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M106 and surrounding galaxies

antimorris

By antimorris
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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antimorris

antimorris

Posted
Posted

I finally got a clear last night (1st I have had since the beginning of Feb that wasn't a full moon) and with my new custom-built computer up and finally running I got to give it its first run at astroimaging and had a nice session last night attempting M106. Galaxies are not my strong suit so plan on doing a bunch this spring/summer as the clear skies allow so I can improve on them.

I need to grab some more color data to bring out the color some more and definitely more Ha to pull out the jets more but it started clouding over tonight about an hour ago so went ahead and processed what I had and quite happy with how it turned out for the time being. I might so a full night on Ha with much longer subs as I really want to bring out those jets more than I got with the amount of data I currently have.

I still need to do a little more processing work on what I have but will probably wait until I grab the extra Ha to roll in.

Imaging Scope: Orion EON80ED

Imaging Camera: Atik 314L+

Guide Camera: StarlightXpress Lodestar

Integration details:

Lum: 24x600s, bin1

Ha: 6x900s, bin1

R,G,B: 6x600s (each), bin2

Larger version: Enterprise Astronomy & Photography | M106 and friends

post-24627-133877749962_thumb.jpg

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antimorris

antimorris

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Thats fab Anna! I'm stacking M106 as I type, it won't look as professional as yours though:D

Seems to be a popular target at the moment. I didn't realize that when I was imaging it as I have been so busy I haven't been on the forums lately. After I posted I have been seeing several others. I look forward to seeing yours!

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swag72

swag72

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Interesting to see your exposure details on this one Anna. I too have been working on M106, and have a total of over 14.5 hours of RGB data, but it's poor in comparison to yours. Very purple for some reason!

Yours is lovely and I am very interested in your star colour. Do you use a bunch of seperate exposures to maintain this? I'd have nothing but white stars if I exposed for 600s RGB.

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antimorris

antimorris

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Sara -

Well the star color was a PITA. As you can see on the brighter stars they were nearly overexposed and I had to spread the color from the edges throughout the star in post, for the fainter stars it was fine. I also had to do a lot of layering as I stretched the image so I wouldn't overdo the stars. Thats why I really need a few more hours in RGB on shorter subs as I want better star color throughout.

Unfortunately I am not supposed to get another clear night this next week so it might be a while until I can work on this again.

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Absolutely superb and from a small telescope. Great acheivement. I'm knocked out by the Ha jets which I stuggled to pull out with longer exposure. This really is an example of getting the best out of your imaging gear.

Low bow!

Olly

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antimorris

antimorris

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Thanks Olly - I actually tried a new trick which helped me pull them out. I combined the Ha & Lum (as normal) but then I converted the greyscale image to RGB and then back to B&W via Image Adjustments>Black&White. Using this I was able to increase the Red on the B&W conversion which helped bring out core detail and the jets (just barely, but still there) ... still playing with this technique but it shows some promise with this image. I also then threw it through a plug-in I have which I can selecting increase Fine Structure and did that on the galaxies.

I am thinking I might need to throw the Atik on the CPC800 in Ha with long subs to get any more jet detail and depth - I might have completely taxed out the 80mm on this one.

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