NGC1532 with a cooled DSLR 17.5 hrs

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

Here's my recent take on NGC1532. Captured over 5 nights from my home observatory in South Australia.

Telescope: Vixen VC200L with f6.4 reducer
Camera: DIY modded Canon 1000D with regulated peltier cooling @ 10C
Guiding: Lacerta OAG with QHY5L-II
Mount: Skywatcher NEQ6
Exposure details: 105 x 10mins @ ISO1600

I have pre-processed this using the new Pixinsight Bayer Drizzle feature. From the PI website: "The idea behind Bayer drizzle is pretty straightforward: with a sufficient number of dithered frames, the drizzle integration algorithm can be applied to fill the existing holes in the red, green and blue channels of multiple CFA Bayer images to form a demosaiced RGB color image directly from calibrated raw data without interpolation."

Using Aladin to cross-reference with the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database indicates that there are ~540 galaxies within this field, including 110 galaxies at mag 20 or fainter.

Hi-res here: http://www.astrobin.com/138452/

Thanks for looking. Critique welcome

[John K]

That's extremely impressive and looks like your setup takes amazing images!

John K.

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Love it, so deep. So what is the advantage of the Bayer Drizzle tool?

Is there any way you could try processing just 50 shots, so we can see the difference compared to 100? That's an amazing effort

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Wonderful image!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Such epicness!!

[FranckiM06]

Wonderful image Richard

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Superb work, Richard.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Stunning Richard!

Can't get over the detail achieved.

Cheers,

Justin.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Excellent shot Richard. Very cool actually.

[RickS (Rick)]

Nice one, Richard! Good detail and lots of dim stuff.

[Rod771 (Rod)]

Excellent Richard! Well worth the time invested, great result!

[Leonardo70 (Leonardo Orazi)]

Great result...congrats!

All the best,
Leo

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

That's just excellent! Who needs a CCD camera?

Cheers

Steve

[Ross G]

Great looking galaxy photo Richard.

Ross.

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

Apologies for taking so long to reply to your lovely comments. All the feedback received from you learned folk (both praise and criticism) is very much appreciated and taken on-board to improve my capture and processing for the images which follow.

I have certainly been very encouraged to discover the extent to which the addition of regulated temperature control turns the humble DSLR into a very capable imaging tool. Without the cooling I doubt I would be able to extract the faint details shown here and in other recent images. It's not all smooth sailing however as my dew control is not really effective, and my modded cooled cameras have a tendency to malfunction when operating at regulated temps close to (or below) the ambient dew point. I have been wondering about how to install a dessicant pouch into the camera to help control this, but that is probably a discussion for another thread.

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

Originally Posted by SimmoW

Love it, so deep. So what is the advantage of the Bayer Drizzle tool?

Because of the bayer filter on a one shot colour camera, only 1 in 4 pixels record red and blue, and only 2 in 4 pixels record green. This means that the "missing" data (eg the 3 in 4 pixels that dont record red) have to be interpolated from the data of surrounding pixels. What the bayer drizzle tool does is to drizzle each colour channel separately to fill in the missing pixels with real data - this relies on capturing lots of subs which have been dithered. The bayer drizzle tool effectively gives you an RGB image that has no interpolated data - just like what you would get from a mono camera using RGB filters. The upshot of all this I believe should be improved detail.

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

I have a second alternative processed version on my astrobin page with more saturation and contrast, however i think this has come at the expense of detail in the galaxy core, so I have reverted back to the original as my "final" version. Feedback on which version is preferred are welcomed.

[gregbradley]

Great shot Richard. It looks more like a CCD image than a DSLR image.
Great to see such a long exposure DSLR image.

Greg.

[DJT (David)]

Great image Richard.I prefare the original myself. The stars seem to have held up better.

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Very nice Richard. Smooth and lots of detail. Can't beat long exposures.
Geoff