Ok, first up, not the best image and I absolutely plan to get back to this target once some minor equipment issues are sorted. Will have to work on the framing a bit better next time too now I know what can fit in. Only recently learnt about this object and think it looks really cool.
I was so excited to set up last night, even though there were clouds everywhere and conditions weren't the best.
First serious attempt at actual imaging in almost a year, first light for the QSI583ws, first real light for my 10" newtonian that I've had for almost a year, I sorted out many computer/USB issues with my Mac, got Elbrus plate solving working with EQMod, tested the autofocus routine of Bahtinov Grabber and it works a treat, first time I've used a lightbox/flats seriously. All went pretty well.
But after all that equipment, software etc troubleshooting, along with clouds, only managed 2x5min Ha exposures here. Still. I'm stoked.
I also have some questions. See the stars in the corners are all eggy. Could that be due to the wrong spacing between the QSI583 and the MPCC? Don't recall that on test images with 40D and MPCC.
Also first time processing true mono Ha image from a CCD. I'm used to using curves in Photoshop with darks bottom left, but with this grayscale image the histogram seemed to be reversed! Can that be made the same way as RGB images, it just feels wrong and this image I gave up and just resorted to levels instead. Bit of a blunt tool for me.
And I've done heaps and heaps of reading on colourspaces etc for RGB, but now grayscale is a whole new world to me. sGray, Gamma 2.2 or what for working space?
Aaaaanywho - here tis. For what it's worth.