A couple of clear moonless nights presented themselves last week in Sydney so took the opportunity to do some galaxy imaging. Chose NGC 253 as its well placed later into the evening when that retched Sydney Skyglow reduced a bit Unfortunately one of the nights had fine smoke haze drifting across Sydney but struggled on regardless ( my 2600MC camera had small specs of ash on the red housing )
Same deal
Bortle 8
Sky conditions, poor to average
No moon
8” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon fibre Newt
EQ6-R pro mount
ZWO2600MC cooled to -10C , Gain 100
No filters ( just internal UV/ IR cut protective window)
210 x 60 sec subs ( dithered every 3rd )
40 x Flats
60 x Bias
EQMOD and Stellarium
APT
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.50 to 0.60 arc sec total ) guiding was superb on this lowish end mount , guiding dropped down to 0.40 to 0.45 for a while. I’ve had a couple of these EQ6-R mounts now and they just do the job. Best performing value mount in their category ( 20kg )
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools v1.8
Link to Astrobin below for improved resolution
https://www.astrobin.com/dbf8vk/
Synthetic Luminance version
Colour version
Thanks
Comments welcome
Martin