geoflewis

Ok, goodnight

Is the elongation in the same direction all over the image?

Hmmm, that's definitely a head scratcher. How long are the individual exposures?

Yes, that's not what I'd expect from the guiding stats. What scope are you using and are you guiding via a guide scope, or OAG?

It looks pretty good to me. RMS is well below 1” with RA and DEC pretty even so hopefully you should be getting round stars.

Lovely report of a fine observing session Paul.

Yes Miguel, I prefer the lighter background and less saturated colours. The detail is still there when viewing under zoom, so it was definitely worth reprocessing

I thought I'd give London a bit of a lift...... 🙄

Thanks Helen, great fun playing with this on what is a gloomy slow day 😁

An amazing image Emil, the depth is astounding - it looks like a portal to another universe out of Dr Who.....

Having a slow day today as the weather outside has turned, so catching up on recently posted images and this one is a gem.

Cracking image Rodd, the crop worked very well off that 5", but I do prefer the wider field view; it just looks more natural to me.

Superb

Good to see that you are making progress and I agree with @Erling G-P you should put a cover over the viewfinder to eliminate, or at least reduce the risk of light leaking in through there. What did the images from this latest session look like?

Well done Steve, that really shows what is possible. I haven't done any imaging the last few nights due to the Moon, so maybe I've missed a trick.....

Here is the last of several Messier galaxies that I captured over the past couple of weeks, Messier 98. The data was captured with my QSIwsg-5 through my C14+Optec telecompressor lens. Total integration was 6 hours comprising L=18x10m, RGB=12x5m each. As well as M98 itself, NGC4186 (top left corner), several PGC and other faint galaxies are also visible. Thanks for looking, feedback, comments, etc., are welcome.

Thanks Donal, there are so many interesting targets up there and some of the Messier targets aren't particularly photogenic, especially these elliptical galaxies. However, M60 also being part of Arp 116 is worth a look, even though I didn't know that until I checked it out for my Messier collection 🙂. Cheers, Geof

Had excellent views tonight with my 22x85 binos, which made up for me missing out last night.

Thanks Rodd, I generally go for a soft approach with my processing, so am glad that you like it. I have an ongoing issue with my flats that I haven't been able to resolve, so I had to work harder than I'd like on some parts of the image - in fact not just this image. I think the problem is to do with the Optec lens producing a circular artefact which mainly affects the red and green flats, but after shooting various different flat settings without any improvement, I've decided to live with it and just capture some images.

I've looked out several times this evening, but could only see Venus through the clouds. Decided to process some image data instead of waiting outside for a clear spell, so with Venus now setting it looks like I've missed out on this event 🙁

...nor did I until I set about to image it..... 🤫

Continuing to work through the Messier galaxy data that I captured recently, here is a look at elliptical galaxy M60, which when paired together with the adjacent spiral galaxy NGC4647 is known as Arp 116. As with the other images this was captured with my QSI583 camera paired with the C14 and Optec telecompressor lens. L=12x10m, RGB=10x5m each. Thanks for looking.

Hi Donal, good to see that you found a solution. I converted to SER, which runs in AS3! but the SER file size was ~240m..... So I stacked 50% and a quick wavelets in Registax... Like you said, lots of edge artefacts, but definitely promising. I haven't uploaded the SER as probably too big, especially as you found another method

Hi Donal, can you post the DSLR movie and I'll see if I can convert it using ImagesPlus - it's been several years since I did that, so no promises, but I'm happy to give it a try....

Great comparison Donal and as you say really no contest - lucky imaging will win every time. FWIW I have previously process DSLR video using my ImagesPlus software which has a convert MOV to SER option. If you google search 'convert MOV to SER' I think you'll find several options, some online some to download, but I haven't used any of them so can make any recommendation. Good luck.