NGC 5128 Excellent seeing

[kinetic (Steve)]

Hi,

It's 9:40pm local Adelaide time and this is capture set 1
of hopefully many tonight.
Seeing is awesome ATM and this is Cent A with a large frame
count, my largest yet in good seeing.

Another first tonight, the scope was remote controlled using
Remote Desktop (previously I used VNC) over the existing
house-dome LAN.
With RD I was able to control the scope with a LX200 generic
emulator with ASCOM over serial to the DOS laptop running Bartels
Scope drive.
So it was all done from the warmth of the house.
Previously I used VNC and a handpad extension over fibre optic.

Steve

[MrB (Simon)]

The dust lane looks great.
Was your new wormwheel used at all for this shot?

[leinad (Dan)]

Great detail! Real nice Steve!

[Alchemy (Clive)]

some nice detail in the dust lanes.
could you expand some information on the laplacian sharpen and EP smooth, i noticed it on the image, how much what program etc

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Plenty of nice details there Steve, I like the shot!

Dave

[bloodhound31]

Although I much prefer colour images, RESPECT to you mate! The dust lane details are spectacular and amazing. Doesn't seem so far away does it?

Baz.

[AlexN]

Geez.. When you say Excellent seeing you're not kidding around are you mate!

Fantastic shot, ton of detail in that dust lane, perhaps the most detail I've seen from 5128 full stop!

Looks incredible.
Alex.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Steve,

As the others have already said that's an amazing amount of detail.

Peter

[spearo (Frank)]

very detailed
amazing what you get out of the DSI2
well done!
frank

[kinetic (Steve)]

Kind words, thanks people.

Originally Posted by MrB

Was your new wormwheel used at all for this shot?

On the DEC axis Simon. Very smooth corrections!
I love the way the clutch works, a refreshing change.
I hope I can have the same success on the RA.

Originally Posted by Alchemy

some nice detail in the dust lanes.
could you expand some information on the laplacian sharpen and EP smooth, i noticed it on the image, how much what program etc

Clive, Laplacian is a setting in Nebulosity.
Don't ask me where it sits in the suitability stakes or how it works.
When the seeing is above average, it just works.
Sometimes it survives even 2 successive iterations of it without too
many stars with halos.
Sometimes Registax V3/4 Wavelets work as well, but never better.
EP smooth is just Edge Preserving smooth (level1-3) in Paint Shop Pro.
Again, because my method is so rough as guts, I try what works best
on the night.
Sometimes median filter works better, sometimes EP smooth. It's
all variable according to how many frames I got and the seeing that
night....and how good the focus was.

HTH,

Steve

[Jen]

Beautiful pic there Steve
Yes the skies have been awsome here lately too

[Paul Haese]

Nice Steve, colour image would be nice, but this still is quite sharp. Pity the skies did not last until 4 am.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Very well done Steve,

Definitely your best effort to date, the seeing really is quite significant in all of this and no doubt relates to tighter star images and beautiful fine structure. You must be stoked with this result.

Your capture and control setup also sounds pretty smick.

Cheers
Trevor

[multiweb (Marc)]

Wow, that's sharp. Very nice for a Lum. Can't wait to see color added.

[kinetic (Steve)]

Thanks Marc ,Trev, Jen and Paul,

I tried the resize/blur/re-sharpen regime on
this set. It doesn't do too badly.
Looks good 10ft from the monitor

I don't think I will ever get seeing quite the same as
this night. I did an Eta Carina set about an hour later and
the focus was slightly off and spoiled it.
Oh well, another night!

Also attached, my first image of NGC6221.
At mag 9 I thought this would be easier than this
result, I've grabbed mag11 and 12 galaxies before with
better smoothness and detail. It's in a very bright
field of stars!.

Steve

[Hagar (Doug)]

Nice Steve another winner........ Colour, come on.