Busy Night! Galaxy's, nebula's and clusters.

[cuivenion]

Got setup for about 2am last night, beautifully clear sky, not a cloud in the sky so I took full advantage. All images were taken with an Altair GPCAM and a Skywatcher 130p reflector. Software was Sharpcap using the live stacking function.

Horsehead Nebula, 13 x 1 minutes. I had to stretch the image in sharpcap a lot to get this to show hence the noise, but I'm glad I've finally seen it for myself.

Flame Nebula, 5 x 1 minute, again stretching to bring out detail has made the noise more noticible.

Running Man Nebula, 6 x 1 minute. Same again with the noise.

Cigar Galaxy 23 x 1 minute, I admit I left this running while I had a brew inside. I needed to warm up!

Bodes Galaxy, 8 x 1 minutes.

M53, 7 x 30s

M3, 8 x 30s.

Noise is obviously an issue with the fainter targets and while darks help they aren't temperature matched, so they can introduce problems as well. I'll have to try out the fan cooler for this cam or maybe peltier cooling it. While there's a lot wrong with the image it was great to see the Horsehead emerge out of the darkness! Advice and criticism welcome as usual.

[Martin Meredith]

Nice collection of varied and difficult objects. My first HH was really noisy too but it was the urge to see it for the first time that drove me on:

Did you take fresh darks at the start of the session? I always do and I think it helps. Sometimes I top them up during the session if the temperature changes. Nowadays I mainly use a mono camera which has far fewer hot pixels.

Martin  

 

 

[cuivenion]

8 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

Nice collection of varied and difficult objects. My first HH was really noisy too but it was the urge to see it for the first time that drove me on:

Did you take fresh darks at the start of the session? I always do and I think it helps. Sometimes I top them up during the session if the temperature changes. Nowadays I mainly use a mono camera which has far fewer hot pixels.

Martin  

 

 

Thanks Martin, fresh darks sounds like a good idea.

[2STAR]

15 hours ago, cuivenion said:

Got setup for about 2am last night, beautifully clear sky, not a cloud in the sky so I took full advantage. All images were taken with an Altair GPCAM and a Skywatcher 130p reflector. Software was Sharpcap using the live stacking function.

Horsehead Nebula, 13 x 1 minutes. I had to stretch the image in sharpcap a lot to get this to show hence the noise, but I'm glad I've finally seen it for myself.

Flame Nebula, 5 x 1 minute, again stretching to bring out detail has made the noise more noticible.

Running Man Nebula, 6 x 1 minute. Same again with the noise.

Cigar Galaxy 23 x 1 minute, I admit I left this running while I had a brew inside. I needed to warm up!

Bodes Galaxy, 8 x 1 minutes.

M53, 7 x 30s

M3, 8 x 30s.

Noise is obviously an issue with the fainter targets and while darks help they aren't temperature matched, so they can introduce problems as well. I'll have to try out the fan cooler for this cam or maybe peltier cooling it. While there's a lot wrong with the image it was great to see the Horsehead emerge out of the darkness! Advice and criticism welcome as usual.

It looks like you were busy, like you said regarding the Horsehead, at least you have seen and captured it, never mind the Noise etc, well done

[cuivenion]

Thanks 2star!

[Ain Soph Aur]

Great start! You caught Nessie, er the Horsehead, with 130mm scope. It is all over now  

[cuivenion]

Thanks Ain!