Hi all,
I had a day off yesterday and took full advantage of the clear skies. There was some scattered cloud hanging around but they cleared long before I started imaging. The Moon luckily didn't cause any problems so I was very happy. The seeing conditions were terrible but stayed fairly steady during the night.
This is my very first image of a Galaxy so I am extremely pleased with it. The only real problem I had during the capture was not being able to locate a suitable guidestar. It took me a good 30 minutes or more to find one. It frustrated me to the point I almost packed everything up.
I decided to not use ICNR darks but instead take seperate darks after aquiring the lights allowing me to capture more lights.
The real success is that I got PHD all working properly. Thanks to changing one setting on the mount.
Details are as follows,
Celestron 8" SCT f/6.3 1260mm fl on EQ6 Pro
Guided with 70mm refractor, DMK21 and PHD
Canon 450D
10 x 5 minute subs at ISO 800
Darks, Offset/Bias & Flats subtracted
Stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS3.
For higher Res have a look here.
http://astromatt7.googlepages.com/NG...full;init:.jpg
Thanks for looking.
http://astromatt7.googlepages.com/home