Charles Messier's first 'original' discovery...

[Tim]

...was apparently not M1 as you might think, but globular cluster M3.

This cluster contains around half a million stars, is further away from us than the centre of the galaxy, and is about 200 ly in diameter.

I took this sequence the other night with my Skywatcher Quattro 10" F4 newtonian and QHY8 camera. Sub length was 15 minutes, a total of 20 captured. Flats hurriedly grabbed a couple of days later in less than ideal conditions and it shows Star shapes were not great either as I had to dismantle the camera and filters to remove a dew spot and putting them back properly in the dark proved tricky, I must grow an extra hand or two

This is a cropped image, for the full frame and full size versions please see my Flickr site.

Thanks for looking.

Tim

[Deneb]

Looks very sharp does it not, but their's something missing from the image, maybe it looks a bit tad green in the background or something is missing, but can't put my finger on it...

[Tim]

Maybe, it looks ok on here, but i'll run it though PI's SCNR to remove the green.

EDIT: Yes I think you were right Nadeem, cheers for that. As usual looking at something for too long

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice shot of one of my favourite visual objects. Like the colours in the stars.

[Spikey]

Nicely captured and processed Tim. Is your QHY8 OSC or mono ?

[peter shah]

super shot tim:cool:

[Tim]

Nicely captured and processed Tim. Is your QHY8 OSC or mono ?

Thanks.

It is one of the original type OSC's. I dont use it much at home because it is tricky to find a good RGB target on rare moonless nights. This M3 was taken with a 3/4 moon and a light hazy sky. I find narrowband imaging much more rewarding really, but the OSC does make for quick and easy processing, or at least it would if there wasn't such a bad LP gradient round here

[Darth Takahashi]

That's very nice and a good history lesson as well.

[ollypenrice]

Very nicely done, Tim. You have the confidence not to over sharpen and over saturate. The star colours are many and varied and all the better for being understated, I think. We're not photographing Las Vegas, after all.

Olly