M33 - Triangulum galaxy

[jahnpahwa]

The other target from the dark site club night this weekend. First time I've added Ha to an RGB image. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out!
11*120s R, G, B
11*240s Ha
Cropped in a bit here. This was with the WO z81 and 1600mm at unity gain.

Astrobin here https://www.astrobin.com/8190k9/

[xelasnave]

Very well done and nice star colour.
Alex

[PKay]

You would have to be pretty happy JP.

That's a great image.

Well done.

[jahnpahwa]

Thanks guys. Peter, I was thinking I might try a reprocess to back off the core and see if I have anything like the detail you have in your remote cdk image. Maybe next cloudy spell :)

[Rainmaker]

That's a good result JP. About time we had a clear night for the CAS event.... :D

[John W]

Really nice image JP. Shows lots of detail. Well done. Cheers JohnW.

[jahnpahwa]

Thanks a lot, John.

Matt, cheers. I resisted the urge to burn all of my astro gear because of their inadequate views after taking a peek through your dob, so hopefully I can continue to improve from here :)

[Spidy]

Is this target suitable for a beginner? Is it bright enough to be captured using a cooled colour camera from a Bortle 6 sky?

[jahnpahwa]

Its a fairly large object, and yes, fairly bright. As far as galaxies go, this seems an approachable one for us newcomers. I guess all the better if you have a light pollution filter?
If you're able to devote some time to it I think you have a chance of a good result! The Ha really only adds the bright pink nebulae blobs, and a straight colour image wouldnt give too much up to it at all.

[Spidy]

Thanks JP.


I have a long focal length, with reducer comes to 1645mm. I'll have to research this target as it might be too large for my scope. I currently own an Optolong L-Pro filter for light pollution. I don't have an Enhance or Extreme yet, hence emission nebulae are out for now.

[RyanJones]

Very very nice JP ! The depth in your image really sets the scene. Well done 👍

Phil - you can image emission and reflection nebulae with your L-Pro filter from Bortle 6. Just don’t go crazy with the sub lengths and take lots of them... hours and hours. Reflection is harder because you have to have enough clean data to separate from sky glow but in Bortle 6 it’s definitely doable.

[jahnpahwa]

Yep, at that focal length you might struggle to get the whole thing in, depending on the size of your camera sensor. But hey, there are nebula in this galaxy that have their own NGC! Just centre one of those (ngc595 or ngc604 are good options) and you'll have a nice bit of the core, and some spiral arm, and a big beautiful nebula to boot! I'd be super psyched to see the outcome :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Fernando]

Nice colors. Great image! Congratulations!

[Spidy]

Thanks JP. I'll give it a go, next clear night I get.:shrug:

[Spidy]

Ryan, given that I only own this filter for the moment, I certainly will attempt all types of targets and see what I end up with.


I'll also look forward to the comments. Though I hope they are kind as I have yet to begin an actual session with the explicit intent of capturing data for processing. Thus far it's been ironing out glitches and learning how to get got tracking, etc.

[Sunfish]

Lots of colour there. The Ha helps maybe. A good choice of target.

[LostInSp_ce]

Beautiful work! :thumbsup:

[jahnpahwa]

Thanks Ray and LIS.

I revisited the editing of this one. Noting that the NBLRGB combine used a 1.2 scale for the Ha integration as a default, I pulled it down to 1.0 to see if it reduces the bleeding of the nebula. It did nothing that I could detect, and looking at a lot of images online, the bleeding may not be bleeding at all, s it seems to be present in some classy versions. The second process pulled down the brightness of the core, but that was about it.

Overall, I'm happy with that effort and will look forward to having another go next year armed with more knowledge and who-knows-what gear.