M33 Triangulum galaxy

[Tommohawk]

So last night I did the astro hokey-cokey dodging the showers .... "you put your telescope in, your telescope out, in out in out ...." 

Frustrating cos I got all nice polar aligned and then had to clear it all away, and then it was all going nicely until 11.45 and then more rain. Forecast was for a shower then clear til morning but I was done in by then. Packed up in a rush and didn't put the cap on before bringing the scope in so tons of condensation on the primary - bit of a pain.

On the plus side though I'd made some tweaks to the dovetail to fix cone error and the pointing seems heaps better - maybe a fluke. Also, critically, guiding worked properly again after  a disastrous session last time out.

Finally lashed out on a coma corrector so went for a biggish target - M33 - which I hadn't tried before. Pretty pleased with the outcome but hope to add some more data. Still not 100% sure about the processing, maybe overdid it a bit.

9 x 8 minute subs, IOS 800, master dark, new flats, master bias. HEQ5, 200PDS, EOS 550D with SW Coma corrector. DSS and Paint.Net. Reduced to 8 bit PNG file.

Hope you like it.

[gonzostar]

Wow thats an amazing image. Astro hokey- cokey nan be fun   

[Tommohawk]

Wow thats an amazing image. Astro hokey- cokey nan be fun   

Thanks! Quite a good work out too.

[Scooot]

That's great Tom. The coma corrector looks like it's done a good job

[ChrisLX200]

That's a very nice result Tom, the core is well controlled and if you lose the red bias it will look even better!

ChrisH

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice indeed.

[Tommohawk]

Thanks all!

Re. the red bias I cant see that - partly because my colour vision is rubbish - but  did align in DSS first. That said I stretched it to blazes afterwards in Paint.net, and I cant see any easy way of aligning channels with this. I tried importing it back into DSS but it wouldnt - not sure why.

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[GeoffB]

Wow thats brilliant, I just wish I was back in the rural west country for darker skies.

[Tommohawk]

Wow thats brilliant, I just wish I was back in the rural west country for darker skies.

Thanks. Yes, between the showers the sky was as good as I've ever seen it. Not sure when the next gap in the clouds will occur though!