Well it's been a long while between photos! A mix of bad weather and dodgy health (nothing dramatic) has kept me from the skies, but at last this week I managed to get under some clear skies with the scope. Even managed to remember how to set it up and got the guiding going OK. The skies were awfully teasing with stratocumulus rafts and a quarter Moon for two nights, but mostly clear last night
The southern Pinwheel, M83, 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra.
- 130 minutes of exposure at ISO800 (26 x 5 mins), 150mm Newtonian, EOS 60D, HEQ5pro, guided, darks, flats and bias subtracted. Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop.
A larger version of the wide view
Larger version of the closeup
Had some issues with DBE producing quite grainy images (lots of black pixels?), so in the end I skipped the step - so the background is a bit uneven.