M6 butterfly cluster

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

More baby steps for me. Finally nutted out PHD, I ended up throwing away PHD1 which seemed buggy and sluggish, opting for PHD which really flies along and just 'worked'. I did a basic Polar Align routine on my NEQ-6 mount, which rarely produces round stars. But it must have been good enough for PHD, as the guiding graph looked pretty smooth. Next time I'll try a drift alignment/polar routine in PHD2.

Took my first 4 minute shots ever, amazing amount of detail emerging with such 'long' exposures (well, long for moi!). Got cocky and set up for 10 by 4 min shots, but by the 4th shot, the high cloud set in last night, stuffing up the guiding and pics. So this picture is comprised of just 3 by 4 min shots, a 2 min and a 1 min, processed in Pixinsight

Better rez pic here and a green corrected one just added to Flickr..

[Draco (Draco)]

Nice. I could never make out the butterfly in M6

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

thanks, and same here, and applies to half the constellations!

[jsmoraes (Jorge)]

Simon, excuse-me but something is wrong. This photo is M 7, not M6.

M 6 - NGC 6405 has the appearance shown in the photo attached.

About polar alignment... try EqAlign: http://eqalign.sourceforge.net. For me, it is the best, despite of some bug with loose of contact with the camera.

[Draco (Draco)]

I guess with hardly any light pollution in the olden days, the sky was much easier to view and with a healthy imagination, shapes appeared.

I can easily make out the teapot asterism but fail to see the centaur (though can make out some of it). with the teapot, under dark skies, the milky way dust makes it seem like steam is coming out of its spout

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

That's a very sweet M7 Simon.

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

The green-corrected M7 is especially nice. I really need to give PHD another go.
-Cam

[RickS (Rick)]

The corrected version is very nice, Simon!

[Rex]

Yep the green corrected version does it for me too.

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Thanks chaps! Yes I'm really pleased with it too, approaching what I've aimed to achieve for months. Just need more clear skies for more subs! That's not much to ask?

Next I need to try even longer subs, but not sure if the LP will permit much above 10 mins.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Originally Posted by SimmoW

Next I need to try even longer subs, but not sure if the LP will permit much above 10 mins.

Where is your histogram at the moment? You can take the histogram a fair way to the right, as long as you don't burn out the whites with white point clipping.

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Good tip Kevin, I just checked it and it's a fair way to the left still, so there's hope. Can't wait to get up to those lengths, then I'll need to keep the fruitbats and satellites at bay...