M20

[PKay]

Last night it was so clear, you could see all the way to the bottom...

I am very happy. Once again my toy scope has done well!

Advice most welcome on the outcome.

4.6 hours of integration.
180s subs (about 92)
Gain 140 (unity)
10 Darks, Bias, Flats.

Stupid mount resisted the flip. I hate having to think at 1AM.

Here is the PI work flow, adjusted after LostinSpice and Rod's advice :-)

Batch Processing.
ABE -Auto Background Extraction (subtraction)
Crop
BN - Background neutralisation
CC - Colour calibration
Here i was supposed to look at noise but to hard at this stage
HT - Histogram Transformation (now non linear)
CT - Curves Transformation.
Saved as XISF, TIFF, JPEG

PS work flow.

Tried to process the TIFF. I gave up. Too hard for a sleep deprived soul
Used the JPEG instead.

All the usual suspects ie:
Color balance
Hue/Saturation
Vibrance
Curves
Levels
Brightness/Contrast
Saved as new JPEG about 1M

Peter

[Startrek]

Peter
That’s a nice M20 for a smaller scope
Plenty of data which has produced a fine image
Well done !
Martin

PS: Heading down south from Sydney to my retirement home ( weekender) on the 3rd July for about 2 to 3 weeks and hope to score some clear nights for DSO imaging and planetary imaging with my 8” f5 newt and some observing with the 12” Goto Dob
Cheers

[PKay]

Thanks Martin

Maybe a night at Big Bit lookout?
I have secreted in some small concrete pads for the tripod :-)

[xelasnave]

Nice image Peter ...good idea with secret pads.
Alex

[luka]

Nice image with good colours and details.

One suggestion, do the crop before anything else in PI. Otherwise the edges may affect the outcome of whatever you do before the crop (ABE in this case).

Also you should try the Photometric Color Calibration (after doing the crop first of course). It plate-solves the image and uses information from various catalogues to do the colour calibration. I always find that it gives the best results. It can also do the BN at the same time so there is no need to apply it beforehand.

[assbutt94]

Great job, Peter
+1 Luka's advice.

What do you mean you had trouble looking at noise before stretching? Are you using the screen transfer function to do a temporary stretch to the displayed image while its still linear?