Back on the Forum

[Martin Pugh]

Hello everyone and its really nice to sit at the PC once more and view the great imaging going on back in Australia. Omaha, Nebraska...oh why, oh why. Man the weather is terrible here! And I signed up for 3 years.

Congrats to one and all for the fine astrophotographs that are being produced; I have looked at many over the past couple of hours.

I was imaging franctically before I left, and only in the past couple of weeks did the obs PC see power again, so I couldnt even remember what I was working at.

M65 and M66 was one of them, and as you all know, a low target for SH imagers. When I saw that I only got 7 hours (4:1:1:1), with none of the colour having been taken above about 35-40degs, I really didnt think it worthwhile. The atmospheric extinction factor on blue was 120%!

Anyway, here it is, and thanks for looking.

http://www.martinpughastrophotograph...5&M66_LRGB.jpg

As far as imaging is concerned here...very slow setting up, but I have started and perhaps I will post a few pics of the set up as it goes. Right now though, I buy a V8 power boat tomorrow, as the house I have is right on the lake front of Beaver Lake, so a new toy to play with.

cheers and take care all.

Martin.

[acropolite (Phil)]

It probably won't be that bad when summer arrives Martin, better take some pics of your surrounds so we can better empathise with you.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

G'day Martin, how are Pugh?

Nice to see you have sttled into your new home...near a big lake...and are about to get ya self a shmick new high powred boat to compliment your schmick high powered observatory gear...gee ya know how to make a man jealous that's for sure

Do you know your way around the northern sky? I guess you do from your days in the sunnny UK

Very nice Leo duo, is that a crop?

Mike

[atalas]

Hello Martin

Wonderful pair !

[AlexN]

Good to see you're imaging again!

Looks like you got hit pretty hard by satellites in that session! Great result in any case!

[rwong]

Very nice image. Look forward to seeing your next images/post

Take care
Cheers
Reg

[jase (Jason)]

Good to see you back online Martin. The details within this image are outstanding, but do feel you've been dibbed on the colour (as you've described). A blue weighting factor for extinction of 120% is high, yet does not yield to have done much. This aside, a remarkable image. Looking forward to seeing what other NH delights you'll come up with.

[richardo (Rich)]

Hi Martin,
great to see an image from you now that you've settled in.....
Summer coming your way soon... lots of skiing in the new boat.

Nice image, some great fine detail and I'm just soooo jealous of your perfect round stars.

Yes if you were imaging that low and trying to collect colour, the blue extinction would be real bad. at 35* 120% is spot on as shown below with the multiplying factors.


R .......x 1.086 G........x 1.131 B........x1.200


Hope you can get some good nights out... be a real treat to
be imaging from the northern Hem.
We look forward to your coming posts and images.

All the best to you and yours
Rich

[gregbradley]

A stunning image Martin - really good.

Great to hear from you, I missed your spectacular images.

Greg.

[Martin Pugh]

Hello everyone and thanks for the comments.

Mike - yes, the image is cropped, and yes again, I certainly know the NH skies too - I really do look forward to unpacking the scopes here, but have only managed to power up the PC, install Cloud Sensor, and commenced construction on the skate for the mobile platform.

Jase - I agree, and while I normally shoot colour unbinned, I was fast running out of time before I had to cut the cord and pack up the kit for shipping to the US, so the colour on this one was binned 2x2. Still, it was very noisy data. I do prefer to have subtle colouring in the galaxy images, but again I do agree that the blue could be selectively dialled up a tad.

M65 on the other hand.....odd, since that just appears to give off a very mono-colour appearance.

with just 4 hours of lum and 1 hour each RGB, I could not afford to throw a single frame away.

thanks again for all the posts; great to hear from you

Martin