Leo Triplet

[Cyberman (Rob)]

Been a while since last imaging. Here is my go at the Leo triplet.
250 Skywatcher quattro, EQ6R, canon unmodded 600D DSLR.
BYEOS , DSS, Startools
sharpcap for polar alignment.
272x 1min subs. Darks, flats, dark flats and Bias.
Thanks for looking or commenting, Rob

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Hey Rob,

Nice capture of the trio - well done. There's plenty of detail to look at in all three galaxies, and the colours are good to my eyes.

I do see some sort of stacking artifact across the top of the image, sort of a grey gradient that's most obvious in the top-left corner, and there seems to be a soft 'halo' around the bottom-right galaxy. It could be noise, but it could be a mist of stars around the galaxy.

Cheers,
V

[oska (John)]

Great shot Rob. Looks like you've got the 250 dialled in pretty b' good You might find a little tweak on the background noise, without going too far, will level it out. Well done.

[Cyberman (Rob)]

Thanks for your comments Steve and John. Using a DSLR there is a fair amount of noise. I was a bit scared to denoise it too much. The top R hand corner could be stacking artifact or residual gradient. There was quite a bit of light gradient. I am on the northside of Brisbane and was photographing to the north away from the city lights but there is a lot of light pollution still. I have noticed it has gotten a lot worse in the 5 years of observing from my backyard. I now probably can't image any closer to the northern horizon than this. I think there is a bit of star glow about the lower R galaxy but I agree there is noise here in my image as well. I orignally processed an image with half as much data. Doubling the amount of data did reduce the noise a surprising amount.
Cheers, Rob.

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Rob, nice image mate you have some great detail.
Like you I am on the northside of Brisbane, with the same dreaded light pollution. I use 1 minute subs at an ISO of 800, then get lots of them
You have a big light bucket there, no need for high ISO and long exposures. You can get just as good with short subs, data is data.
Getting around double the amount of subs you have will allow you stretch that data a little more and keep the noise down.

Clear skies

[Cyberman (Rob)]

Thanks Carl. I use iso 800 and 1min subs too. I will try to get more data. Hopefully the weather is better this weekend. I wonder how much data you can get before the returns start to diminsh.
cheers, Rob

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Rob, I suppose that depends on the target in question.
The more data you can get on nebulosity the more will come out, of course at some point your camera and telescope combo will be tapped out. A small galaxy does not have the same amount of detail to extract so one could argue you do not need as much data.
I would never expect to get my Trifid to the same degree of quality as a $3000 camera when using my DSLR.
My Trifid image started to loose a lot of background noise and the nebulosity started to really pop at around the 6 hour plus mark. I am going to try some more data on this one when the skies clear again, because I do not think I am at the tapped out point yet. I think my set up can get a little more
I did an M83 with my 450D and 9.25 SCT a few years back and more experienced people let me know with my equipment I was fairly well tapped out at around 4 hours. So I was happy with the image, I could have taken more data to remove noise but my subject would possibly not improved much.
Really it is what you wish to personally achieve, I always believe how far each person goes is a preference there is no you must achieve a certain level. You have wonderful detail in the 3 galaxies and you may rightfully be happy with what you have.

Have fun
Clear skies

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

That’s a lovely image Rob. I reckon you’ve done a sterling job with the blues, magenta and yellows to produce pleasing colours and have got plenty of detail too. Alex

[poider (Peter)]

Well done, that is so much better than what I have gotten on my 100mm refractor and DSLR

[zubinelgenubi (Adam)]

Love this image

[Cyberman (Rob)]

Thanks Adam, Peter, Alex and Carl. I was unable to get any more significant amount of data due to going away and temporary illness. I might have another 1/2 to 1 hour of data to add. Fully recovered now, but I think this target is too low now and it goes behind the neighbour's house from my imaging position which I cannot move. I will add that 1/2 to 1 hours data but I don't think it will make a significant difference. Might be able to add more data next year. Cheers,Rob.
PS . Carl, how does your 9.25 celestron go. I think it would be ideal scope for EQ6 or EQ6R weight wise.