M81/M82 from Light polluted skies

[Paxo]

After the demise of my Meade DSI II last night just before attempting some imaging of Saturn, I turned my eye to galaxy photographing from my very heavily light polluted area. Images taken with a Canon 40D, 10 subs at 30 seconds each unguided (5 dark frames used). Scope used was a William Optics FLT110 at prime focus. I placed an Astronimik EOS-clip CLS filter in place to avoid 'excessively orange skies'. Images taken at iso1600 speed.

Reasonably happy with what I got (unguided and all that) images a little noisy (not helped by iso speed setting), considering it is totally impossible to eyeball galaxies (saw M31 once in binos) from my back garden, it went reasonably well. Next step is to replace the guide camera and get more (and longer) subs with guiding.

Comments most welcome.

Steve..

Edit..I must look at the monitor calibration thread as the image looks much better on my monitor.....

[jgs001]

Nice one Steve, that's come out well

[Whippy]

Considering that's only 5 mins of exposure, that looks good t'me Steve . I know what you mean about trying to visually observe galaxies which is probably why that's all I'm pretty much imaging atm .

Tony..

[RobH]

Pretty good for 5 minutes Steve

What happened to your DSI2?

Mine died on me last year, I'd bought it in the US so no guarantee over here, gave it to a mate of mine who's a yank and lives in Oregon, he sent it to Meade but didn't use recorded delivery and now it's vanished completely!!

Some you win, most you lose

Cheers

Rob

[MikeD]

That's gone pritty deep for 30 sec's, nice work.

Mike.

[Keagle]

Nice image Steve!

[Paxo]

What happened to your DSI2?

I'm not sure what's wrong - I took to Kielder and it failed to reach an image at all on a setup that I've used many times successfully before. Looks like we will have a few clear spells this evening so it's time to take apart, have a look and get it working again.

Steve..

[CELESCOPE]

nice Steve , for sucha short exposure time , like m82 thats really good ,

Cheers

Rog

[barkis]

That is a nicely framed shot of that popular pair Steve. They sit nicely in that wide field.

A grand result from so little exposure.

Ron.

[brendant]

Great colour in M82 for such a short exposure.

The 40D appears to be a very capable camera capable of producing great results. Try ISO800 with 90 sec subs to reduce the noise and increase the signal. The CLS filter helps greatly with the light pollution, processing of galaxies with bad light pollution is always a problem.

Great result Steve

Brendan

[Cloudwatcher]

Like that one very much indeed!

I have the same scope but my DSLR is only a standard 350D,do you think I might get a similar result once there is a clear sky,whenever that may be.

Cheers

CW

[Sam]

That very fine indeed! Plenty of detail showing through - the colour in M82 looks great - well done!