M101, Feb 18-19

[cathalferris]

So, here's my rough processing of this morning's imaging of M101. My intent was to see that supernova before it faded too far, as I got no chance to see it visually since it happened.

64 x 1 min subs, with darks, flats, and bias frames. All through IRIS, with a little curve manipulation in Paint.Net. All unguided on the LXD-75 which I found out does not work well for 2 minute subs Subs are orange - no LPR filter yet either.

I've cropped the field, as the corners are quite badly distorted as I'm not using a field flattener.

It's a really rough processing that I've done at this point. I'm sure I'll get a better image with some better processing, but that's for another stage.

[robin-m]

For unguided I think you can be justifiably proud of this image. When I first bought my telescope I knew that I would eventually be drawn to imaging which is why I chose the frac and tried to future proof a little with the choice of mount. As soon as I started to get into the hobby I realised that to achieve the images I wanted to ( and I'm nowhere near that level yet! ). I would have to get into guiding hence the setup I have now. I'm now trying to decide what my next steps should be. I have a little budget available which I'm either going to put towards a mono CCD and filter wheel staying with the ED80 or go for greater Aperture with something like the Celestron edge 8" and stick with the EOS. I can't justify both at this stage ( and I'd never get it past the wife anyway ). Knowing me I'll probably do neither, save the pennies and drool over ads for Takahashi....