It's taken me a while to get a result I'm somewhat happy with for this beautiful galaxy cluster in Leo. Comprising NGC3628 (The Hamburger), M66 & M65 - they'r only a mere 35Mly away - there's plenty of detail to be seen and some interesting contrasts in colour and structure that makes this grouping quite an intriguing target.
This image comprising of 25hrs (5hrs in 2023 and the rest in Feb/Mar/Apr this year from by B7 backyard - a tricky target that doesn't even reach 45degrees above the horizon from my location and sits in the Sydney CBD light dome.
Using the c14 Hyperstar (Antila Triband RGB broadband) has allowed me to reveal some faint detail, and a section of the tidal tail of NGC3628 can be seen, but the light pollution gradients were absolutely epic and I had to compromise between tidal-tail detail and a nice background so the extents of this tail unfortunately are not visible.
I reckon I'll put this one to bed there until I have my very own dark sky observatory lol
Details
C14 non edge @f1.9 with the Starizona Hyperstar v3 (f1.9, 680ish mm fl)
EQ8 pro
Asi2600mc pro
Asi220mm / guidescope
ZWO EAF
ASIAIR pro / APP / PI
Comments and feedback welcome - thanks for looking!
That's a very pleasing result Dave, lovely clarity, particularly given where you have shot it from! Some good details revealed and a nice delineation in colours between the galaxies too, nice job Yes, shooting that same scene, for the same exposure, from a true dark sky site, would yield a truly amazing result I recon . NGC 2628 always reminds more of a foot long Subway sandwich, or one of those long sandwiches from a New York Italian Deli, than a hamburger....a Hamburger is Cen A's doppelganger to me
Dave,
Another excellent image from your B7 suburban location , so much detail and the colour is top notch.
Folk who image in semi rural and rural locations would shake in their boots watching subs roll in under B7/B8 skies. Theres simply no substitute for dark skies. You’ve processed this image about as good as you can do to expose detail and keep noise floor under control.
That Hyperstar with the Antlia Triband is a winner in that big scope for Galaxy imaging.
Nice Job Dave, shooting in light polluted suburbs is not easy, we do what we can with what we got. Seeing that you are using an EQ8 Pro, I thought I would mention that I have just finished upgrading mine with the shibumi engineering (https://shibumi-astroengineering.com/) RA and Dec antibacklash gear, while I was at it, I added their new improved clutches. It will be interesting to see how well it works.
Thanks folks I really appreciate the nice comments. The local LP certainly does place a ceiling on what can be captured from the city, but at least I had a fair few hours integration to play with which makes processing much easier. Cheers!
Peter- would love to know how the upgrade works out for you once you’ve had the chance to test it all out. My eq8 is over 20yrs old now and could do with a service but it’s been in the too-hard basket for me. I’m still getting decent guiding but I’m certain it would benefit my imaging to have something like that!
Thanks folks I really appreciate the nice comments. The local LP certainly does place a ceiling on what can be captured from the city, but at least I had a fair few hours integration to play with which makes processing much easier. Cheers!
Peter- would love to know how the upgrade works out for you once you’ve had the chance to test it all out. My eq8 is over 20yrs old now and could do with a service but it’s been in the too-hard basket for me. I’m still getting decent guiding but I’m certain it would benefit my imaging to have something like that!
I second what Dave has asked
My EQ8-R pro is only 4 years old and even though I’m mechanically apt , I haven’t been confident to mess with the worm adjustments as so many folk on CN and SGL have fiddled with their EQ8 and EQ8-R mounts and ended up with worse guiding.
Mine guides around 0.60 to 0.70 average which is quite poor for this calibre of mount ( my EQ6-R guides at 0.40 to 0.50 after a basic tune ) .I do visit the EQ8 Google Groups and Tony Owen’s to check on Shibumi upgrades , not cheap but early reports are positive
Thanks
Martin
A very nice image indeed. I used to image under such sky as you and it truly is a struggle, so well done!
If you will permit, however, I think you can rethink how your brighter stars are processed? The first issue that struck me is that they seem slighly oblong horizontally. Might this be tracking, or maybe a stacking issue? And, the cores appear to be burned out. Have you already tried removing stars and processing separately? The current look, to me, is that perhaps you didn't and the stars are overly stretched in order to enhance the galaxies. If that wasn't the case, you could rather quickly take shorter exposures to obtain better stars and avoid the look of overly blown cores.
Hi Peter- thanks so much for your feedback I really appreciate your input. I struggled with the stars in this image. I’m not sure if it was the sky quality or just my processing but they seemed really bland. My attempts to boost the saturation and ‘glow’ has probably backfired a bit and as I look at it probably deserves a repro. I actually did extract the stars in PI (star exterminator) and process separately but think I need to research some better techniques as I pretty much just use GHS and curves. Thanks again for your thoughtful comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by PRejto
A very nice image indeed. I used to image under such sky as you and it truly is a struggle, so well done!
If you will permit, however, I think you can rethink how your brighter stars are processed? The first issue that struck me is that they seem slighly oblong horizontally. Might this be tracking, or maybe a stacking issue? And, the cores appear to be burned out. Have you already tried removing stars and processing separately? The current look, to me, is that perhaps you didn't and the stars are overly stretched in order to enhance the galaxies. If that wasn't the case, you could rather quickly take shorter exposures to obtain better stars and avoid the look of overly blow cores.
Thanks for your comments back! I mean that because I am fully aware of the immense effort it takes to arrive at a really satisfactory image. Then, when someone points something out it can feel rather deflating to begin again.
It could be that your basic subframe exposure time is just too long for those brighter stars. If the cores are blown in the subs no amount of processing can undo the overflowing wells. You can use the best of both star images..in photoshop it’s quite easy. I have not tried it yet in the Image Blend script in PI - I cannot see why one couldn’t do the same.
Yes, shooting that same scene, for the same exposure, from a true dark sky site, would yield a truly amazing result I recon 
