Went away Saturday and Sunday with Ross and Richard. Saturday was great all night. Clouds rolled in around 4:00am. Sunday night was very windy and wet so no go. I got as much data as I could possibly can and with the current weather one can't complain too much. More data is always good but I was happy with fitting everything in one session, still a bit noisy. All taken with my 5" newt.
All this from a 5 inch Newt! They are terrific shots. The dust in both the Horse and Orion is outstadning - Great natural colours too! All images have nice tight stars and are pretty flat too! Well done !
Oh, man, that Horsehead is something. Very understated rendition -- I love it.
Was this with the 5" Newt?
H
Thanks H. Yes my Celestron 130SLT.
TBH not overly happy with any of them. More data would have been good but I couldn't push for 10 or 15min subs which would have done the trick. For one I started the night trying to figure out why my GOTO wasn't working and my RA drift was twice as fast. I had the whole G11 tripod facing north. I didn't want to undo everything in the dark as I had everything plugged and balanced. So had to power down the camera and rotate the whole loaded rig 180 degrees in situ inside the tent. Painful. Camera did start to fog up slightly too as it was very dewy and I had cut the cooling then re-started it again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
I agree with Humayun, they are all really good images marc. You should be very happy with these, very nice work. The noise is very acceptable IMO.
Coonabarabran huh..? where were you setup?
Mike
Thanks Mike. On a motel field on the road to siding spring obs. Seems they know you there too.
All this from a 5 inch Newt! They are terrific shots. The dust in both the Horse and Orion is outstadning - Great natural colours too! All images have nice tight stars and are pretty flat too! Well done !
Thanks Paul. Yep dark skies help a lot regarding colors. Don't have to push anything in processing. Stars are as good as they get. Still slight residual coma but that will never go completely. Not major. I can live with it.
Lovely collection of images Marc. Horsie gets my vote, you handled Alnitak very well. I did notice your diffraction spikes seem a little long on one side and wonder if maybe the collimation may be a little off.
Great set from a 5" scope. Well done.
Well done!,they show lovely colour,Really like how you have done the
horse head neb.
What camera did you use?on your 5 inch to get the images.
Cheers Chris
Thanks a lot Chris. That's my QHY8 OSC. Only CCD I've ever used.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hagar
Lovely collection of images Marc. Horsie gets my vote, you handled Alnitak very well. I did notice your diffraction spikes seem a little long on one side and wonder if maybe the collimation may be a little off.
Great set from a 5" scope. Well done.
Thanks Doug. There's a bit of green noise around the Alnitak area because of passing clouds just before dawn so the star bloated badly. The noise rejection did a good job but made the area grainier when stacking with little black dots everywhere. I don't know about the length of the diffraction spikes. That's a good question. I know that if your spider vanes are not square then you'll get 8 spikes but I don't know what causes one side to be longer than the other. May be the position of the star in relation to the center of the field? Maybe someone can answer that one. Collimation was around 3" in CCDIS so pretty close. If it was out by a lot I would get a lot more coma. That's how I gauge how well the scope is doing. The slightest offset and the off axis coma is real bad.
I really like the star colours and the nebulosity colours in these images; particularly in M42. The noise is fine and quite minimal but like all of us you are probably wanting a smoother background. The diffraction spikes add a nice starry look to the image and I think it makes for an interesting look overall when combined with the colour palettes. Nice work.
I really like the star colours and the nebulosity colours in these images; particularly in M42. The noise is fine and quite minimal but like all of us you are probably wanting a smoother background. The diffraction spikes add a nice starry look to the image and I think it makes for an interesting look overall when combined with the colour palettes. Nice work.
Thanks Paul. The star colours are consistent across the shots because there was nill light pollution. So the color balance just fell in place. No brainer during color combining. I could live with a bit less spikes, especially in the Pleiades. I've never managed to get more neb than stars on this one. Will have to revisit definitely and work it out.
Nice work Marc and a good choice of place for imaging.
Unfortunately the weather at Wiruna was not as favorable
Regards
Mark
Thanks Mark. Shame about Ilford weather. When I was driving back the weather was clear just before Mudgee although still cloudy in Coonabarabran so it seems there was a big patch of clear in the area around 3:00am I'd say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross G
Hi Marc,
Great photos!
Such fantastic results from so little...you are a magician!
(...or is it your unique polar alignment technique!!..).
Take care.
Ross.
Thanks Ross. No magic. Just practice and a good compass.
I didn't want to undo everything in the dark as I had everything plugged and balanced. So had to power down the camera and rotate the whole loaded rig 180 degrees in situ inside the tent. Painful. 
Camera did start to fog up slightly too as it was very dewy and I had cut the cooling then re-started it again. 
