M45 - The Pleiades

[Stephane]

Hi all,

Still having fun with the frac while my Newt is being upgraded. Unfortunately, because I don't have a guide scope I couldn't guide; as a result, over 50% of my subs had star elongation and needed throwing out! I also had an opportunity to try BlurXterminator and the local deconvolution really improved the star shapes and size. I would have boosted contrast in the fainter surrounding gas a little more, but at 6h40, the noise starts to get a little out of hand.

As usual, have fun critiquing :)
Does it need more colour punch?

New version here (https://www.astrobin.com/026cqo/).

Clear skies
Stéphane

EDIT: Added an extra 1h20 integration and stretched a bit further. New image below on the left.

Integration: 267 x 90s = 7h40'

[Startrek]

Stephane,
Great effort ,lovely image
Haven’t seen too many M45 images lately so thanks for posting
That EQ6-R should be able to eat 60 to 90 sec unguided subs if polar aligned to an arc min or less , especially at shorter focal lengths of a small refractor.
I presume conditions must have been less than favourable ?

Cheers
Martin

[rustigsmed]

Wow I really like that stephane - very low target from Melbourne too esp for broadband. Great work!

[Stephane]

Thanks Martin! My mount seems to have the shakes, subs occasionally wobble left, then right from one sub to the next (which rules out poor polar alignment, as drift would be consistent). Perhaps a PEC curve might fix this. It’s not terrible, just bad enough for me to notice and not be happy with my work. I’ve never seen this when guiding though. Conditions varied, but overall ok. If I ever get a new mount, I might go for the CEM 70. How are you going with your EQ8?




Thanks Russell! I wasn’t expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised with the result.

[Startrek]

Yeh I tuned both my EQ6-R mounts ( worm gears and drive belts ) plus re balanced with camera facing down , made the world of difference in tracking and guiding performance !!!

I had two clear nights 26th and 27th Dec imaging Thors Helmet down South from the Dome. Conditions were poor , high humidity, stars scintillating but the EQ8-R was still guiding around 0.60 to 0.65 , Dec was rock solid but Ra jumping around a little bit due to chasing the seeing. A little bit more fine tuning on the EQ8-R and I reckon she would guide around 0.45 to 0.60 without touching the worm gears , drive belts , PEC training etc… with over 22 kg on board
I’m getting tight round stars with 5 min subs using the 10” f5 Klaus Helmerich CF Newt ( 1280mm fl ) so the mount is doing its job so far.

Cheers
Martin
PS Hope your new Newt is not too far away , sounds exciting. Is it an Astroworx ( aka Sidereal ) or Telescope Express ( aka Klaus Helmerich like mine )

[Stephane]

Looking forward to seeing your Thor’s helmet Martin. I did see a bit of twinkling over the 26th, so maybe the seeing didn’t help. I’ve noticed that my HFR and both axes usually get affected when that happens. It might be worth me doing sone fine tuning on the mount, but I’ll see how I go with the new rig. It’ll be much lighter than previously with a CF tube and off axis guider. Diego at Sidereal used to get Klaus Helmi CF tubes, but sources them elsewhere now, so I guess it’s an Astroworx telescope. It’ll be combined a 2600mm and Antlia LRGB & 4.5nm SHO filters. I’m really looking forward to it!

[Craig_]

A great result! To your question in the OP, for me, yes I'd dial up the colour a bit - more saturation in blue/cyan, perhaps.


I have never imaged this target but it's on the list. Too many targets, not enough clear skies (and short nights) :(

[Dave882]

Beautiful image Stephane! I actually don’t mind the saturation as it is but maybe just a tad more may give it a bit more zing. I think from memory there’s some dusty brown detail in the mix so gotta be careful not to overpower that.
Great work!!

[Stephane]

Dave & Craig, thank you both for your observations. I've managed to add another 1h20 of data. Not much, but I've also stretched quite a bit further and hopefully kept noise kind of under control.

I hope you like the punchier new version!

[AstroViking]

Great shots of M45, Stephane!

The extra data certainly helped.

[Dave882]

Wow that’s really beautiful! The extra data has been well worth adding

[Craig_]

Wow quite a significant improvement with the extra data. Looks great.

[Ant0nio]

Lovely M45 Stéphane :thumbsup:, looks good as is but could handle more colour imo.

Cheers,
Tony

[Stephane]

Thank you all for your comments. I’ll add some more colour in future. I’m glad I got to shoot this with the refractor while I still have. It was a fun little project.

[AdamJL]

Very nice. I reckon you could punch the colour a bit more. But the star colour is perfect!