Yet another M101 from SGL7

[Uranium235]

Time to take my turn in the long queue for M101 @ SGL7! This was from my first nights imaging, quite a few had already packed up by 1am due to the high, misty cloud. But all of a sudden, it cleared and those who were still awake were treated to a sky full of stars, well worth staying up for!

The filter wheel was loaded with only the L,R and B filters at the time (the other two were Ha/OIII) so I decided to go for synth green. Wish I hadnt binned it though because it ruined the star colour a bit.

But, all was not lost - I had a luminence layer good enough to use a high pass filter on (blend as overlay), and surprisingly M101 responded quite well to it. There is enough time left to get this colour unbinned, except this time I will have LP to battle with... booo!

Oh, a big thanks to RobH for lending me his (rather large) EL panel for the flats on this one. I was sure I packed mine.... best laid plans ey?

M101

L(22x450), R+B(10x240 2x2bin) synth green

ED80 (0.85x), Atik 314L+, CG5 GT

Thanks for looking

Rob

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great image. Not an easy object to image

[Anweniel]

Looks Great, is the reddish core a result of the loaded filters?

You get a nice feel for depth in the picture well worth staying up in the wee hours for

[Uranium235]

Looks Great, is the reddish core a result of the loaded filters?

You get a nice feel for depth in the picture well worth staying up in the wee hours for

I think the hint of redness may be something to do with a colour imbalance, changeable conditions and binning, if I were to do a proper RGB run unbinned it should (hopefully) fix the colour.

[Quatermass]

Cracking image soon as mr blobbys gone I will have another go at this one as well.

[Gina]

Lovely one

[Jessun]

Very very nice I think! Some really faint outer stuff caught there too!

[starnut]

That's beautiful well done

[Shibby]

Very nice Rob! I wouldn't even attempt M101!

Yeah I remember, the sky was fantastic early hours that night, well worth staying up for!

[Spikey]

I like that Rob, nice and detailed. I got some of my L data from M101 from that Friday as well. I'm tempted to go back to it and just stack the data from when the sky was clear to see if it makes any difference.

[Uranium235]

Thanks everyone i would have done the replacement rgb this weekend, but the freakish weather seems to have put a stop to any more photon gathering for the forseeable future. Its difficult to believe that only 10 days ago i was waking up in a boiling hot tent and staying in the shade to avoid sunburn!

Lewis, i seem to have finally given in to the smartphone fad, my ancient nokia died last weekend so i was forced into an upgrade. Now got the Galaxy Ace, not bad for just 115 quid

[Shibby]

Lewis, i seem to have finally given in to the smartphone fad

Hah hah! You won't look back! I hope you've downloaded Astro Panel

[RobH]

Great result Rob...tricky target too, even with those skies.

LP won't be a problem for adding star colour, just ditch the background and add the stars as a colour layer.

You have the honour of being the last person to use my EL panel.....I saw a mention somewhere on the forum that you could use a dimmer with them....I tried...it died

Cheers

Rob

[Uranium235]

cheers Rob, sorry to hear about your el panel, its probably goimg to cost a few quid to get another that size next time you get the urge to mod, its probably wise to question whether you really need to do it at all, especially if your camera has no shutter... Doh!

Lewis, will look for astro panel on android market a bit later, gotta pop out to fech some easter eggs for the littlle man before they run out

[RikM]

Lovely M101 Rob. Mine came out a bit pink in the middle as well. Well done for staying up in the small hours.

[RobH]

cheers Rob, sorry to hear about your el panel, its probably goimg to cost a few quid to get another that size next time you get the urge to mod, its probably wise to question whether you really need to do it at all, especially if your camera has no shutter... Doh!

It does have a shutter, hence the attempt to dim it (without the usual trick of using sheets of paper).

Apparently Ian King is going to start supplying a range of EL panels that can be dimmed which will be really useful.

However, silver linings, clouds and all that.....George mentioned 'skyflats assistant' which I tried the other night....superb!

Rob

[Uranium235]

Ahhh, i thought you had your 16hr with you i didnt notice your camera for that ap900! It might have been easier to buy a cheap variable voltage power supply, or get a bench supply with a variable output on one set of terminals. Anyway, good to see youve found a workaround

Lewis, got astro panel now - great app! The only thing that isnt quite right on my phone is that one of the buttons is covering up the longditude reading, screen not big enough or user error?

[Uranium235]

On Thurdsay night I managed to get out and grab some unbinned colour (despite the full moon), which has improved the stars quite a bit. Still synth green though, Im still yet to get that.

I did also take some Ha, but didnt bother adding it becuase it hardly made any difference to the overall result (it just introduced noise). Anyway, the colour seems to be a lot better now and M101 has lost its red tinge.