M51 Altair GPCAM

[cuivenion]

I took this while waiting for Saturn and Mars to come into view on Tuesday morning. I took 100 lights of 15s exposure and 36 darks all stacked and processed in DSS and a little histogram stretching and saturation processing in Registax. 

This was a test shot just to see if it was worth using this camera for dso's. Considering the Moon is nearly full and my tracking speed was set to lunar I'm quite happy with this. I'll definitely be doing some more deep space with this cam.

It was taken with a Skywatcher 200p on an AstroEQ driven EQ5. I used a 0.5 focal reducer.

[PeterCPC]

I like your approach. I have been starting to use my ASI224MC for DSOs - it can be done with short exposure imaging and no guiding required.

Peter

[cuivenion]

Thanks Peter, I think I saw your post, did you image M51 as well?

[PeterCPC]

Yes I had a go at M51 but it was just a test really and nowhere near enough exposures.

Peter

[cuivenion]

Same here, I'll have to have a proper run at it with a 1000 subs.

[PeterCPC]

Wow. 1000 subs. I was going to try maybe 500 and see how that comes out. It'll have to wait now due to the lighter evenings and never ending poor seeing.

Peter

[cuivenion]

We'll see how many I can get in one night, after thinking about it a thousand might be a little optimistic lol.

[cuivenion]

Had a play with the processing and also added 200 bias frames. I'm only using DSS and Registax at the moment. I'll have to find some processing software I can get on with: