M83 Test

[Tandum]

Here's an M83 test out of the little starlight camera and it was so low in the sky it dissapeared behind trees while shooting the blue. I'm still playing with this camera looking for correct balance and this one is getting close, still not right, but it can only get better surely :lol:

Shot last night under that beautiful moon.
6x10:2x5:2x5:2x5 minutes LRGB with colour binned at 2x2.
Starlight Express HX916
Manual Wheel with 1.25" TruTek Filters
Takahashi FS-102 @ F6.2

[scarper]

Nice shot considering the moon was out.

[Hagar]

Nice image Robin, Good detail but very hard to get the colour right with a big bright moon.

[renormalised]

Nice shot....looks like you had a couple of bunnies invading the pitch (upper right hand side):D

[peter_4059]

Nice image Robin considering the conditions. It has a real feeling of depth about it.

[Tandum]

Cheers guys, bit of learning curve going on with this little camera. I noticed while shooting flats last thing last night that red needs double the exposure time of G/B to show a similar histogram result :shrug: And the ccd exposure calculator (http://starizona.com/acb/ccd/calc_ideal.aspx) on starzonia also says red needs double the exposures. I need to recheck my G2V numbers again, I must have done something wrong there, but not tonight, it looks like rain again :rolleyes:

[renormalised]

Should be up my way Robin.....cool and almost crystal clear skies:D:D

[Tandum]

I need some sleep tonight carl. That's 2 all night sessions in a row for me :zzz2:

[jase]

Positive attitudes will improve chances of success. :) Yes, I suggest you spend a little more time on G2V Robin. Actually, I suspect the lack of flats is also compounding the problem. You need to ensure you're balancing the background (normalisation between masters) which is near impossible without flats. You could try perform normalisation manually with pixel math, but I suspect the result would be similar. Keep at it. Onward and upward from here.

[Tandum]

Yeppers, I re-read the howto and missed the bit that recommends it be an out of focus shot of the star :doh:

My original problem was star bloat and halos in these M8 shots and I'm pretty sure that's just over exposure and I can't fix it, but I tried all evening :P