My first shot in a long time!
M83, Southern Pinwheel.
GSO 200mm F5 newt, EOS450D modded, 12 x 300sec, ISO 800, darks, flats, APT 3.0, PHD2.
Taken at Heathcote last Saturday night, in amongst the cloud!
That looks brilliant! Nice to see what an 8" f/5 Newtonian can do. Did you use a coma corrector / field flattener at all?
And just curious.. do you know why the black doughnut to the right of the galaxy, little past half way to the edge of the image? I've seen this in other astrophotos posted on IIS as well. Is this an IIS watermark or some processing software signature/artefact? (See attachment; second image exaggerates it.)
Thanks for the comments Steve, Marc and Russ. Glad you like it!
Steve, I used a Baader MPCC (multi purpose coma corrector, version 1).
I can't see it on my screen but think the artifact you refer to is an out of focus dust spot on the filter in the camera. I noticed it on the flats before I stacked the subs. I use an EOS clip Astronomic L-CCD which probably has dust on it. Not sure if I need this filter but I have left it there from when I was using a refractor. I probably need to clean the filter.
I discovered my T adapter was a little out of alignment which gave me oval shaped stars in the bottom right but once I fix that I'll have another go and try and improve on this one.
