TEC140 - a first light session!

[Emanuele]

Dear all,

I received my TEC140 at 5 pm on Friday and at 5.01 I was already in the car
leaving to go imaging in the Everglades National Park, here in South Florida!
Didn't even open the box....I just left.

The night was gorgeous and beside having problems with Maxim and my new Macbook
Pro, I persevered and at around 10pm starting imaging.

First target was M3.
APO140
Tak EM400
SXVF-M25C
Exp: 15 x 2 min - no dark, no flats, no bias

Please click on the thumbnail for a full size version of the image:
http://www.backyardskies.com/BackyardSkies/M3_Information.html



Second target for the night was M101 - one of my favorite objects!
APO140
Tak EM400
SXVF-M25C
Exp: 3.15 hr with 15 min subs - no darks, no flats, no bias

please click on the thumbnail as usual:
http://www.backyardskies.com/BackyardSkies/M101_Information.html


Comments, suggestions and constructive criticism is very appreciated!

Clear skies to all and thank you for looking!
Emanuele

[toryglen-boy]

excellent.

nothing else i can say !!


:thumbsup:

[RB]

Emanuele, a brand new TEC 140 !!!
Wohoo, congrats mate, what a wonderful combination on an EM400 !!

Well done, very nice images there, nice colours in both and sharp detail.

:thumbsup:

[troypiggo]

Both very nice!

[RB]

One thing though, do yourself a favour and take darks and flats, you'll be able to tease out better detail from your precious data.

Cheers
:thumbsup:

[multiweb]

M101 shot is superb. :thumbsup:

[telecasterguru]

Both are great shots. Just go out there and do it I say.

Frank

[Hagar]

Really nice images but as has been said make the effort for darks and flats.

[gregbradley]

Welcome to the TEC club!

Nice shots.

Longer exposure needed for galaxies but a nice start. 6 hours is probably minimum as you are using one shot colour at 20%QE or so and even with 60% QE mono I'd be going 6 hours at F7.

The longer shots gets rid of the colour noise which is always going to be a problem with galaxy shots. Noise Ninja also helps or gaussian blur or the blur tool rubbed on noisy areas.

But long exposure is the basic thing.

Did you use the TEC flattener or is that not needed for your camera?

As far as flats go I can't see any vignetting or dust donuts in the image so no real loss there. As far as darks go there are a few minor hot pixels here and there. You could photoshop them out with the healing brush. Mike Sidonio could tell you if there is much gain from darks with a camera that clean. He never used them and produced lots of great images. If you don't you can also use hot/cold pixel removal in CCDsoft or CCDstack to get rid of those few hot pixels. Darks and flats only take a little bit of effort so its not saving a lot of work though.


Greg.

[jase]

Two lovely first light images Emanuele. 1.64 arcsec/pixel is perhaps ideal sampling. M101 is my pick, but M3 holds its own. Thanks for sharing these. Looking forward to seeing more from this combination.

[bluescope]

Very nice image of 101 Emanuelle ... you have a very nice scope there !

:thumbsup:

[Emanuele]

Thank you so very much to all of you guys! :)

I do not use darks and bias frames because I have been told not to, by the good folks are Starlight Xpress and other Starlight users. When using darks the nose will be more than without them!
I will start using flats as soon as my EL panel project is completed! Not that I really need them with the 140 because I have virtually no vignetting! :)

[Robbie]

Outstanding!!!!!

[gregbradley]

[QUOTE=Emanuele;439090]Thank you so very much to all of you guys! :)

When using darks the nose will be more than without them!


I doubt that is true data.

My Microline 8300 is extremely clean too but I find a small gain in using darks. It gets rid of those few bright pixels that otherwise you can find by scrolling around in your image when zoomed in. There will be weird little artifacts otherwise.

Greg.