My First M51 with Crab on the side

[badgers]

I'm in love with my HEQ5 Pro

Fixed a number of issues in the last week thanks to people on these forums.

• Dark frames are now sorted thanks to blocking light ingress into the scope.
  
• I also had persistent collimation issues due to my focuser tube not being aligned, so that's all rebuilt and collimation is absolutely spot on again.
  

Anyway, I took my first crack at M51 inspired by Rick's amazing shots there.

Any advice on the colours, processing ? I'm a total novice at this and still don't have the eye to judge colour balance.

100 minutes light (10min subs @ ISO 800)

15 Dark Frames

20 Flat Frames

PixInsight Processed, DBE, Color Calib, HDR Wavelets, Levels Curves and Highpass filter in photoshop.

I got something slightly different out of DSS followed by photoshop, not sure which is better. I have a feeling the one above is nicer.

Also had a crack at the Crab Nebula while waiting for M51 to clear houses.

All in all I'm really feeling like I'm making progress..

Big thanks to Rick and QM for more advice.

Any tips, pointers, ideas much appreciated!

[symesie04]

Yeah the top crop looks nicer to me as well. Crab is rather nice as well.

[cloudbuster]

nice shots Badgers...looks like your learning curve is a bit better than mine!

[Slim]

Two fantastic images there Badgers.

[badgers]

Thanks cloudbuster,

I'm doing data-analysis all day, image analysis is slightly different, but similar enough that I'm feeling comfortable with the processing side. Applying wavelet transforms to galaxies is much more fun than applying it to DNA sequences

M51 was almost directly overhead when I took the shots last night, it made guiding tricky, but was pretty clean for LP.

[Betelgeuse1079]

nice well done

[Quatermass]

Great job Badgers that crab nebula is oozing with detail as well. The HEQ5 is really pulling your heart strings mate and that m51 is cracking. Your leaping ahead like a astrophotographic Gazelle mate! Those ten minute subs really do the job and your mount is making a huge difference. Great stuff. It would be nice to see a picture of your set up now mate..

[starnut]

Very nice

[Gina]

Really great images - well done

[badgers]

Great job Badgers that crab nebula is oozing with detail as well. The HEQ5 is really pulling your heart strings mate and that m51 is cracking. Your leaping ahead like a astrophotographic Gazelle mate! Those ten minute subs really do the job and your mount is making a huge difference. Great stuff. It would be nice to see a picture of your set up now mate..

Thanks QM, I think the best thing about moving up a mount was that the EQ3-2 guiding problems I had were masking a lot of other issues in my setup. Dark frame issues and collimation woes were less obvious.

For example on the EQ3-2 all my stars looked godawful but now I can clearly see the effect of coma on the images.

I'd been skimping on Darks and Flats too as getting any kind of light data was painful. Last night was my first night using APT and I was really happy with it.

Anyway, maybe clear skies will permit me to get more data on M51, I'm well and truly hooked now!

I'll post a picture of my setup for comedy purposes tonight. If I'm lucky I might even get some of the feral chavs that wander past at 2am in the picture.

[Quatermass]

he he feral chavs..

look forward to the pic of your set up sounds like its solving lots of issues for you

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[Nathan_Pembs]

Amazing images, can't believe they were taken using the same OTA as me. Goes to show what a difference a decent mount makes!

I'd love to swap my EQ3-2 for the HEQ5 lol *pout*

What's the difference like weightwise, bit of a big lump I imagine?

[badgers]

I'd say its 7kg heavier without the counterweights, I'm a fairly big guy so it's not too much of an issue.

The EQ3-2 I could sling in the car fairly easily, the HEQ5... I'm not sure yet, it will certainly be more effort, but it should be manageable.

I'm glad I don't have a big scope now, I think I'll be sticking with my 150P for a while and possibly taking the small apo refractor route in the future instead of getting something like a 200 Quattro.

It was seeing Rick's M51, that got me off my butt last weekend to try and fix my scope and imaging issues, that was a cracking capture, and I was amazed it was on the 150P.

[JohnC64]

Cracking Images there Badgers Especially like the Crab Nebula.

John

[Jessun]

badgers that's cracking images! I'd experiment with combining the two M51 edits and then if need be run an SCNR on green if green still dominates. The top one looks a tad clipped and the bottom one also has better colours in the galaxy - in fact really good ones on my screen.

Perhaps just run an SCNR green on the PS one. I often jump back and forth between PS and PI.

On the crab try SCNR red, and then layer the two in PS if the nebula lost too much red in the process. Or inverse select the nebula and tweak levels in PS.

Regardless you have some great images there!

[badgers]

Great advice Jesper, thanks.

I'll have a play tonight and try out your suggestions.

[badgers]

QM, here's my setup currently, but without cables, camera and laptop.

Sadly this site is pretty central and surrounded by LP including 4 sodium lamps nearby.

Other pluses include the fact that I only have open skies between N and W, if its in the south or east, I can't view it

I have to plan my targets carefully : )

Other stuff:

DC Power Pack (Maplin) for mount 12V 5A

DC Power Pack for Canon EOS 12V 2A

GPUSB + Guide Cable into mount head

USB from Camera to laptop

USB from Finderguider to laptop.

Bahtinov that doubles as a cover for the primary mirror cell.

I don't bother connecting the mount to the computer as I'm happy with the SynScan handset. The new polar realign feature is fantastic.

My finder guider should be essentially identical to yours, I use the modern astronomy adapter though which is nice and secure.

The guidescope rings came from pulsar optical near Ely, they are lovely and solid.

[Sp@ce_d]

Hmmm 10 min subs with a DSLR

I'm impressed..

[RikM]

Very nicely done indeed

I prefer the colours in the second M51, but the background is still a bit noisy. I agree with Jesper that if you could combine the two images to get the best of both you would have something really special. I don't have pixinsight but it does have some very impressive features that are even more important if you suffer from light pollution (as I also do).

I love your M1. I have never managed to get anything approaching that with my unmodded camera, though I have not tried 10min subs on it.

Hats off for a great result. More please

[badgers]

Thanks Rik and Jesper for the advice,

I've blended them together to try and take the best of each treatment.

This is my current iteration, I think its an improvement. Really appreciating the help and advice here.

I think it takes quite some experience to get the eye for these things.

[badgers]

Bah, I think I've been a little clumsy with the blending around the hazy sections I'll keep cracking on.

Here's my adjustment of the red levels for the Crab.

[Chris]

Thats a great m51 and a stunning crab badgers, your 150P and HEQ5 pro looks like a great combo for imaging indeed:). Again very nice detail on the crab!