Bubble and Spiral - Icy Images

[cygnusx1]

I picked out M101 as a perfect scale fit for my C9.25 and 350D combo as well as its breathtaking appearance, and wanted an improvement on my recent 1st attempt at the Bubble. Braving sub zero icy temps but irresistably beckoned by crystal clear skies a few nights back I set to work on producing my 1st autoguided exposures of over an hour. I now know my previous images quality have been severely affected by the short subs necessitated by my mounts limited unguided tracking ability and tedious manual operation of the remote camera lead.

I now had the camera remotely setup to DSLR Focus for sequence shots via a camera to serial cable, GPINT to mount for autoguiding via PHD, and Logi 4000 web connected to the ED80 guide scope.

After some tests which seemed to last for ever, I finally got it all working nicely, and shot some 1.5 hrs worth of data of both DSOs with subs of between 3 and 5 mins. I would have pushed past 300s but the 3/4 full Moon was wreaking havoc and I was pleasantly surprised to get reasonable signal even with the use of my trusty Neodymium LP filter.

Needless to say, both scopes frosted up continually, dew was the order of the night,and the wife's hair dryer was never far from reach.

Stuffed like a tramp with an odd assortment of warm clothing, copious amounts of coffee, I peered at the laptop screen and inspected the images as they came through.

Sadly I couldn't detect much as the Moon had washed out most of 5 min subs, so in all honesty I wasn't really expecting any sort of decent result through stacking and processing later.

I ended up spending a good 8 hrs outside in toto, nothing unusual for me, being of the doggedly persistance and stubborn sort.

I finally packed it up at about 6am, but never got to bed until 11am that morning. Crazy stuff, i know.

So, here's the result, after losing a precious 30mins of data due to forgetting to set the format to RAW on the DSLR!!

Even though the images are noisy, I was really amazed at the detail that appeared as I pulled the levels and curves in PS after stacking in DSS.

Enthused with the results of my latest efforts, I'm now determined to go deeper and longer and capture more of those mystical objects i've long yearned to.

C9.25 with f/6.3 F/R, LP filter, modded 350D

M101 : 1 hr 14 mins @ 800/1600, 1 flat, 180/300s subs, cropped

(click to enlarge)

NGC7635 : 57 mins @ 800/1600, 240/300s subs, cropped

(click to enlarge)

[dogfish]

Hi Kev

Very nice. That M101 is a belter. Looks like your stubborness persistence paid off.

Cheers, Martin

[steppenwolf]

Kevin, you have been busy!

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Superb Kevin, great results.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[RobH]

Good work Kevin,

M101 is a cracker

Patience and persistence are the way to go....you won't get something for nothing and there's something very Zen about sitting out all night in the quiet under the stars

The bubble would benefit from the application of a flat, you'd bring out a lot more detail then and would be able to push the processing more I think.

Cheers

Rob

[LostNSpace]

Nice job again Kevin....All the effort is really starting to pay off for you now.....

Keep up the good work

Mark

[jgs001]

Nice images Kevin

[LaVey]

thats a pucka picture of m101...

[Sam]

Great stuff Kevin - they're both excellent. The clumpy bits in the spiral arms look very detailed.

[cygnusx1]

Thanks for your positive comments folks, at least some very hard work is finally paying off.

I think i'm getting the hang of what is required, well i'm beginning to see the light so to speak

[NickH]

Keep em coming, that 101 is going to be very good indeed!