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Leo Triplet made me a happy bunny!

Quatermass

By Quatermass
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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Well after freezing out side for several hours imaging M101 and getting nowhere then turning my telescope on the Leo Triplets and grabbing a few messed up subs I returned again last night for a second attempt. I took 60 subs at 1.20 seconds each ISO 800 no darks or flats or bias as I had already done them and saved them as masters the night before. However, today as I went through the subs from last night I was gutted to find that only 13 of them were usable. Only 13!! every other one the stars were just slightly out not much but enough to miff me off. Any way..

I was not going to give up despite not being able to guide yet so I stacked just the 13 good subs. I was gob smacked to see what I could get out of just 13 good subs.

This was the final result and despite not having the guiding set up yet and despite getting only a lousy 13 subs out of 60 I am very pleased with the final image.:D

Leo%252520triplets%252520finished%252520image.jpg

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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Thank you John, I cant wait to get the auto guider working though its going to make a big difference to the amount of subs I currently have to bin and there is no point in spending all that time out there if you have to chuck out your subs all the time. I am just glad to get a decent image of these galaxy's they are fascinating to see and the SLR camera picks them out much better then my eyes can, must be old age.

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Chris

Chris

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WOW! amazing stuff, lovely sharp stars and galaxies, do you use a Bahtinov mask? and I love the single star at the top getting in on the act with its diffraction spikes :) I sympathise with the chucking out of frames, I guess our mounts arn't really meant for imaging, imagine when you're stacking 60 frames with some 5 min subs :D..

Bravo:icon_salut:

Chris :)

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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Cheers Chris, I did use the Bahtinov mask but the tracking was rotten this time sometimes it can go for nearly 3 minutes with out a star being blurred by movement sometimes like last night its a total pig. When I get the dual axis kit it will be interesting to see how well I can guide with it. Stan is getting good results with his dual axis kit and there pretty much the same, although the skywatcher 200p is a much bigger scope then Stans. It was also a very dark sky last night and ideal conditions which does make a big difference to the final images. I tried really hard to get the focus as perfect as I could last night and it payed off on the few subs that didn't blur with movement but imagine if all of those 60 were pin sharp and I could have guided sharp 5 minute subs that would be wonderful. Still, its interesting seeing what you can get with limited gear.

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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Here,s another one with a little bit more noise reduction using noise reduction and the inverted layers mask method. See my Photoshop tutorials on my blog for this very handy for getting rid of noise. May not look like much but it does on my pc screen loses some of it in the URL link.

Leo%252520triplets%252520finished%252520image.jpg

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pixueto

pixueto

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That’s really impressive quartermass!

I’ve been taking subs like mad for the last three days (for the first time!). My targets were M31, Pleiades and Flame/Horsehead nebula. Now I only need to learn to process them!!! I’ll be reading your tutorial on Photoshop during the next days

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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Thanks Martin thats 1 minute and 20 seconds each I have been able to go longer with my unguided set up but its pushing my luck sometimes. Oh what a joy it will be to do longer shots. I have been doing without a guided set up for over a year now all of my pictures are unguided so far but the caravan is being sold this week so good bye caravan hello guided set up. Hoorah for that.

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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Well that was frustrating to say the least. Spent ages out tonight trying to get one sub that was not out sorts I think its time to dismantle my mount and give it a good service tomorrow.Sigh..Oh well at least I got my Leo Triplets.

Was trying get NGC 2903 found it and was all set to go but every sub was a throw out. One step forward 2 steps back. Thinking seriously about going the full hog and getting the HEQ5 now mmm what else can I sell...

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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cheers spiky mine lacks the lovely detail that yours has captured with a guided system. I just could not get a decent sub last night and so today im going to dismantle the mount and give it a good old greasing. now selling my caravan chainsaw camera and fishing gear to fund this obsession oh dear oh dear :D

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

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Spikey

Spikey

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cheers spiky mine lacks the lovely detail that yours has captured with a guided system. I just could not get a decent sub last night and so today im going to dismantle the mount and give it a good old greasing. now selling my caravan chainsaw camera and fishing gear to fund this obsession oh dear oh dear :D

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

I know the feeling ! I think you'll be well away with guiding, it certainly makes a big difference. I'm just about to take some baby steps into CCD imaging and while doing thst the Canon can come off and I'll mod it myself.

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Spikey

Spikey

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The biggest danger will be me snapping something by tugging on the connectors too hard. It's only a removal of one of the filters it'll take longer to dismantle and put it back together again. Famous last words or what !

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Spikey

Spikey

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Modding a Canon, your a brave man, me i don't know whats the best way to aim in the future, buy a modded Canon 600D of go the CCD route...

Boils down to dosh I suppose - modded 600D..£550ish?

Decent CCD plus filter wheel plus filters £1.5 - 2K ?

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