My setup not up for the task?

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Hello.

I just wanted some feedback about one image i tried to take.

It's of M95.

Now I wonder if perhaps my setup aint enough to get better pictures. I do know that it is not a very good imaging setup.

I do have plans to upgrade it.

I can make out some very very basic structure of the galaxy, but wonder if that perhaps is my imagination or art?

This is 100 images of 8sec exposure (with flats, dark and bias stacked in DeepSky Stacker).

I tried with some Curves and Levels in PS.

The setup:

Scope: Nexstar 102 SLT

Camera: QHY5

Image: 100x8sec, 80best used with about 80% gain.

Do I simply need more shots, or is it impossible?

Oh and I take the pictures with quite some Light Pollution.

Will a CLS filter help some?

And out of curiosity, is that the supernova I captured,

Or something else?

Cheers!

[dishmop]

I think you're doing pretty well for what you have. I imagine that to get a better image you'd have to do longer exposures or have a bigger aperture.

I tried doing some imaging of this in my 200p with a DLSR and it's a relatively small and faint object compared to some of the other things I've been photographing recently. I took a 5 minute exposure to get the image below (2x drizzle in DSS), and as you can see even for that slightly better setup I'd need to tkae it to 10 minutes to get something a bit clearer.

[Advertise]

Thanks for the reply dishmop.

Then I feel there is some hope atleast.

I will try and see if 500-800 8 secs exposures will do any better.

Think there is any danger for the chip to do longer exposures than 8 secs btw?

Since it doesn't have any cooling I mean.

Cheers

[Advertise]

Just had to pick up my jaw from the floor.

I never even dreamed I would be able to take a picture like this.

This is just directly out from DSS (with some tweaks from DDS so I guess I can make better in PS).

Just the fact I was able to capture the arms made me jump high.

No to read some PS guides.

It is 100x8sec with darks, flats and bias.

[ollypenrice]

I haven't tried a QHY5 but the exposure times are very short. I'm using 15 minute subs on this at F5.8.

Olly

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Hi Olly.

The qhy5 has no cooling at all.

So I think longer subs will just introduce alot of noise.

Would be fun to try with a longer exposure thou.

[dishmop]

There's a few articles out there about doing custom cooling on a QHY5 by using a block of aluminum on the back of the chip, stuck on with some coolant paste. Not sure how lucky you feel about trying that

[Advertise]

Ahh did not know that.

When I have explored the camera some more I will sure try that.

[dishmop]

Tried Orion or M81 yet?

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I have tried M42. Got Trapezium and I did kinda split the 4 central stars.

They blur together some but you can see it is different stars atleast.

Also got some gas around them but not much else.

Orion is abit low nowdays when it gets dark, and the city lights messes up quite abit that low. But next time I´m at the local "observatory" I´m giving it another crack with a CLS filter. See if that helps.

I have some of M81, but my mount dont like me when I go for targets that high on the sky. So the tracking was horrible

But gonna see what I can get from it.

I have about 400 shots of M94 aswell, but have some problem stacking them since DSS only can't find any stars

[Mark72]

Even if you take 1000 subs (10 times more) you be only 3 times better.

Why 8 secs? The scope should be able to track in Alt/Az for 20-30 seconds if the target is not high.