Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b89429c566825f6ab32bcafbada449c9.jpg

M63-The sunflower


Epicycle

Recommended Posts

Hi,

here is my rendition on the popular (and rightly so!) sunflower. I used most of the clear nights on April and May so far

on this one. In the end I collected nearly 9 hours, but I've made a ruthless selection of subs and the stack consists

of 57x5m subs.

Image details:

-8in Newtonian @F6

-Modded Canon 1100

-Image acquisition and stacking in Nebulosity

-Processed with StarTools

-HEQ5 driven by EqMac and guided by SXCostar and PhD.

All the above done natively on Mac.

I'm pleased with the detail in the core, but looking around at other images, I guess I still have a way to go...

cheers

Epicycle

post-25876-0-88656600-1368134117_thumb.j

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent work - all that time has paid off :) You need plenty of data with any camera but particularly with a DSLR (though I think the 1100D is the best of the bunch for astro) and that's exactly what you've done :) Great stuff :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I tell you now E, thats one of the best M63 images i've seen taken with a dslr. the sunflower is one of the most difficult messier galaxies to image and process. so very well done indeed!

Wow, thanks! I've seen a couple in Astrobin with dslr which are really amazing. I guess what it seems to be really tricky with a dslr is to capture the faint bits of nebulosity around the galaxy, or more precisely

to extract that from the noise that a dslr generates,

E.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gotta post again... this is such a fantastic image.. just noticed the star to the right with the diffraction spikes give such a 3D perspective. And the galaxy itself.. there's a whole world in there. Sooo good. sorry for the spam :grin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Beautiful M63 E, I'm jealous. How do you get such sharp focus?

I focus first with the Canon LiveView and then I try to sharpen it a bit using Nebulosity's fine focus routine. Keep in the mind I discarded

nearly 1/2 of the subs I took, only the sharpest ones made it to the stack.

Gotta post again... this is such a fantastic image.. just noticed the star to the right with the diffraction spikes give such a 3D perspective. And the galaxy itself.. there's a whole world in there. Sooo good. sorry for the spam :grin:

Thanks Davo! I'm very glad you like it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lovely. Very tasteful processing of the galaxy, and nice natural looking colours.

I agree with wouterdhoye about the background. There's some vignetting visible which is part of the problem I think. Did you take any flats?

If not, it looks pretty easy to remove anyway :smiley:

Cheers

Rob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

Great image. Splendid detail. Only remark I'd have is that the background is slightly too dark.

Thanks for sharing.

Wouter.

Thanks! Yes, I agree, the background is a bit too dark, I was just trying to hide various imperfections in it...

That's very nice Epicycle - well done. Great detail in the arms...

Thanks Ian!

Lovely. Very tasteful processing of the galaxy, and nice natural looking colours.

I agree with wouterdhoye about the background. There's some vignetting visible which is part of the problem I think. Did you take any flats?

If not, it looks pretty easy to remove anyway :smiley:

Cheers

Rob

Thanks Rob! Yes I did take flats, but the sensor of my canon seems to have some "character": lately it produces a very annoying horizontal dark line cutting across the middle of the frame and bright stars tend to have dark vertical lines coming out of them (negative blooming) so I make the background a little dark to hide these...The large sensor makes vignetting hard to deal with even with flats, but I confess I take my flats using a T-shirt so they might not be perfectly evenly illuminated,

cheers

Epicycle

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is an awesome image with a dslr .

I like you have been using Startools but even with that i stilll really strugle to get much detail out of Galaxys , they always look so small on a dslr chip.

You have done a fantastic job in processing Well done too you.

Nick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.