IC2944 The Running Chicken

[tim.anderson (Tim Anderson)]

Compiled from seventy-five 60-second exposures using a Skywatcher Esprit 100mm refractor, an ASI2600MCProDuo camera and a ZWO AM5 mount.

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

Congrats for getting stuck into imaging, it's not as easy as some would think. As a critique of your image, it is very noisy, probably from not enough exposure time for a faintish object and or having the gain set too high. I'm not an expert in imaging but from what I do know something like IC2944 needs hours and hours of exposure time and also 60 seconds is probably not long enough to get a better signal to noise ratio, therefore explaining the signal noise levels. Hopefully more knowledgeable imagers will impart some of their hard earned expertise and give better insights to obtaining better images.

[skysurfer]

Originally Posted by Saturnine

Congrats for getting stuck into imaging, it's not as easy as some would think. As a critique of your image, it is very noisy, probably from not enough exposure time for a faintish object and or having the gain set too high. I'm not an expert in imaging but from what I do know something like IC2944 needs hours and hours of exposure time and also 60 seconds is probably not long enough to get a better signal to noise ratio, therefore explaining the signal noise levels. Hopefully more knowledgeable imagers will impart some of their hard earned expertise and give better insights to obtaining better images.

Well, the Running Chicken is not that faint, I have imaged it several times with about 30 2 minute subs, using a DSLR (Canon R6) and a 110mm refractor and sometimes even 70mm. Obviously, more subs get a better image, but I think the issue here is that it is stretched too far and has too much gain for 75x1 minute.

[tim.anderson (Tim Anderson)]

Originally Posted by skysurfer

Well, the Running Chicken is not that faint, I have imaged it several times with about 30 2 minute subs, using a DSLR (Canon R6) and a 110mm refractor and sometimes even 70mm. Obviously, more subs get a better image, but I think the issue here is that it is stretched too far and has too much gain for 75x1 minute.

You are perfectly correct about over-stretching - this is part of an experiment to find the best combination of gain, exposure length and sub count for an object like this. The chosen combination is clearly not the best (though I do like the colours)

Tim