Another M80

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Wow, first time I've ever imaged O Centauri, talk about spectacular in the liveview!

I finally cracked being able to get 1 minute subs with perfect round stars, thanks to the polar alignment feature in the NEQ-6 mount. Makes a big difference. Awaiting my first guidecam, should be here in a few weeks.

But unfortunately the clouds came rolling in when I did the 1 min exposures, so this set of 30 FIFTEEN SECOND subs will have to do. Quite surprised how well the 15 sec subs worked.

[raymo]

Very nice Simon. There are people out there producing amazing results
by taking 150-300 30 second subs.
Omega Centauri is NGC 5139, not M80.
M80 is a nice globular near Antares.
raymo

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Ha, thanks, I think I meant C80! Must've been up too late...

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Very sharp stars Simon. The cluster itself is a little on the pink side, a side effect no doubt of the Ha modified 40D. As you know, I myself am going a tad insane trying to figure these camera mods and how to take good colour with them without it being all red.

[raymo]

You fooled me . Not many people refer to it by it's C number.
raymo.

[alistairsam]

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Very sharp stars Simon. The cluster itself is a little on the pink side, a side effect no doubt of the Ha modified 40D. As you know, I myself am going a tad insane trying to figure these camera mods and how to take good colour with them without it being all red.

Looks great Simon, 1 min unguided means your PA and balancing are all good.

As for the pink hue, have you tried using a custom white balance?
Just take a normal image of a white screen on your laptop and change the white balance to custom, then choose that white image for the white balance when in manual mode.

I use this method for my mono dslr's so it should work for the IR modded ones as well. You can even use P mode in the camera with a normal lens as that allows a cwb to be set.
Try it out.

Cheers
Alistair

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Thanks chaps, yes it felt good to see those Sharp stars finally. gotta do the scope justice! Sometimes I feel like a learner driver in a Ferrari...

I did do a colour calibration in PI, originally the central stars were pretty nice and white. But then I did some heavy saturation adjustment to bring out the colours in the outer region stars, so of course nerfed the glob. I'll need to mask the centrals next time. Oh well, always something to learn. Either that or avoid the whole saturation adjustment. It's hard to know when to stop....

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Originally Posted by raymo

You fooled me . Not many people refer to it by it's C number.
raymo.

Ha, I just went by what the goto and planetarium app told me. I am soooooo ignorant!

I'll take you up on that suggestion Alistair, as the LP filter I am using has got to be messing with my colour balance. And the mod to the sensor.

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Okay, I took the feedback and applied some changes. In PI I recalibrated the colours to bring back the whiter glob stars. That washed out the other stars' colours, so I worked out how to paint a mask that protected the glob stars but allowed me to up the saturation of all the others. betterer?

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Yeah looks more gooderer now.