignment was way way off. ..usually it is much better, but still I had no problem with individual images. However when you go to stack a number of image I found some field rotation..that is because it was so hopelessly far out

focus is pure trial and error..
I have to try DSLR focus though as I hear it is very good-written by an Aussie and costs around $50

[rumples riot]

Good image much better than mind.

[iceman]

That is fantastic Narayan! One of your best! You should definitely send that into S&S or AS&T!

[seeker372011]

Thanks Mike,

I might just do that !:)