[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by multiweb

I do so agree with that view. I don't understand why people feel the need to advise others on what is ok or not to image. These comments often come from imagers who do widefield "perceptive" views of DSO and haven't even scratched the surface of the next level of details that a larger aperture and long FL reveals. It is fun to shoot bright objects close up because it is easier to get relatively good SNR from light polluted environments and it's a whole new world close up when you get into the fine details. The point is totally missed on some though.

Originally Posted by petershah

Stunning!....clean, sharp and colourful....what more do you want!

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Gee thats very impressive for 2 exposures per channel!, well done. And yes the more i look into CMOS for long FL long exposure the more I see how far CMOS has to go for that task, before it even matches CCD.

Originally Posted by markas

Great result, Peter


I like the colour rendition, and the image looks very noise-free on my big screen.


Mark

Originally Posted by alpal

Hi Peter,
a fantastic picture - right up there with the very best.
I take it that adding a luminance filter channel would have added nothing?



cheers
Allan

Originally Posted by keller60

Amazing resolution. Not your average M8 for sure.

Originally Posted by kosborn

I agree with that. Looking at the classics, there are some fascinating areas that can be brought out with a longer focal length.

Thanks guys! ...I frankly didn't expect that response.

Some comments about the image: yep, sure would have loved to have got some more exposure time (particularly some Ha) but I was happy to get what I could before the skies closed in.

That said, there is about 14x more flux (allowing for the secondary) being caught by a 16" 'scope vs a 4"
so if I said it was 4.6 hours in each channel with say a FSQ106, there might have been some "oohs" and "aahs" about the heroic exposure times.

The image scale however, would still have been vanilla.

Make no mistake: deep sky at 3400mm is a challenge. Seeing has to be good, the gear has to be producing RMS 0.5 pixel (or less) tracking errors
(i.e. 0.25 arc seconds or so)

*Any* systemic tracking problem or drift will show as eggy stars. Off axis guiding is a must.

Finding an optic that is fully corrected to the edge of KAF16803 sensor is...well...not easy.

But on this occasion it all just worked.

I wish I could say that happens all the time (it doesn't) but when it all comes together,
you see fine details and structures in the data that makes you go "Wow!" when it first pops up on the screen.

Sure, M8 is a bright popular target, but at this image scale, for me at least, it takes on a new appearance.
Your responses have been a wonderful validation of that notion.

Many thanks!