M104 lrgb

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Hi,
This image is my first attempt at mono LRGB imaging.
Stumbled my way through the acquisition under varying moon phases over the course of several weeks, with blue and green repeated due to significant sky gradients under 90% rising moon taken from my backyard obs under Bortle 7 skies.

Have to sort out coma issues with the newly acquired mono cam. I believe I must add 0.67mm of spacers to accommodate the 2mm thick 2"filters due to focus shift.
Currently running MCPII coma corrector with 55mm to sensor with 10'Newt.

60min RGB
77min Lum
Processed in photoshop
Fun to get a result in the end.

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Good job Anthony! Mono astrophotography is a major step up from using your DSLR. You especially gave yourself a challenge by trying LRGB from light polluted skies! Considering that and the fact this Galaxy is bright but rather small, you've managed some detail there, so hats off to you! Look forward to your next challenge, maybe something a little more colourful like the Laggon or Triffid nebulas, they're rising earlier each night, so by the end of June they should be good targets to chase after reaching a reasonable altitude.

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Thanks Mick/
I guess this object requires longer integration to reveal the finer detail within the core region and I guess darker skies would eliminate gradients to some extent. I won’t be moving too far from my backyard obs unfortunately.
Processing skills will need more attention layering different channels to compose a complete image as well as focussing techniques, perhaps resorting to the good old batinov mask and applying spacers to achieve better backfocus.

Yes, looking forward to trying out narrowband on the Eagle as my next target.
Cheers and thanks for your comments.
A😃

[gb44 (Glenn)]

Nice one Anthony.
I think you can draw out some more definition of the dark lanes using the high pass filter with a soft combine in PS.
GlennB

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Thanks Glenn,

Attempted what you suggested - a tiny improvement.
Good seeing and dark skies are still key to revealing fine detail ultimately.
Cheers
A

[astronobob (Bob)]

Good result Anthony, good dust-lane, some notable details in the galaxy structure itself too, not an easy feat,, and a nice glow about the galaxy.. only one thing eye notice is colour leaning to the red magenta side, but neither here-or-there considering

I nearly did mono 'yrs ago now' but Im not that dedicated, speshly with incorporating and learning capture, software, calibration frames, processing progs and the rest of it, too much for this OSC One-Shot-Color duck , soo, much credit due your way for that alone

Focus can change during the night, with temperature, between filters apparently, glass, filter quality, the list goes on,,
More data very much helps with signal to noise, meaning very much aids in capturing more 'fainter' details, but not necessarily create finer or sharper details, just thought Id point that out,

Oh, the Eagle on the agenda hey, Noice choice and am sure you'll do a great job with it too,, ,,

[Leo.G (Leo)]

That's all very crisp Anthony, beautiful image.
I was going to go mono myself but got stuffed around by the supplier, spent the money on a full frame DSLR instead and bought a used beginner model OSC which I don't get conditions or health to use much anyway so I'm glad I bought the usable full frame camera.

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Originally Posted by astronobob

Good result Anthony, good dust-lane, some notable details in the galaxy structure itself too, not an easy feat,, and a nice glow about the galaxy.. only one thing eye notice is colour leaning to the red magenta side, but neither here-or-there considering

I nearly did mono 'yrs ago now' but Im not that dedicated, speshly with incorporating and learning capture, software, calibration frames, processing progs and the rest of it, too much for this OSC One-Shot-Color duck , soo, much credit due your way for that alone

Focus can change during the night, with temperature, between filters apparently, glass, filter quality, the list goes on,,
More data very much helps with signal to noise, meaning very much aids in capturing more 'fainter' details, but not necessarily create finer or sharper details, just thought Id point that
Oh, the Eagle on the agenda hey, Noice choice and am sure you'll do a great job with it too,, ,,

Thanks for your comments Bob- yes, I agree that the image is leaning on the red side a bit/ was hard to mitigate to be honest. One thing I can say is that given it was my first go at this imaging I have learnt a lot. I should pay attention to applying 3:1:1:1: ratio for exposures to start with and also saw how much effort it takes to collect the data given I am using a filter drawer - focussing is super important and I noticed that the blue filter revealed rather bloated stars - I may need to peg back on the gain slightly for that color filter as it did play havoc with the stars during the combine.
I’ve been keen to move into mono imaging for some time and although it’s taken me twenty years I’m happy to accept the challenge. Imaging in the burbs has its difficulties and mono imaging with a cooled camera has already proven to eliminate noisy subs with higher res. I’ll look to perhaps bin2x2 during capture as a test after learning about image scale factors.
Pleeenty to digest but I love astronomy so that helps hehehe…

Originally Posted by Leo.G

That's all very crisp Anthony, beautiful image.
I was going to go mono myself but got stuffed around by the supplier, spent the money on a full frame DSLR instead and bought a used beginner model OSC which I don't get conditions or health to use much anyway so I'm glad I bought the usable full frame camera.

Thankyou Leo/ it turned out decent enough and glad you liked this shot of the Sombrero. You know what Leo- the beauty of the OSC is that you get a complete image with minimal sweat- the full frame camera must be a joy to use and having such a large window to show off the cosmos in all its glory makes for the ultimate space shot I recon.