Hey thanks everyone, glad you liked it, I was very happy with what eventually came out of the data.
As I said, the seeing was very ordinary at the start of the night hence the reason I started with the quicky on Eta. Once I started on M83 it was pretty low but the seeing had settled slightly but was still causing a furrowed brow with each sub frame download. After midnight the seeing slowly improved and M83 got higher too of course, there was a 1.5 hr stint that showed good resolution and the guide star plot looked very sexy, so I was quietly confident I could squeeze out at least some detail but I have to say, it must be heaven imaging from somwhere like La Palma, man!
Dave, as i said above I guess there was enough good data to make the grade but imagine how good it could have been with consistent seeing for the whole 4hrs of lum!
good seeing is much better than decon and unsharp masking...and when you can do both, well, that's heaven
John and Greg, yes the 12" astroghraph may be an anti climax in some ways
...surely not
. It's very useful creating variations of an image to both showcase the appearence better and enable you to reveal things that would be hard to realistically incorporate into a natural looking image...of course a true dark steady sky rules for sure!
Mike
)
.... so here is the usual collection to showcase the various aspects - please enjoy the album 
...people often miss this...not sure why 
) and I can tell when things are purring and when things are coughing up a fur ball. The site I use these days is ok but it seldom has good seeing but when it does I really notice it I guess..? To see that guide star hardly move from the centroid over long periods makes the difference between a finely detailed image and a so so result. The seeing in Canberra when I lived there was better than where I image from outside Newcastle. For the tidal streams I really need somewhere really dark, like Wiruna, and a larger and faster scope..
