Managed to have a go last night, might be the last for a while as from the 7th October the Dept of fires(DSE) will be burning off just down the road...
Earlier this year in feb we had the skycranes bombing the fires as they were out of control, sat on the deck set up the small scope to watch....good fun til the local boys in blue said if the wind changed we were toast. fortunately the observatory is still intact
Very nice - terrific detail and lovely colours. The stars on the right side of the frame look nice and round whereas on my LCD, is seems that the stars on the LHS appear to look slightly oval? This is a beautiful galaxy indeed, with a low surface brightness.
One for my target list for sure too, before it gets away.
The difference in star shapes may result from a tilted image plane/camera? Its not really that noticable though and certainly doesn't detract from the image.
yes my observatory in the corner. will post a article and pics for you maybee today as ive got day off due to material delivery problems.
must check that camera is square in focuser ive had that thappen before. i noticed a drop in image quality during evening but put that down to altitude of object which went from 58-40 deg. if the focus changes during the evening due to temp drop does it move in or out?
one thing i am having trouble with is a very slight drift during exposue 3-4 pixels in 6 min and its constant during the whole length. do you need the giude star to be in the same field as the pic as i assumed it shouldnt matter give everything moves at same rate together., i suspacted my polar alignment to be a smidge off possibly (using losmandy pole finder which is accurate as far as i can tell)but it seeems to happen consistently. im using guidedog ed80 guidescope but the guidestar holds steady for duration. the plate holding al the gear is solid architectural alloy which is twice as strong as normal aluminium, so not expecting any movement there, rings are tight.... hmmm puzzling
8 exposures @360 secs 800 iso, 5 darks at same, standard off the shelf 350d with 12 inch newt
This is a tough target with low surface brightness. It calls for long, deep exposures if capable of doing so. The spiral structure hints its enormity with the core resolving considerably well. Good work. Look forward to seeing more.
thanks for the critique all, as its good to hear how to improve what one does, i seem to be limited to about 6 mins with the 350d after this theres just more noise. i did clip the image to give it more punch it seems i overdid it. is this one any better?
Last edited by Alchemy; 03-10-2007 at 01:38 PM.
Reason: forgot the pic DOH !!!!!
You need to raise you black point on the second image.
Try this on your original image (one which is not heavily compounded by jpeg compression. This is one of the ways I use to improve constrast in photoshop (rather quick and dirty). I typically use a mask to filter the effect giving you better control over what it does to the image.
Duplicate the original image as another layer.
On the new layer, use a reasonably pushed curve (non linear stretch). You can either avoid clipping or not worry about it. The image will look rather washed out, but don't be alarmed.
Then will this layer still highlighted, set its layer blend mode to multiply. You should now see a contrast improvement. If the background darkens too much simply change the opacity of the layer (say from 100% to 80% or whatever you like).
This is also a nice way of removing background noise, but be careful of faint nebulosity. This technique does not work well for all objects. You'll need to experiment.
Still think you can get a bit more out of this. As noted, the stars seem a little bloated and the black point and colour not there yet IMO with the two images. Had a fiddle and maybe more like this:
stars are a bit distracting (perhaps over sharpenned?) butother than that a nice shot. 
Alchemy.
