M27 A bad image but a successful night!

[Interested]

The end result is pretty rubbish and focus is not too good (to busy concentrating on some of the things I mention below).....but, It is in Colour.

A successful night in many ways .

1. First time I have used a mono camera (and 1st time I have used this camera) so getting an image was a good result.

2. First attempt at guiding using the finderscope & QHY5 with PHD (normally use my ST

80). Guiding wasn't to brilliant though as the mount was sharing the power supply (battery pack) with the Atik and didn't like it (lights on mount continually flickering).

3. First time using a filter wheel (and manual at that!).

4. First time using the ED80 (bought at same time as the Atik).

5. Managed to produce a colour image!!

Exposure: 3x5 minutes in L, R, G & B

Minimal processing as yet - WYSIWYG

Just practise, practise, practise now I think!

Special thanks to: MartinB for the LRGB Imaging Primer, AndyUK for advice and support, and to Olly for declaring "If I only had one camera, it would be mono".

[AndyUK]

Hi Pete - For so many first's, that's brilliant!!!

[Telrad]

Hi Pete - For so many first's, that's brilliant!!!

I agree with Andy. That's a good first attempt Pete. Well done! Thanks for sharing

[gbealnz]

Agreed, great shot, first or otherwise.

[Interested]

Thank you all for the words of encouragement. I have processed a little more to take some of the brightness out of the core, but wanted to post it 'as taken'. I will keep a copy of the image as taken so that I can measure future progress.

I must tell you that when I did 5 second looped exposures to focus, all I was getting was a grainy image and the Bahtinov Mask didn't show the expected clean lines to improve focus!

I selected 5 minutes exposures to see what I would get and was suprised to see a clean image against a dark sky - especially as I live in a very light polluted area.

Off to buy a new battery pack from Halford's now so the mount and camera don't have to compete for electricity!

Regards to you all,

[MartinB]

Well done on your first LRGB Pete. The colour looks good with a bit of red showing at the fringes.