My first from SPSP - The Leo Triplet

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

Here's my first image from SPSP, taken on the Friday night from about 9pm till about midnight when smoke came and blotted out the sky. Drift aligning took a little longer than usual because my compass didn't know where South was, but my first photons were being captured by 9pm so I was pretty happy with that.

I'd been using ISO400 and 5 minute exposures at home to preserve star colour, and for some reason at SPSP I decided to use ISO800 and do 6 minute exposures. As a result, most of the stars have lost their colour

Anyway this image is 13x 6 minute exposures @ ISO800, darks ICNR and flats calibrated.

Taken with the unmodded Canon 350D and WO 0.8x reducer through the ED80. Guided with the DMK and PHD.

Attached is an 800px version - a 1200px less compressed version is on the page below (click image to see it):

NGC3628, M65 and M66 - The Leo Triplet

It's my first image of this trio as I can't see it from home due to trees. These subs were taken when the object was between 30 and 40deg altitude (it transits at 42°). I'd love to see them up high! Focus was slightly off too, I was in a hurry to start capturing and should've double-checked

Thanks for looking.

[gbeal]

Nice Mike, why not shake the reducer for this one though.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks Gary. Mainly cause it's flattener as well. But I did crop the corners of this anyway, so I would've done the same without the reducer Maybe next time

[Zuts]

Hi Mike,

A lovely photo, its amazing what dark skies open up. Focus looks OK to me. It's hard not to rush, once you are set up you just want to go, go. go.....

I have a question. Do you use Neat image? I use it sometimes and if you dont uncheck the reduce chrominance noise it can have the effect of removing a lot of the colour from galaxies.

Paul

[h0ughy (David)]

nice clump of galaxies Mike

[leon]

Mike, as Dave said, nice group of Galaxies, you have done well.

Leon

[tornado33]

Lovely shot there. Actually using a higher ISO and longer subs sounds like a good thing to do at a darker site, in order to get more galaxy detail, but try increasing the colour saturation, that might restore some star colour.
Scott

[Garyh]

Very very nice Mike! you can certainly tell the difference with a dark sky site! Even the fainter outer edges of these galaxies are plainly visible!
Hopefully I shall get to the SPSP next year when the rugrats are bigger!
cheers Gary

[Ric]

Well done Mike, a great looking image.

I always enjoy images of the triplet.

Cheers

[iceman (Mike)]

Originally Posted by Zuts

Hi Mike,

A lovely photo, its amazing what dark skies open up. Focus looks OK to me. It's hard not to rush, once you are set up you just want to go, go. go.....

I have a question. Do you use Neat image? I use it sometimes and if you dont uncheck the reduce chrominance noise it can have the effect of removing a lot of the colour from galaxies.

Paul

Thanks Paul. No, I don't use Neat Image. There wasn't a lot of noise to begin with, but I use Noel Carboni's tools with the "Space Noise Reduction" action to clean it up a bit.

Originally Posted by tornado33

Lovely shot there. Actually using a higher ISO and longer subs sounds like a good thing to do at a darker site, in order to get more galaxy detail, but try increasing the colour saturation, that might restore some star colour.
Scott

Thank Scott - that was my thoughts as well - on galaxies it's probably a good idea to bring out the faint outer arms etc. I was just disappointed that most of the stars are over-saturated. Probably one for HDR techniques if I had more time to image it.

Originally Posted by Garyh

Very very nice Mike! you can certainly tell the difference with a dark sky site! Even the fainter outer edges of these galaxies are plainly visible!
Hopefully I shall get to the SPSP next year when the rugrats are bigger!
cheers Gary

Thanks Gary, I hope to see you there next year! Apparently it's moving to May, so it'll be even colder! Great for low noise in DSLR's, bad for cold fingers and toes!

Originally Posted by Ric

Well done Mike, a great looking image.

I always enjoy images of the triplet.

Cheers

Thanks Ric, I've never imaged it before so I'm glad to have been able to add it to the list. I won't image it again until I have more focal length though

Thanks for your comments.

[RB (Andrew)]

Nicely imaged Mike, well done.

[Deeno]

Very nice mike!

Great part of the sky for galaxy hunting.

At one stage I had counted eight galaxies in the one field of view with the 24mm panoptic........