LMC with polarie and D810A @ 180mm

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Here's a stack of 52 x 60 sec subs taken with a D810A through an older D-series 180mm prime at f5, iso 1600. I used a polarie tracker on a manfrotto tripod. Fun though it was, compared to the results I get through the Takahashi FSQ106 with a reducer means I will have to revisit this as a mosiac.
I've had a couple of different goes at processing this, the most successful has been to use Nikon's Capture software for pre-processing and then using Pixinsight for registering and integration. Doing it all in PI seems to kill the red channel.
High res version here:
http://www.astrobin.com/220470/
Happy to take constructive advice!
cheers,
Andrew.

[gregbradley]

Very nice Andrew. Lots of super fine stars as well. An FSQ wouldn't show stars that finely.

Greg.

[RickS (Rick)]

Looks great, Andrew. I'd love to do a high res mosaic of the LMC but I'd never get enough hours on it while I'm a mobile imager.

Cheers,
Rick.

[pvelez (Pete)]

Very nice indeed.

do you have a Ha clip in filter? Some Ha on this would work a treat and give you the red you were after

Pete

[topheart]

Spectacular!

Thanks,
Tim

[RB (Andrew)]

Wow, that's a beautiful image Andrew !

RB

[IanP]

That is a brilliant picture, Andrew.
36mpics gives you something to play with. I wander how it would perform with a clip-in Ha filter? Is it an option with D810A

[plantnerd (Luis)]

Great Detail there one of the best I have seen for this object.
I have been watching the LMC each night with binoculars while the camera is trained on other parts of the sky and the other night tried to image it at 300mm F2.0 equivalent but the night got cooler and everything fogged over killing detail. I tried an anti fog lens cloth but it made things worse I worked out it was the anti fog compound turning it into patches of water making huge diffraction spikes on bright stars and now I have cleaned all lens surfaces and filters to with a normal lens cloth remove this compound. Will have a go next new moon on the LMC and SMC.
I use an Olympus OMD EM1 and 150mm F2.0 on Ioptron Skytracker.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

A solid image of the most famous of our nearest galactic neighbours Andrew, nice work ...wonder what our Milky Way looks like from there...

Mike

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

A nice widefield shot of our neighbouring galaxy Andrew.
Good to see the entire LMC in one frame. The Tarantula jumps out well along with a lot of the surrounding globules of nebulosity. I also like Mike's thought experiment to ponder about what we may look like from there.
R

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Originally Posted by Ryderscope

A nice widefield shot of our neighbouring galaxy Andrew.
Good to see the entire LMC in one frame. The Tarantula jumps out well along with a lot of the surrounding globules of nebulosity. I also like Mike's thought experiment to ponder about what we may look like from there.
R

Thanks! I probably will revisit this next month and rotate the camera 90 degrees to get all of it!

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

A solid image of the most famous of our nearest galactic neighbours Andrew, nice work ...wonder what our Milky Way looks like from there...

Mike

Thanks Mike - it would be stunning wouldn't it? It would probably fill half the sky!

Originally Posted by plantnerd

Great Detail there one of the best I have seen for this object.
I have been watching the LMC each night with binoculars while the camera is trained on other parts of the sky and the other night tried to image it at 300mm F2.0 equivalent but the night got cooler and everything fogged over killing detail. I tried an anti fog lens cloth but it made things worse I worked out it was the anti fog compound turning it into patches of water making huge diffraction spikes on bright stars and now I have cleaned all lens surfaces and filters to with a normal lens cloth remove this compound. Will have a go next new moon on the LMC and SMC.
I use an Olympus OMD EM1 and 150mm F2.0 on Ioptron Skytracker.

Thanks! Nothing worse than dew on your camera lens. I use the chemical hand warmers strapped near the objective using Velcro and a sock. This also seems to keep the focus from drifting.

Originally Posted by IanP

That is a brilliant picture, Andrew.
36mpics gives you something to play with. I wander how it would perform with a clip-in Ha filter? Is it an option with D810A

Cheers Ian - interesting idea, though I've got a mono ccd and narrowband filters and might fill it in from the backyard instead with that.

Originally Posted by RB

Wow, that's a beautiful image Andrew !

RB

Thanks!

Originally Posted by topheart

Spectacular!

Thanks,
Tim

Cheers Tim!

Originally Posted by pvelez

Very nice indeed.

do you have a Ha clip in filter? Some Ha on this would work a treat and give you the red you were after

Pete

Hi Pete - interesting idea, although it will be easier to do a mosaic of Ha from the backyard with my ccd and the tak - if you use a clip in filter in front of the Bayer matrix won't you be down to only 1 out of every 4 pixels though?

Originally Posted by RickS

Looks great, Andrew. I'd love to do a high res mosaic of the LMC but I'd never get enough hours on it while I'm a mobile imager.

Cheers,
Rick.

Thanks Rick - I tried it years ago and might have another go with the 810A and FSQ - I was curious to see how well I could do it with a telephoto, but there was a lot of CA in the lens.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Very nice Andrew. Lots of super fine stars as well. An FSQ wouldn't show stars that finely.

Greg.

Thanks Greg - the FSQ is still under sampled, particularly at 300mm fl with the reducer in place, and it works really well. It's just a lot more gear to deal with!
Cheers,
Andrew