A quick (and dirty) M104 - 30/12/13

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Hi all,

I was revelling in some rare clear skies on the 28th and the 30th of December so I stuck with some tried and true targets and played around with taking some twilight sky flats, which do help but dont seem to be perfect.

Here is 1 hour and 15 minutes of 5 minute subs of the Sombrero, taken with the Atik 314L+ through the 8" newt on the HEQ5Pro. I did try to collect up to two hours worth, but everything close to dawn got washed out and some subs had satellites going through them....

Guiding was an issue so I am looking into an OAG to try and remove the flexure I am getting between the guidescope and the end of my newt which has had me banging my head on the ground more than once recently.

I am having trouble with processing as my brain hurts, still very noisy so I am not 100% happy with this.

Thanks for looking.

Comments and criticisms are welcome. I have added a second attempt at processing just to see how it looks, a little darker, trying to hide some of the sludge...?

Cheers

Chris

[stevous67 (Steve M)]

Good effort Chris. Like for us all, practice and more practice.

Great start on a great object.

Regards
Steve

[RickS (Rick)]

Looks good, Chris! Galaxies require quite a lot of exposure time. A few more hours of data will certainly help reduce the noise.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Looks good, Chris! Galaxies require quite a lot of exposure time. A few more hours of data will certainly help reduce the noise.

Thanks Rick, I have some older data with the same orientation so I may have a look at combining it later on, or capture some more next time out.

Originally Posted by stevous67

Good effort Chris. Like for us all, practice and more practice.

Great start on a great object.

Regards
Steve

Thank you Steve,

Cheers

Chris

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

I like it Chris - well done.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Peter,

Cheers mate

Chris

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Good work, Chris-I prefer the second one

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Laurie,

Yep, me too, although I only processed the first one a bit brighter as some of the images I have done lately on this laptop seem to come out a bit dark, so I amped it up a bit.

I just tried combining this data with some from January last year but it looked a bit shoddy, so I may just wait to capture some more next time out.

Cheers

Chris

[batema (Mark)]

I think the first one is a little over done but definately like the second one a lot. Well done.

Mark

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Mark,

I just combined an additional 20 mins from January last year and reprocessed to see if I could improve it. See what you think,

Cheers

Chris

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Nice work Chris, I think the last one is probably the best of all worlds..a great galaxy to image, well done

Mike

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Mike,

Yeah, I think its not too bad, but I can only do so much with it, I have been playing with flats which do help a lot with the gradients and vignetting, but they arent quite right.

Still, a bit of fun and all in all a learning (or re-learning) process for my rusty processing.

Thanks for the comments,

Cheers

Chris

[Ross G]

Nice galaxy photo Chris.

The best of your current series.

Ross.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Ross,

Good ol' M104.....I can't resist when she pops her head over the neighbour's house

Cheers

Chris