M83

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Here's another image from last night with the QHY8. 12x5mins with flats and bias. Again I've just done a quick process.

Advice/Comments welcome.....

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

It's a wee ripper Peter!

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Cheers JJJ - only 102 sleeps until Astrofest - hope to try this setup up there under some dark skies!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I'm getting excited about it already!!
It's the highlight of my year!

[h0ughy (David)]

nice shot PETER

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Dave. I'm quite pleased with them given it was first light. I was the first good night we have had up here for months.

How's the obs coming along - are you getting to use the gear more now?

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Another good one - particularly considering the LP and Moon. I predict Allan's camera will become yours in the not too distant future.

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by peter_4059

Thanks Dave. I'm quite pleased with them given it was first light. I was the first good night we have had up here for months.

How's the obs coming along - are you getting to use the gear more now?

No mate - still getting used to things and working out useful combinations

[mill (Martin)]

Peter that is looking good
The only comment i have (2), the galaxy is tinted green and that can be changed with curves and colour balance, also can you show a larger and higher res picture?

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks for the comments Martin.

It's funny a few people have commented about the green cast however on my monitor it doesn't look green (perhaps it's my eyes). As for the larger higher res picture I'm resizing and compressing to fall at 200kb limit for posting. I need to work out some other arrangement like pbase.

Peter.

[RobF (Rob)]

Great M83 Peter. I'd like to peer in a bit closer too - looks like lots of dust lane detail in there. Must admit I thought this first quick pic looked a tad green too, but haven't loaded it up in PS. Data looks great, particularly for a city shot.

Last night was wonderful wasn't it - so good not to be dodging clouds. I'm not sure I can remember the last night I had like that - and I'm afraid to go back through my notes because I suspect it was last year....

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Rob,

here's a crop of the galaxy. There is a bit of noise but still some nice details...

I agree it seems like 6 months since the last time I got a good run at imaging with the brissie weather....

[Hagar (Doug)]

Very nice images Peter, The QHY8 will do a very nice job on your big scope but still nothing will replace exposure time. If I was to be critical with the images you have posted using the QHY8 it would be the exposure time or at least the length of your subs.
You have collected some very nice sharp detail, your guiding is , as usual very good just you need that bit more exposure to get the images to pop.

Well done.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

I did a repro of this image tonight to remove the green cast....what do you think?

[duncan]

Looks very good Peter. Not as blue as most i've seen but that may be because the others were cropped.
I would be very happy with it.
Cheers,
Duncan

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Duncan. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Can't wait to try it under some dark skies.

[RobF (Rob)]

Reprocess looking a lot more natural. Amazing amount of nebulosity coming through. All the light gathering power of that 10" no doubt.

My only other thought is a touch of deconvolution might bring out a bit more dust/detail. It seems to be a dark art that still gets the best of me though.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Rob how do you go with deconvolution on such a large image - do you resize first? What decon routine are you using?

[RobF (Rob)]

I think the gurus tend to use CCDStack these days. I've played with CADET and Maxim, with very average results.

More recently I've forked out for PixInsight. Have found the deconv options very powerful and flexible, although most things in PI a bit hit and miss - you have to play with it as documentation almost non-existent. I'm only a beginner and cloudy weather has prevented me collecting sufficient data to make it worthwhile on most things. You've definitely got enough data there though I think.

For examples on what's possible though, check out the example on lunar scenary on this page:
http://pixinsight.com/examples/index.html

I'd be happy to have a play if you were interested Peter. Not sure how you could get me a decent sized stacked master image TIF or FITS though?

Originally Posted by peter_4059

Rob how do you go with deconvolution on such a large image - do you resize first? What decon routine are you using?

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Rob. I've got the astraimage ps plugin decon routine but you have to resize to less than 2000 pixels to use it. Is pixinsight the same?

Looks like you are nearby (5km). I can save the image on a flash drive if you have time to look at it.