Last night's photo session

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

A rare almost cloud free night last night. Here's the mess that resulted. All shots with a 6" F5 Newt and Baader MPCC MKIII, manual guiding on subs longer than 30 seconds.

M8 The Lagoon Nebula. http://astrob.in/94147/0/ About 1.3 hours worth of data with a full spectrum modified Nikon D70s, Astronomik CLS and Baader filters used.

M6 The Butterfly cluster was 20 x 2 minute subs at ISO 800 using an unmodified Pentax K-x, no filters. http://astrob.in/94174/0/

NGC 6441 is an old favourite of mine. It's a tiny magnitude 7.4 globular sitting right next to a 3rd magnitude star in Scorpius. 16 x 2 minute subs at ISO 400, Pentax K-x. http://astrob.in/94175/0/

M55, a mag 7 globular in the middle of nowhere... um edge of Sagittarius. 74 x 30 second subs at ISO 1600, Pentax K-x. http://astrob.in/94154/0/

The last one I took a pot shot at before going to bed. It's a tiny little galaxy NGC 7213 next to Alnair in Grus. I like little DSO's that are parked right next to a brighter star for some reason, although these are really way beyond the capability of my gear to image them well. http://astrob.in/94177/0/

[Amaranthus (Barry)]

Funky diffraction spikes in NGC6441 pic - looks like it should be atop a Christmas Tree!

Did you do any processing, post-stacking?

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Hi Barry, yes all processed in Photoshop. The 6 diffraction spikes are caused by the 3 vane spider.

[raymo]

Not a mess at all; the Lagoon in particular is very nice.
raymo

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Good one Kevin!

Or should I say five

Glad you got some clear sky, have to make the most of it!
My favourite is NGC 6441, lovely image.

Cheers,

Justin.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Thanks Ray. M8 was a swine to process. The CLS makes for a monochrome image due to overwhelming Ha. Bringing out colours other than red was a challenge. The tracking is also a little trailed. Not sure if it's flex or my eyeball due to old time manual tracking. Some subs were 5 minutes.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Thanks Justin. Clear again tonight so I'm in for more punishment.

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Nice! I really like the star colours. I think there are some patches of more purplish colour in the Lagoon but your filters might have toned them down a bit - regardless, very nice images.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Originally Posted by LightningNZ

I think there are some patches of more purplish colour in the Lagoon but your filters might have toned them down a bit ...

Indeed they have Cam. With the filters Ha is dominant. Not the most aesthetic view but I don't live at a dark sky site with something like 9 streetlights within 100 metres of me I have to make do with a filtered view - for nebula at least.

[Asterix2020 (Paul)]

I like the shots there Kevin. Certainly a lot of red in the Lagoon, but explained by the filter. I like M55 - I have a thing for globulars.

[DaveNZ (Dave)]

Nice work. The lagoon looks great.

[kosh]

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Indeed they have Cam. With the filters Ha is dominant. Not the most aesthetic view but I don't live at a dark sky site with something like 9 streetlights within 100 metres of me I have to make do with a filtered view - for nebula at least.

I know what you mean
Nice images by the way, keep them coming

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Thanks Paul, Dave and Goran.

I'm also still getting used to the Nikon full spectrum camera. With a regular unmodified DSLR, the colours are fairly well balanced, but with a full spectrum mod that all changes. So this winter I will be experimenting with what works and what doesn't in the context of an "average" light polluted suburb.