Reminiscing with a Cluster of Virgos...

cybereye (Mario) · #1 05-06-2011, 05:20 PM

"Friday night, it was late, I was walking you home
We got down to the gate and I was dreaming of the night
Would it turn out right..."

Believe it or not, the Little River Band was singing about astrophotography, and my Friday night in particular!! Unlike my effort with M104 I did remember all the important things.

Raw selected on the DSLR. Drift alignment done to ensure that tracking will be almost perfect. White t-shirt material for flats. Batteries - charged. Laptop - it won't hibernate. Target - a section of the Virgo cluster that I'd stumbled upon the week before. Check. check, check, check, check!!

OK, so after all that I managed to image what I was after and thanks to a lot of processing - and I mean a lot of processing (except for star rounding) - I present to you my image of NGC's 4593, 4597, 4602 & 4604.

Parameters: PHD guiding, 13x5min subs, ISO800.

To be honest, I pretty happy with this considering this region was sitting basically over the Brisbane CBD while I was imaging.

Yes, very happy indeed!

Cheers,
Mario

renormalised (Carl) · #2 05-06-2011, 10:19 PM

Well done, Mario, considering where they were

All you need is a dark site for these....or a blackout!!!!.

midnight (Darrin) · #3 06-06-2011, 04:14 AM

It's one of my favourite songs and brings back a few old memories.

Great work there Mario! The detail is certainly lurking in there and a nice dark site will allow more to come. Looks like your guiding is also pretty good too.

Darrin...

cybereye (Mario) · #4 07-06-2011, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by renormalised

All you need is a dark site for these....or a blackout!!!!.

Quote:

Originally Posted by midnight

The detail is certainly lurking in there and a nice dark site will allow more to come.
Darrin...

Carl, Darrin,

A visit to a dark site is in the plans. However, between work and family, time is precious so I'll just have to do with the light pollution for the time being!

I do have a light pollution filter, a Baader UHC-S, but I'm under the assumption that for galaxies it's not all that useful. Maybe I should give it a go anyway...

Cheers,
Mario