M104 and M51 from last night

[fwm891]

Good night last night here in north Devon. Because of low cloud in the S-SE I started the night on M51 with the hope of getting some LRG&B data.

M51 RG&B all 10x120s subs

M51 5x500s, 20x240s and 5x180s lumin subs

Then moved over to M104 as I hadn't seen this object for years

M104 11x240s Lumin subs - will go back to this later (at a more reasonable hour!)

Processing for both is a mix of AA5 (stacking and initial processing) with tweaks in PS3 and bringing together the LRGB data (needs more time on the lumin data blend)

Equipment as sig.

[Mark72]

Nice M104 Francis,

May be just some work on gradient in the right side.

M51 shows great details but may be colour is a bit to the blue in the centre.

Mark

[Daniel-K]

theres a lot of data in m51 but waht happened with the colour? m104 looks fab good stars and great detail in the dust lanes with the core showing good job on that one

[Martin-Devon]

Nice pair Francis, the M104 shot especially. Check out the alignment of your LRGB on the M51 since some of the larger stars seem half red and half blue - I do like the colour processing you've done though on the galaxy, so often you see M51 oversaturated to enhance the colours but I think your subtle touches have worked a treat here.

[Martin-Devon]

I should add Francis that you did better than me last night - following the Met and BBC websites promising a clear night in my area of Devon I set everything up, framed my target (Simeis 147) and then cloud rolled in (~8.00pm); I waited & waited but the cloud would not clear, so by 11.00pm (and with feet like blocks of ice!) I just had to pack it all away again.....

[Tom OD]

Lovely M104. That must be low from Devon!

[Gina]

Yes, nice images Francis Like Martin said, we had that cloud you mentioned It was clear for a while and I was all set up, just got AT working and thought I was on my target when all the stars disappeared! I too waited up until 11pm waiting for the clouds to go away and then gave up but at I was fortunate not to be out in the freezing cold all that time. I was awake at 1:30am this morning and looked out to see a perfectly clear sky with bright clear stars!! Being overpoweringly frustrated by the weather, I got dressed and tried to make use of the rare clear sky. But the object I was set up on earlier had set and I had a problem finding and getting set up on another. I went for M101 but it's a faint target and I couldn't get AstroTortilla to solve my short exposures - I need more experience with AT - this is only the second try for real, the clouds stopped the first one. I tried my other method of traget finding, using the 1100D DSLR as finder but it needed a minute's exposure at ISO 6400 to see the galaxy and extremely tedious (reason for trying AT). I even toyed with the idea of getting a CCD camera for the finder as I posted elsewhere on SGL. DSLRs are very difficuly with our current weather even at f4

I'm looking forward to getting AT going properly as it should enable me to get the target into my 314L+ frame in just a couple of minutes. After the amazing sensitivity of the Atik 314L+ I'm finding a DSLR very poor even for a finder camera. I predict that with the way my thinking is going I shall be selling off my modified 1100D cameras and hopefully recoup some of my outlay on DSLR experiments and emodifications.

[fwm891]

Thanks ALL,

I've spent a good part of the day trying to balance out the different channels to get a more reasonable colour (whatever that is!) The green channel has given me most problems as it appears to be stronger that the other two.

Anyway here's my second attempt at this process...

Bigger file sorry!

Pulled out more of the outer parts but the colour's a bit hit-n-miss

Tom: It's not too bad, after M104 I had a look at M4 having never seen that before. With clear skies here my horizon is about 2°-3° looking due south

[Gina]

I've found the green channel tends to be too much too and stretch the green data less than the red and blue. I find adjusting the green curve separately can be helpful too. It often needs toning down at particular levels.