Seven bright sisters in blue

[Garyh]

Hi again everyone..
Was surprised last night tofind that the skies had cleared so I set the alarm for early this morning after the moon had set..Seeing was very good so I set up to image M45 (Pleiades) with my newt.
Everything went smoothly with a good focus and good seeing and I did very well with the guiding...:thumbsup:
After I had finished I went and reviewed the images only to find coma showing up all along the bottom half of the image...:(.
Done a quick go at M42 with no probs, so it looks like its my tube thats causing all my headaches and flexing more as one moves away from Zenith..
Oh well might have to rebuild the sucker...
Anyways after some processing to minimize the coma I have come out with a rather nice image.:) Could have been much better but will have to wait to next time.
Image is 14 x 4 min with 6" f/5.6 and canon 300D
Stacked in DSS and finished of in PS..
Very little work on the background but plenty on the stars!!
All comments welcome..:thumbsup:
cheers Gary

[iceman]

Wow, that's really nice!
What's the focal length of your 6"? I was surprised you can fit the pleaides in your FOV!

[RB]

That's a great capture Gary, well done.
Colours are nice and the background looks smooth.

Can't wait to see more !

[h0ughy]

Nice image - I was stoked when I got my first shot like this this year at duckadang - almost cartwheels. Taking mine with a modded camera makes it hard to colour balance, I think you have done a great job

[Garyh]

Thanks Mike! :thumbsup:...focal length comes to about 860mm. I find this goes well with my 300D giving me around 1.5p/sec. Have you got yourself a OTA for imaging yet? I think anything from 800 to 1000mm should give you great results like a 8" f/5 OTA.
cheers Gary



cheers Andrew, I have done M45 before with smaller scopes and I have never been happy with the results..This is my first decent image so I am quiet happy!!..:)



Thanks Houghy..:thumbsup: yeap it was a really good night after the moon went and I was very happy with how well they came out until I scrolled around the image and saw all that bad coma in the corners...I`ll get stuck into it and fix this OTA soon! so no more unexpected coma and flex...
cheers and thanks for peeking..:)

[rogerg]

Gary,

That's a great shot. I don't understand how you and others are getting more detail in your 4min shots than I'm getting in my 10min shots :shrug:

I wonder if it's processing or focal length or what. I was at 200mm, 800ISO, F/5.6

... what F stop is yours at? and what ISO?

Thanks,
Roger.

[Ric]

Well done Gary, a lovely image and lovely colour. Very sharp as well.

Cheers

[sheeny]

B-U-T-full! That is superb! Well done!

Al.

[strongmanmike]

I agree, a rather nice image that Gary :thumbsup:

Mike

[ballaratdragons]

Gary, nice capture of the reflection nebula throughout this cluster. :)

Plieades is always a visual favourite. But I can't image it with my small chips.

Your background sky looks fine to me.

[Garyh]

Thanks Roger..:) I forgot to mention that it was iso 800 at F/5.6
I havn`t tried the 200mm lense on this target but I expect I could get 6min@f/5.6 before the skyfogging becomes a issue..I imaged this with the TV genesis under different conditions and I find if it very hazy/smoky there is very little detail showing conpared to a real crisp night!
cheers Gary



Your always too kind Ric..cheers..:thumbsup:



Thanks for that!!! yeap what I have posted is pretty well a full frame with very minimal cropping..:)



Thankyou Mike..:)..redone it again last night with very nice seeing after re collimating yesterday...looks very promising!
cheers Gary



Thanks Ken for the comments...I glad I didn`t have too much more focal length or there wouldn`t have been any more room on the cmos!!
Always a wonderful sight with bino`s...:thumbsup:

Thanks everyone for looking and commenting...:)
CS Gary