My very best Mexican hat!

[Garyh]

Hi Folks!
I like to share with you my very best image of Messier 104 or more commonly called the "Sombrero Hat" galaxy.
Got up this morning for a nature call and like I always do check outside just in case things have cleared up...well it was totally cloudless.
Quickly setup to image this and just managed to do the last exposure during astronomical twilight.
Image is 12 x 7 min with my 6" newt and Canon 300d which had my homemade peltier cooler bolted to the bottom to help cool things down even more..there was ice on the bottom of the camera on packing up!
I always wanted to try to catch some detail in this and this is the first time I have caught just a hint.... I don`t think anymore would be possible with my setup and resolution? Keeping it extra cool helped also with the noise which I still had to do a bit off processing to remove. Also careful masking of the dust lanes and brighter parts of M104 to preserve detail.
All comments most welcome and thanks for looking!..
Cheers Gary

[iceman (Mike)]

Beautiful image, Gary. Perhaps a tad blue/magenta? Probably due to the ever-brightening sky.

I'm sure you'll do better, you continue to raise the bar!

[tornado33]

Thats excellent especially for a 6 inch. Theres even detail inside the main dust lane. Focus ,tracking and resolution excellent
Scott

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

thats one crazyyyy hat!!! very very nice gary! i believe this is cropped? was wondering have you got a pic of your cooler?

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Very nice image Gary.

I followed the link to your homepage hoping to find out a bit more about your 6" newt, but the links dont work

[theodog (Jeff)]

Nice image Gary.
You must be happy with it.
Well done.

[Ric]

Well done Gary, that's a beauty. Lots of lovely detail in that one and even a hint of 3D about it.

Cheers

[dcalleja]

Terriffic detail in the dust lane. Very nice image indeed. Nice framing too!

[leon]

Gary if I can come close to that I would be laughing, great effort.

Leon

[skeltz (Rob)]

Congratulations gary and your 6 inch of course.
What a great little scope,coulors a tad in the magenta as already said./
but that does not subtract from a well done effort,and i also can not access your equipment link or about us link...all other links work fine...

[Garyh]

Originally Posted by iceman

Beautiful image, Gary. Perhaps a tad blue/magenta? Probably due to the ever-brightening sky.

I'm sure you'll do better, you continue to raise the bar!

Thanks Mike you are spot on with the colors, always muck it up when doing a quicky for a post. Too much magenta!
cheers...

Originally Posted by tornado33

Thats excellent especially for a 6 inch. Theres even detail inside the main dust lane. Focus ,tracking and resolution excellent
Scott

Thanks Scott, was lucky to get fairly good seeing that night as well..

Originally Posted by EzyStyles

thats one crazyyyy hat!!! very very nice gary! i believe this is cropped? was wondering have you got a pic of your cooler?

LoL thanks for that Eric!... I shall post a pic or two at the bottom VVV and some info that I hope will help.
cheers Gary

Originally Posted by Starkler

Very nice image Gary.

I followed the link to your homepage hoping to find out a bit more about your 6" newt, but the links dont work

Thanks Goeff,
I know that I have been a bit slack with my website...needs heaps of updating! I shall get stuck into it soon!
cheers

Originally Posted by theodog

Nice image Gary.
You must be happy with it.
Well done.

Thanks Jeff very much appreciated...

Originally Posted by Ric

Well done Gary, that's a beauty. Lots of lovely detail in that one and even a hint of 3D about it.

Cheers

cheers Ric... I was suprised myself at my result.
A big thanks...

Originally Posted by dcalleja

Terriffic detail in the dust lane. Very nice image indeed. Nice framing too!

Thanks Dan... it maybe just a few pixels here and there but its something!
cheers

Originally Posted by leon

Gary if I can come close to that I would be laughing, great effort.

Leon

Thanks for the lovely comment Leon!. you`l get there, just keep plugin away and before you know it you will have real corkers.. you should have seen my first goes a few years ago....not very pretty
cheers

Originally Posted by rpsastronomy

Congratulations gary and your 6 inch of course.
What a great little scope,coulors a tad in the magenta as already said./
but that does not subtract from a well done effort,and i also can not access your equipment link or about us link...all other links work fine...

Thanks Skelty, have fixed the colors up now! I shall fix my site up soon as I find it a bit time consuming getting it all working right with freeware!
The little 6" shall be for sale by the end of the year when the 8" is comissioned....
Thankyou everyone for looking and commenting..

Eric, the cooler is a old AMD cpu cooler with a 4000 rpm fan on top with a 3.2 amp peltier glued to the bottom..The cold finger is a piece of 3mm thick aluminium that attaches to the tripod mount..Basically cools the inside of the camera via the metal chassis. Not real affective but its simple to use and lowers the sensor temps by around 7-10 degrees hich does help on warm nights...

[edwardsdj (Doug)]

Great Sombrero Gary

That cooling concept looks extremely practical to me.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

This is a nice M104 Gary!

I like it when this galaxy is framed with the galaxy at an angle to the horizontal, reminds me of My Favourite Martion's flying saucer

Mike

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

thanks gary. okkk... i have heaps of CPU fans and heatsinks lying around. where and how do you attach it to the camera? do you have to take the camera apart? lowering the temp by 7 - 10 degrees is heaps!!! thanks.

[Garyh]

Thanks Doug, Mike and Eric!
Yeah My favorite Martian..lol now thats going back in time..

Eric, it just bolts straight onto the bottom of the camera and the screw visible in the second image just screws into the tripod connector on your camera..The cold finger covers nearly half the camera base but the screw into that socket is the important bit as that makes the connection to your camera chassis. The TEC and the heatsink adhesive was bought from Jaycar and all up I trhink it cost less than $20 to make. Make sure all metal surfaces on the cooling finger are well insulated to keep it cooler and stop that condensation..
I think the only thing that really hampers this setup is that a lot of the cooling is sucked up through into the focuser via the lense mount as this is all connected to the chassis. I notice after a while running that the focuser gets rather colder than the rest of the OTA. Now if I can get a deldrin T-ring, that would help heaps and chill it down further inside the camera with lower thermal loss...
I might try Freds mod later (Bassnut) with a real coldfinger on the back of the sensor!
cheers Gary

[Tamtarn]

That's a very crisp Mexican Hat Gary . Looks like the cooler worked a treat !

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

arhh i see thanks gary but how does bolting the fan under the camera from the tripod screw draws the heat out from the chip as the chip is no where near it? or does it still helps? i'll try anything to get rid of those nasty hotpixels

[Garyh]

Originally Posted by EzyStyles

arhh i see thanks gary but how does bolting the fan under the camera from the tripod screw draws the heat out from the chip as the chip is no where near it? or does it still helps? i'll try anything to get rid of those nasty hotpixels

By attaching it this way it makes the whole chassis in the camera part of the cold finger, so it becomes very cold and makes the inside of your camera like a fridge cooling everything done but as there is little contact of the chassis to the chip it makes it not so effective...
See Gary Holis site for some more info...
Also Terry Lovejoy (cometguy) has info on his site as well

http://ghonis2.ho8.com/rebelpeltier.html

cheers Gary

[leon]

Gary, for a nature stop, and a quick set up, that is pretty good i reckon, maybe you should drink lots of water before bed so you will get up more often, who knows what other spectacular imaging you will come up with.

Leon

[RB (Andrew)]

That's a fantastic result Gary.
The difference in noise reduction on the 300D is amazing.

How long does it take to cool the camera?