First attempt on M57

[cjdawson]

Hey all.

Thought I'd post up my attempt at M57 that I shot last night.  This is with my all new guiding setup, so was more about checking my equipment was working properly than trying to get a fantastic image, that said.  Here's my attempt at M57 from light polluted West Yorkshire sky's.

Here's the details of the image.

Taken at my LX-90 8" SCT, with a Meade F6.6 focal reducer, Canon 70D at prime focus. (Using a flip mirror)

Auto guided imaging using my Skywatcher Synguider II attached to my ST80, mounted on top of the LX-90 by the AE Parrellel rail system and 5" rings.  The Synguider is plugged into my #909 APM.

The autoguider was pointing at Vega for guiding purposes.

The scope was polar aligned, but it wasn't perfect the autostar alignment told me it was off by 6'^ and 42'< Not terrible, but could be better.  I did not drift align.

The focusing was done by eye using my flip mirror.  I did not use my Batinov mask - need to remember to do that next time.

The image itself is made up as follows.

42 Light frames 3 min exposure at ISO 800.

20 Dark frames 

20 Dark Bias frames - 8000th of a second exposure

20 Flat frames, EL panel for flat field, camera set to AV mode still ISO 800.

20 Dark flat frames - 8000th of second exposure pointed at the EL panel.

The images were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker, saved as a 16bit TIFF

Then I did a levels and curves adjustment in Photoshop CC 2015 and cropped to 800x600 pixels.

The sky conditions were were stable, but there was a thin layer of cloud.

[cjdawson]

Just had another go a doing the photoshop processed.  Decided to be let brutal about the amount of adjustment to the levels and curves.  Did a couple of passes, reducing the light end of the levels by 1/2, then applying a subtle S curve.   After that did an auto contrast and auto colour just to see what happened and here's the result.

How did I get that from light polluted urban sky?

[xtreemchaos]

great first go mate, i like it,well done.  thanks for sharing  charl.

[MarsG76]

cool smoke ring... definitely a great pic, especially being your first go at it.

[laudropb]

Nice first attempt.

[cjdawson]

Thanks all

[MikeODay]

Nice capture - I prefer the colours in the second image. Thanks for sharing.

[wxsatuser]

Just had another go a doing the photoshop processed.  Decided to be let brutal about the amount of adjustment to the levels and curves.  Did a couple of passes, reducing the light end of the levels by 1/2, then applying a subtle S curve.   After that did an auto contrast and auto colour just to see what happened and here's the result.

M57 Processed.png

How did I get that from light polluted urban sky?

Looks ok

If you have'nt got one, get an Astronomik CLS clip filter and it will work wonders on the orange stuff plus you will get longer exposures.

[cjdawson]

Looks ok

If you have'nt got one, get an Astronomik CLS clip filter and it will work wonders on the orange stuff plus you will get longer exposures.

I've already blown my budget on kit this year. Time to start saving my pennies again.

[DanL]

I have the Astronomik CLS clip and it is worth every single penny. Really helps to clean up the light pollution. Relatively cheap compared to a lot of astro kit so just buy one asap. You'll be amazed at the difference!

Not that I'm a great expert, but focus does looks a bit soft too. My other favourite bit of kit is the Bhatinov mask for focusing Get one of those at the same time as the clip filter  . Both of those items really help me to get better images that I otherwise would.

[cjdawson]

Hi DanL I have a batinov mask, didn't use it when I focuses for the image as I forgot that night. The main point was to see if my new SynGuider was working correctly, that and the new power project that I'd just finished. Everything is working great, so I'll be spending more effort on image quality now. The cls is now on my wish list.

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