M51: its no Olly P but at least its mine :D

[Anweniel]

Can't seem to get much more improvement on this despite a few processing attempts

15 x 10 mins lights

22 x darks

51 x flats

Scope: Megrez 90

Mount: CG5GT

Camera: Unmodded Canon 1000D

And a couple of other crops:

As always any comments or suggestions greatly appreciated

Barry.

[Gina]

Nice

[Anweniel]

Thanks Gina

[stellawolf]

Not bad at all well done

[SJJ]

Looks really nice especially the wide field.

[Anweniel]

Thanks Stellawolf and SJJ

Yes I prefer wider field as it gives some (although false) sense of perspective, however the uncropped version is suffering some odd artifact to the right of the galaxy that I believe is to do with some reflection of sodium lighting :/

[Coco]

Looks like one of Ollie's early attempts

Keep going...

[Anweniel]

Lol thanks Coco, I guess we all got to start somewhere.

This does exhibit progress for me though so must be travelling the path down the right route albeit slowly!

[ian_bird]

Nice. 10 minute subs on a CG5GT? I had one - that's going some! Sweet.

Cheers

Ian

[Anweniel]

Thanks Ian, the CG5 is capable well beyond 10 minutes with guiding. My limitation is really with LP and how good my PA is on the day!

[Quatermass]

Having had several cracks at this one I think your focus may be a little bit out as I had the same kind of results at first then using backyard eos got my focus much sharper and that really zipped up those dust lines. Still a great image though

Sent from my Scroll Plus using Tapatalk 2

[Anweniel]

Thanks Mark, I think you are absolutely right about the focus. Going to start doing this on APT as i check the liveview normally when using the bahtinov mask.

[ollypenrice]

If you have the seeing I'd use FWHM over a Bahtinov. If the seeing isn't good, or at long FL, the Bahtinov wins.

You have a slight trailing right-left which is costing a little resolution.

I know it's all money but Dynamic Background Extraction in Pixinsight would flatten that background sky perfectly. I think Gradient Xterminator would nail it as well. It's close already but could be improved. The background sky can be the hardest part of a picture to get right. The flashy stuff often looks after itself.

This is not as good as my first M51. It's better!

Olly

[Anweniel]

Thanks Olly

Good advice is worth its weight, I find the bahtinov helpful but so far my only real experience in tuning my focus. The liveview is pretty small as I'm sure you are well aware and even zooming in on the image is, in hindsight, not good enough. I shall try your suggestion next time the clouds disappear as I am imaging at FL ~ 600mm (with reducer ~500mm)

As you say there is a lot to improve on and there is not really any aspect that I truly believe I have nailed so everything can and should be improved upon.

Had previously put the slight trail down to the ineffective flattening but the framing was pretty close on this session so I'll take your point there. Guiding and PA definitely need the biggest improvement in all honesty.

Looked at Pixinsight and yeah... maybe when I have a little more to invest it in it - a lot cheaper than CS6 was though!

Barry

[cardconvict]

sorry but how good is backyard eos, sorry for going off topic

[Gina]

That's very nice

[andyo]

Nice image Barry

[Anweniel]

Thankyou andyo