Southern Pinwheel Galaxy M83

[mynameiscd]

Hi all,
Seeing its galaxy season i decided to give this another go.
It was perfectly clear and steady on Tuesday night so got a few targets in before the sun came up.
I captured the data during a live telescope Stream on Tuesday and then processed the image live on another Stream the next night while capturing more targets.
A bit noisy but I happen to capture a couple of tiny galaxies just under M83

Guiding was around 0.8 all night

Cheers
Andy

Anyway the specs

18x600 Second Lights (3hours)
Darks and Bias Applied

Skywatcher 150mm Black Diamond Newtonian
Canon EOS 450D Modded
HEQ5

Captured in Backyard EOS
PHD2 Guiding
Stacked in DSS
Gradients Processed in Startools
Processed in Photoshop

[Startrek]

Andy,
Nice M83 out of your 6” newt and DSLR
Spiral arms have good detail and core is well exposed
Well done !!
Although one observation is colour seems a bit bland ?
Try Startools beyond just gradient removal , I think you’ll be surprised
Especially in the colour module using Scientific Aware , really works well with M83 gives it a lease of life in the spiral arms and core

Maybe if you image M83 again , drop your sub lengths to 3 minute and capture heaps more data , 10 minute subs IMO are way too long for a DSLR ( QE only 40% ) as your SNR will suffer greatly ( noise fest )
That 6” newt has plenty of light grab so don’t worry if your subs are a bit faint , just capture 50, 60 or 80 subs or more at 3 minutes and the detail will be there after you stack and stretch in Startools
I used my Canon 600D ( unmodded) for 4 years in my 6” f6 newt ( still use the newt ) and very rarely pushed 5 minute subs at my dark site
ISO 800 and 3 minute subs was the sweet spot for most dimmer objects , kept the noise floor down considerably ( except for summer nights )

Cheers
Martin

[mynameiscd]

Thanks Martin for the advice.
I thought 10 mins was a bit too much for my DSLR but it was a good exercise in guiding as well.
I normally use 3 to 5 minute subs but I'd thought I'd push it.
Also I do use the full Startools processing which I like, especially the sharpen module.
At the time I was streaming, imaging, and processing all on my laptop so I had so many programs running it was on the verge of crashing!! I like to do my stacking in APP but it's a CPU hog so no way OBS could run.
Anyway thanks again for the tips!!
Cheers
Andy

[Startrek]

Andy
According to info on a few DSLR Astrophotography sites ( I like Jerry Lodriguss Astropix ) the Canon 450D has an optimal dynamic range at ISO 400 or ISO 800
So try both settings with same exposure time but capture plenty of data and try not to be tempted to push subs any longer than 3 minutes
Together with dark calibration you will reduce your read noise
Good luck with it all !!
Martin

[mynameiscd]

Ill try that next time Martin. Been stuck on 1600 ISO !!
Also I found an edit I did about 1/2 an hour before that I didn't sharpen as much and there's heaps less noise.
Also a couple of images where i've been streaming from and doing my editing.
A bit cosy!!!

Cheers
Andy

[Startrek]

Nice set up !!
The Kazbar !!
Forgot to mention do you set dithering in BYEOS, I did and it definitely reduced any fixed pattern noise and hot pixels etc....
My dither settings for BYEOS using PHD2
Aggressiveness 2
Dither settle 0.45 to 0.60
Dither calm down 25 to 30 sec
Dither every frame or second frame
PHD2 dither scale 1.0 Random
Cheers
Martin