2nd ever DSO image with a slight smile on my face

[radioactive]

Well what a strange night I had lots of little tasks to do before I could even have a crack at taking a pic of my second ever dso. I had to realign the right angled finder and set up the sentinel mounting again silly me forgot I had taken it out of its rings to try tighten it up some so for my imaging 2 attempt was always going to be a star cluster. I did not like the way the C11 had been giving me grief lately so after trying without success to get any reasonable image to come using it I kicked it onto the sidelines so as to speak I decided to use the Antares Sentinal 80mm to do the imaging. I was also going to use the new ATK16 on there but I never got round to taking it out of its Pelicase so I carried on using the Atik16IC mono I thought as I have now spent maybe 20 hours trying to focus this thing. I would have a better chance at it tonight good grief I nearly lost it! But after some deep breathing and a walk round with the two dogs I thought I would try again, surprise surprise I started to click with what's going on I realised I needed an extender so I made one up by temp butchering my 4ximagemate and yes I got focus on a mid bright star I noticed tonight my 3 star alignment was a little rushed, and was not quite as good as I would have liked it but thought it will surfice so onto finding a cluster I tried one or two or was it three? before I went in for the kill the quarry became good old M13 in the end. and although I say it myself I did not do a bad job on my 2nd ever DSO I stacked 10 images of 5 seconds and processed a bit all in maxim then another 8 at 7 seconds then 10 of 9 seconds exposures again stacked and processed a bit using maxim had a play here so see what you like best,all in all it pleased me

My opinion is "not bad" what do you think? please be honest and give any tips you can please folks

[blinky]

Looks excellent to me for only your 2nd DSO! My next target is either M3 or M13 as I have not imaged a glob yet, if it turns out as good as yours I will be happy

[beamish]

I'm glad you ended up having a good night Martyn, cleared very nicely didn't it ? You had a better night than I, fraught with silly little things just upsetting the flow

Karlo

[Beyond_Vision]

Coming along fine. This is a good target to practice on, you can get an idea how things are going to turn out relatively quickly. Then you can adjust focus or exposure to get the core resolved.

Regards

Kevin

[LostNSpace]

Very nice GC Martyn.....you should be smiling from ear to ear with that one.....a very satisfying nights work for you......

Keep em coming

Mark

[MartinB]

Excellent Martyn. Did you find it exciting as you brought it into focus and the stars started to burst onto the screen? That moment had me hooked on DSO imaging forever. Looks like you have the focus spot on.

[radioactive]

Yes I certainly did in fact it was a form of huge relief that quickly followed martin i suddenly felt that the penny had finally dropped prior to that I was thinking I will "never" get this imaging lark to work using ccd astro cams so I had several emotions surface very close to each other but it brought on a smile to my face and I definitely slept a whole lot better that night was good too

I suppose next time out will be dreadful now I have let on ehehehe

[zhgutas]

ah... the lovely M13 the point where (i think) everyone should start from nice image here mate.

Marius

[Sam]

That's come out really well! Must be quite tricky getting it in focus and balancing the exposure to get enough detail of the core of the cluster.

[RobH]

Well done Martyn...good to see you up and running now....keep 'em coming

Cheers

Rob

[CELESCOPE]

excellent start Martyn , that was my second DSO as well and about the same i produced, focus pretty good ,now its all in the processing , well done mate

Rog

[centroid]

A very encouraging result Martyn, you are now well and truly underway.

A Rog says, get practicing on that processing, and you'll find that you've captured even more detail than you thought.

Globulars aren't the easiest of objects to process, and you've made a great start.

Keep em coming.

Dave

[radioactive]

Hey guys many thanks indeed for the encouraging remarks I am itching to start getting some more under my belt I have this other issue to resolve that's an in focus problem the way I am trying to use the C11 once I have that sorted (cure pending?) Then I can start to get my teeth into it a bit more!