M 106 + NGC 4217 ultra widefield + closeup (please excuse the dust bunnies)

[Paramount]

Hi all
I wasn't really sure about posting this one but here goes, it was taken after the M51 ultra widefield that I took last Wednesday just before it got light. I had just got the right extension tube from APM so I could try out the matched field flattener for my TMB and Starlight Xpress H36, these are the first shots that I have done without having to crop the image due to severe vignetting. As I am waiting for custom adapters to put my filter wheel in this setup these images are completely unfiltered so they suffered somewhat from light pollution which I managed to get rid of most of it with gradient xterminator. As I haven't got into flat frames yet there are some dust bunnies which are evident depending on your monitor settings, they are not that evident on mine. I only managed 30x2 minutes unguided on this subject before it got too light so effectively this image was taken between 3am and 4am. Anyway enough of the excuses. While there are a lot of faults in the image I was pleased to capture some of the other faint fuzzies in the neighbourhood in particular NGC 4217 to the left of M106 which came out even better on the cropped image (no extra processing done on this, just cropped and enlarged). For the rest of the image no curves were used, just a bit on levels, some contrast enhancement and major work with Gradient Xterminator.
Thanks for looking and again my apologies for the dust bunnies
Kind regards and many clear nights
Gordon

http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk/USERIMAGES/M106.jpg

http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk/U...S/M106crop.jpg

[jase (Jason)]

Good processing. The crop displays some great detail.
Why the wide field view Gordon? Galaxies love long focal lengths. You've got the mount to handle a C14. Go get'em.

[Paramount]

Hi Jase
Thanks for the comments, the reason for the widefields is mainly because of trying out the field flattener for the first time, this won't work on the C14 and I also have some other new equipment to try out as well such as a filter wheel, I appreciate what you are saying about the galaxies needing something bigger and that is my plan for the near future
Regards
Gordon

[jase (Jason)]

When is the FLI adapter coming in so you can get the big H36 chip collecting some colour filtered data. All your posts have been in mono. Would be good to see some RGB sometime - soon. I particularly liked your IC405 post a while back. Nicely processed.

[Paramount]

Hi Jase
The latest state of play on adapters etc. is that the adapters are in customs waiting clearance (British customs are a pain in the but), I loaded up my FLI filter wheel and went to test it and lo and behold the motor is not working, so there have been another couple of set backs to deal with. As soon as everything is working properly colour images will be emerging

Best wishes
Gordon