Ngc 6729

[bmitchell82]

Well last night i had the 254 set up while designing a concrete bridge deck and beams, who says men arnt good at multi tasking!

After my last run it was apparent that my collimation techniques wernt upto scratch, so i stumbled across a video tutorial from cats eye... All i can say is it was the first time i have seen all the visual cues align! (Mike youll know what those cues are :) they are heavenly when you finally get them).

After all that i took on the dusty area of Corona Australis at about 1130am it had just cleared the garage in the back yard (I could still see the roof in the finderscope!) Set the OAG for 2 second exposures on bin 2x2 which yielded great guide stars, and then set maximdl to run for 3.5hrs.

Average FWHM on stacked images was 2.8, and guiding was sitting within .5 pixel (about .6 seconds of arc) the whole night.

Taken at -25dc (would have done -30 but there is horrible artifacts so ill just live at -25). Filters where QHY standard.

L bin 1x1, 120min @ 10 min each
RGB bin 2x2, 25:25:30 @ 5 min each
Stacked in CCDstack V2, PS CS5 processed

1.3mb image full res.
http://brendanmitchell.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/NGC-6729-120_25_25_30.jpg

[astroron]

:hi:Brendan,Very nice :thumbsup:
Is it just me:rolleyes: or is this your first visit for a while :question:
If so :welcome: back:)
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Lester]

Wonderful image Brendan, thanks for the view.

[Ross G]

Great shot Brendon.

I love the smooth colours and is that a tiny galaxy in the top left corner?


Thanks.


Ross.

[Ross G]

Sorry...Brendan.

[bmitchell82]

Thanks for that Lester and Ron im glad you enjoyed the image, its just gratifing to use basic equipment and produce some fine shots. Im still learning about the whole Mono CCD area but its slowly falling into place!

Yes Ron, i have been absent for quite a fair while, Uni has had me in a squirrel grip, to the point i didn't even have the scope under the night sky for a good 3 months :( I know sad! I almost forgot how to set the spider web of cables up!.

I have alot more time to put into this to clean up the dusty areas, also take some darks for them which will help the situation to no end, as this image hasn't been flat fielded, dark or bias subtracted.

[CoolhandJo]

Very diverse image! Interesing. Nice :)

[multiweb]

Great shot Brendan. You're certainly pushing the limits and getting the most out of your equipment. Kudos. :thumbsup:

[bmitchell82]

Yes Ross, it is a tiny nearly face on spiral, on my PC with the full size image you can see the faint arms extending from it. Though my favorite part is what im going to call the Fish head!, if you look just above the middle closely you will see it :)

Thankyou Jo, Ive always wanted to start capturing little dusty bits that everybody either ignores or doesn't know much about So i will be having plenty of fun now chasing them.

Thanks Marc, even after all the hassels that i originally had its now coming together and im starting to push the envolope with the setup now, though i don't think i have even come close to the limits of the 254 yet. Because the new OAG can hold onto stars for long long periods of time with very little chance of poor guiding even with a bit of a breeze about it opens things up for long deep exposures. With the whole set my stars didn't move at all, if you jump onto my website and scroll down you will see the comparison of OAG to Scope guiding, i had to put a marker on each frame other wise you would miss it for actually animating! Who knows i might find myself with a full narrowband kit and do some hubble pallet? time will tell.

:thanx:

[richardo]

Good stuff Brendan, yes, your collimation looks spot on as the spikes are usually the tell tale sign.
I've been using the Auto collimator since 06 and it is the only way to collimate a fast finicky scope... that's for sure!
Guiding looks like it is working a treat as well.
Stars are schmick on out to the corners.
Great job all 'round, nice image!

Rich

[TrevorW]

Good effort Brendan nice to see you back from your scholistic endeavours

[Paul Haese]

Nice work Brendan. Very smooth and silky looking. Stars look great too.

[bmitchell82]

Thank you all for the comments it does inspire me to work harder to get things as good as i can with the equipment that i have. Though if there is something that you see, please don't hold back I post up here for criticism even the finicky fine stuff that most would say "so what". Thats what makes people change for the better!

Thanks Rich. I'm with you 100% on the passive autocollimator.... the thing is a god send, and once you have it right (method) there is no doubt in your mind that you have 100% captured perfect collimation. It also covers all the errors. not just one of them!

Its funny that you say that the stars are perfect out to the corners, I have run the best subs though CCDInspector, and i still have a fair amount of curvature in my field as the MPCC is sitting "about" the right spot Now that my assignment hell has settled down in the next week or so I want to do the measurements accurately and space the MPCC at exactly 55mm from the sensor. Plus i have a few other tricks that im working on ! ahhh the love of a obsessive tinkerer.

Paul, thank you for the comments Im impressed by how the qhy9 handles itself, sure its not the high end of this chip set, but it does preform with such a large capacity for cooling the chip set, The only thing that im finding is if i drop the temp to -30 i get massive noise banding, which really kills the image. Ill look into that further though.

Thanks Trevor, I'm not fully back from the scholastic adventures :( nearing the end though about 12 months of fravilities then my astro adventures will kick off properly!

[DavidU]

I think that is a fabulous image Brendan. Well done, great stars & colours.
I hope the squirrel grip will be loosened soon LOL

[FlashDrive]

Brendan ... Great Shot mate ... Love the colours ... excellent.
That is nice ....:thumbsup:

Flash.

[Hagar]

Very nice Brendan, smooth as silk. You need a wider field to get all the dust clouds in the frame.

[bmitchell82]

Thanks Dave, Flash and Doug.

It would be lovely Doug to capture a wide field, though I might do a second panel of this image to capture the glob that is sitting right on the edge of the field!

The colour's have turned out well, though im considering looking at a 10 min exposure for the colour but im worried that the small pixel well depth will suffer with blown out stars. who knows you can only try!