Well, I have attempted my first goes at galaxy photography and as can be seen below it all seems to have gone a little wrong. I think it may have something to do with the light pollution I had work with but I am not totaly sure.
First image is M83 SCT9.25 with a 6.3 reducer, I did not take flats at this stage and the vignetting was bad. I could only get 60 sec subs @ 1600 as any more drew in way too much light pollution and I was seeming to see less data the longer I left the shutter open, 3 minutes appeared to give me a total wash out (maybe I should have kept going at 3 minutes to see what I got). This is made from 60 x 60 sec subs, 24 mintues of darks, bias but no flats.
Image two is the same 60 subs but I took some flats the next day as I kept the image train in tact. It took away the vignetting but I tried a few times and could not get the same result I seem to have lost a lot of data. When I get the back ground dark enought for a good look the image gets a pastal like effect on an angle across the whole image from over processing and I do not get the same colours as in the first image.
My third image is of two of the Leo Triplets, could not get them all in at F6.3. Again I had to over stretch to get any data out it and it still ended up a little bland. Made up of 80 x 60 sec @1600 and 10 x 120 sec @800.
So all up not a good effort, not sure if its a problem with my data collection, may need a darker area, more exposure time and maybe need them to be higher in the sky. Or if it is what I doing with DSS and PS to get the final results. I did use the same technique as I used when working with m42 and Eta this could also be a mistake.
Overall I am not sure how to proceed with galaxy shots maybe I should not even be using a SCT for this any help would be great.
Carl
