First image of M57

[trevboyd]

Finally, some clear nights at last!

I had a go last night at imaging M57 (first ever attempt at a DSO). The image below is a stack of 5 frames totalling 46s (a combination of 8s and 10s exposures at ISO-400) from a Canon 350D at prime focus on a Skywatcher Evostar 120 refractor. I stacked the images in Deep Sky Stacker using the default settings.

(click to enlarge)

Any comments/suggestions are very welcome!

I'm fairly pleased with it for a first attempt. I have to keep the exposures relatively short because I don't have a motor drive yet (on the shopping list!) and so I'm tracking by hand - I have a lot of shots with long trailing stars in them...

I remember a thread a while ago with some people's settings for DSS, but I can't seem to find it again - does anyone know where it is? Or what settings do other people use?

Now I just need some way to increase the focal length to make things bigger....

I can see this becoming a time-consuming hobby!

Thanks!

Trev

[anthony]

Cracking start for such short exposures.

Also manual tracking! - doff my hat to you sir

Anthony

[CELESCOPE]

Splended image that Trev.manual guiding as well , what can i say , excellent first image , and yes , very time consuming ,and more so very very expensive , or it can be .

Rog

[centroid]

A nice result Trevor. Small but perfectly formed, as the saying goes.

Congratulations on the manual guiding, 10 out of 10 for effort on that one.

Dave

[MikeD]

Great result, and kudos for the manual guiding.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

That's amazing for a first image, even more so for hand driven as well. Well done Trev., I hope you are as happy with it as you should be.

One question for the imagers as well though, there appear to be three identical "formations" of what I first took to be hot pixels, two blue (top centre and lower right) and a red one (top centre/left). The similarity in shape can't be coincidence surely? And it can't be hot pixels as the patteren is the same colour in two places and a different colour elsewhere. Any ideas guys?

Kaptain Klevtsov

[jonifive]

Great Image, especially for manual tracking.

JV

[centroid]

They certainly have the appearance of 'hot pixels' KK, but the repeated pattern does seem to contradict that.

Perhaps Trevor could have a look at the indivudual 'subs', and see if its apparent in them before 'stacking' ??

Dave

[proflight2000]

I took a wide view of the same area the other night, http://stargazrs.com/proflight2000/image/1165_large.jpeg I have some hot pixels in mine but not in the same fashion, this picture was made from a raw image. I know I have some dust bunnys which im trying to sort, maybe a comparison may help. Due to the comparison of the two, could it have been a slight hand movement placed the red pixles in another place for a split second causing them to show again in another place, just wondering if the photo was put through a paint programme and something in there forced a colour change????. Love the picture though trev, i did my first real effort the other night of the same area and i was chuffed i even saw the ring.

[FLO]

Nice one Trevor 8)

[trevboyd]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone! I'm very chuffed!

As far as the red and blue pixels go, I have seen very similar artifacts before on other long exposure images. I assume they are 3 hot pixels. Each pattern has 5 dots in it, and the image is made from a stack of 5 subs. I don't have the subs with me at the moment (new laptop) so I can't check. I remember that M57 was drifting right in the sequence of subs, so I guess when DSS stacked them, it must have offset each sub in turn, which would produce this kind of effect with a hot pixel.

I'll check the originals this evening to confirm.

Thanks again for the compliments! Hopefully one day I'll be able to produce really really great images like the others I've seen posted on this forum... I'm going to try to image some larger targets next so that they take up more space on the frame.

Trev

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Thats solved it then if there were 5 subs. I didn't realise that the registration was so far off between frames, but it would be given that the mount was driven manually, wouldn't it.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[trevboyd]

Yeah, there were gaps between each frame as I was looking at the photos on the camera to guage how accurate my tracking was, so everything drifted left to right.

Trev

[jcm]

Excellent start, Trev.

I will have to practice this "new" technique of manual guiding

You did well to get them to stack given the frame differences

John