was working up a new scope last night when the seeing settled below 2arc sec - best in a long time!. The new scope was nowhere near ready, so I threw the old trusty 200mm back together and aligned the bits more or less by eye in the hope I could get something before the seeing went back to normal. It was partially successful, but the scope ended up a fair way out of whack with a bit of astigmatism and some bad diffraction patterns - I had to tidy up the very messy bright stars in Startools (thanks Ivo) to get something postable.
Anyway, here is the best I could do with the luminance data - unlikely to get colour. Pity I did not have a proper system going for this lot - the seeing was great and the mount was tracking at about 0.3 arcsec RMS! Ah well... thanks for looking. Regards Ray
EDIT: added colour - the best I could get with diffraction issue.
That is a really great image, Ray. One that I would be really proud of if it were mine.
Glad you had the ability to put all your equipment together and produce something for us to see.
Allan
Watch you talkin'bout Willis that's excellent, the scope looks like it was working bloody perfectly great result...now getting the colour right on this one is a different story though
a great example of the KISS principle. Quite beautiful.
thanks you Simon. yep, KISS it is
Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal
Hi Ray,
that's an amazing picture considering it's a magnitude 10 target.
What telescope exactly did you use & is it from a dark site?
cheers
Allan
Hi Allan. thank you. The site was fairly dark when the moon went down - it's a country town. The scope is a 200mm f4 GSO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
Sweet shot of one of my favourite galaxies. Lots of detail.
Love it.
Greg.
Thanks Greg. it sure is a really beautiful galaxy
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Fitz-Henr
Yes, nice shot Ray, especially considering the rush job on the scope
Thanks very much David.
Quote:
Originally Posted by allan gould
That is a really great image, Ray. One that I would be really proud of if it were mine.
Glad you had the ability to put all your equipment together and produce something for us to see.
Allan
Thanks Allan . despite the mad scramble to get the system working, I was very pleased to get this image.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Watch you talkin'bout Willis that's excellent, the scope looks like it was working bloody perfectly great result...now getting the colour right on this one is a different story though
Mike
Colour hmmm - I doubt that stars will register properly - the bright ones here have been somewhat reconstituted. Have some really bad colour data from a 5 arc sec night so maybe will give it a go.
The imaging system really was far from perfect and I had to nurse it along with refocusing every few frames to keep the astigmatism buried in the seeing disk. But it worked just well enough .
- the bright ones here have been somewhat reconstituted.
Ah, how was that done?
Quote:
Have some really bad colour data from a 5 arc sec night so maybe will give it a go.
Yes RGB data can be crapolla and you can still get a good LRGB combine, as was the case with my recent NGC 2207 in Canis Major, after all, a common technique is to Gaussian blur the RGB before the LRGB combine anyway
A very good NGC 2997 there Ray. It's a deceptively tough galaxy.
Cheers
Steve
thanks very much Steve. it is a very pretty galaxy though - your image was great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dvj
The grayscale is quite lovely.
Thanks very much John.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Ah, how was that done?
Yes RGB data can be crapolla and you can still get a good LRGB combine, as was the case with my recent NGC 2207 in Canis Major, after all, a common technique is to Gaussian blur the RGB before the LRGB combine anyway
yes will give it a go
StarTools has a couple of ways to tidy up stars. Doesn't make up any new data, but just re-arranges it so that stars are closer to circular. I don't use it often, because it can look a bit artificial, but it can sometimes rescue otherwise valuable images.
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
That looks really good Ray.
Hi Marc - thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidNg
Hi Ray,
Love your image, lots of detail from core to galaxy arms.
I would like to see what will the color look like.
Regards
Thanks David, will do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tilbrook@rbe.ne
Love it Ray!
How far off is your 10" ?
Can't wait to see what resolution you get from it.
Cheers,
Justin.
Thanks Justin. took the first coma-uncorrected image from the 10 inch last night - the Skywatcher optics are not quite as well corrected as the GSO, but should still be way more than good enough. I expect that the resolution will be the same as the 8 inch most of the time - determined entirely by the atmosphere. However, on those rare excellent nights, the 10 inch may do a little better - we shall see. The main advantage of the bigger scope is the CF tube, which should ease focusing problems a little and is definitely very rigid and stable - should do a better job of keep things in collimation.
StarTools has a couple of ways to tidy up stars. Doesn't make up any new data, but just re-arranges it so that stars are closer to circular. I don't use it often, because it can look a bit artificial, but it can sometimes rescue otherwise valuable images.
That's a very impressive image for a "first light," problems or not! Bravo.
Peter
thanks very much Peter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maurice
Great result Ray..
What coma corrector do you use with this system?
Regards
Maurice
Hi Maurice. I use an RCC1 - works pretty well at f4
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Ah yes I see it now...still, not too bad really
Mike
well I tried the colour data - the modified stars are displaced enough to upset the registration process and it looks pretty crook. mono it will remain.
that's excellent, the scope looks like it was working bloody perfectly 
great result...now getting the colour right on this one is a different story though 
.
