M81 and M82 (with a hint of IFN) from 'SSE'

[gnomus]

I am slowly getting things together for my dual rig.  Hopefully, St Williams of Optics will one day grant me an audience and deign to send me a second of his scopes (the 'offering' has certainly been made).  But there is enough to be getting on with, making sure the mount, computers and so on all work.  I thought I may as well point at something interesting whilst doing this, and it had been a while since I tried M81 and M82.    I managed to get 4 hours 10 minutes of Lum (which I was reasonably happy with).  I managed 1 hour each of Red and Green.  I would have had 1 hour of Blue too, if Sequence Generator Pro hadn't taken umbrage at the clock change last weekend.  So I only got 50 minutes of Blue.  I may try to double the integration on the colours at some point, but this will have to do for now.  I wondered if with 250 minutes Lum, I might be able to see some of that IFN stuff that everyone seems to get in their images.  I got a bit of it.  I did push it harder, but the image started to fall apart.  I hope this is a reasonable balance.

This is a WO Star 71 and a Moravian G2-8300 mounted on a Skywatecher EQ6-R (which, according to PHD2, is performing much better than I expected it to).

Only 7 hours total exposure through the WO Star 71.  I pinched some Ha from a larger scale mosaic I am trying with my Esprit 120.  That is 5 hours each over two panels.  So I suppose I should call it 12 hours total integration.

Oh - SSE?  I have been posting a few images from Deep Sky West, but this is from my home observatory which I have taken to calling 'Shallow Sky East'.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice indeed. There are very many faint fuzzies captured in that image

[gnomus]

Thank you Michael.

[Allinthehead]

Lovely steve. The ifn seems to add a nice depth to the image. I like the name of your observatory too.

[Mr Spock]

Excellent image. You are getting seriously good at this!

[gnomus]

7 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

.... I like the name of your observatory too.

The tagline is 'We Image At Least 5 Nights A Year'....

[Davey-T]

Nicely captured and processed Steve, been working on a similar image using the WO110FLT, managed 15 hours of various filters in about 2 months.

I have a pair of Star 71s now courtesy of Ian King but I'm in the process of making some aligning plates using as little material as possible to keep the weight down and save a bit of money but I think that ship has sailed 

Dave

[gnomus]

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Excellent image. You are getting seriously good at this!

Thanks Spock.  That is very kind of you.

2 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Nicely captured and processed Steve, been working on a similar image using the WO110FLT, managed 15 hours of various filters in about 2 months.

I have a pair of Star 71s now courtesy of Ian King but I'm in the process of making some aligning plates using as little material as possible to keep the weight down and save a bit of money but I think that ship has sailed 

Dave

I got one of those JTD saddles.  Everything seems to be working (with an ED80 in the other side for now).  The problem is supply of the second scope from Williams Optics.  Indeed, I am getting a liitle fed up with waiting.  I assume your new WO Star 71 is free of 'issues'.

[Davey-T]

2 minutes ago, gnomus said:

 

I got one of those JTD saddles.  Everything seems to be working (with an ED80 in the other side for now).  The problem is supply of the second scope from Williams Optics.  Indeed, I am getting a liitle fed up with waiting.  I assume your new WO Star 71 is free of 'issues'.

I've got the WO110FLT in the middle and a Star 71 each side with 2 cameras it all comes to just over 20 kilos, the 10Micron has 25 kilo imaging load and I'm trying to avoid reaching the maximum but it seems to handle it OK.

I've only used the new Star 71 without any filters to try it out as there was a bit of a wait for the Astrodons but the field looks nice and flat with the QSI683 which is all I'm planning to use on it ATM.

Dave

[Barry-Wilson]

Nicely processed Steve; arriving at a balance across the image lements when aiming to reveal the IFN is not straightforward.   You've managed this without sacrificing detail or a smooth background - well done.

[ollypenrice]

Yes, as Barry implies, this does not look like an 'IFN stunt.' It looks like M81/82 with IFN and Arp's Loop. (Let's not forget that cantankerous old diehard, Halton Arp. Science needs him.)

If that's shallow the CMB is drowning out my signal...

Olly

[RichLD]

Are you taking team membership submissions at SSE? 

Lovely!

[ultranova]

Love it, very well balanced across the board,

well done Steve.

Paul

[gnomus]

Thanks everyone for your kind words.  

3 hours ago, RichLD said:

Are you taking team membership submissions at SSE? 

Lovely!

Yes.  Just having my lawyer check the wording of the 60 page 'contract' one last time.

[tomato]

Very nice image Steve.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the IFN in the image is associated with our galaxy rather than M81/M82?

I can't say I'm a fan of IFN, there's enough terrestial cloud/dust/LP to deal with without the Milky Way adding a layer of obscuring dust between us and photogenic distant galaxies 

 

[gnomus]

Thank you.  And your understanding of IFN is the same as mine.  As to being a fan, well ...  I guess there's not a lot we can choose to do about it.

[Guest]

Very nice

 

[peter shah]

More than a hind I'd say...lovely  job

[gnomus]

Thank you Artem and Peter.

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice Steve, well balanced and controlled, the delicacy has worked really well on the galaxies as well and the IFN is present and correct (not overly pushed). Good work.

Paddy