M13 with planetary camera

[jimao22]

Hi,

Is quite a long time I did not post here, because the lack of time. Fortunately I still have some time to continue my astrophoto hobby, by expanding the range of interest in solar astrophotography. Anyway, this is not the reason I am here, to Deep-sky astrophoto section.

I sold my CCD camera a while ago (an ATIK 314 mono), having in mind to buy a new and better camera, not very far from now. So, I am a bit "unemployed" from this point of view and I try to exercise new techniques for deep-sky acquisition images. I have a planetary ASI 174 MM cmos camera, which is a quite good camera for planets, Moon and Sun and I sow some guys making a very good job with this camera to deep-sky targets. One of them is the creator of Autostakkert, Emil Kreeikamp. 

So I did my first test on this kind of targets with this camera on M13, few nights ago. The result is a stack of 115 (10 seconds exposure) images  from a total of 150, calibrated with dark and bias. Acquisitions and calibration was made with MaximDL, some noise reduction and automatic background extraction with Pixinsight.

The result seems to be very crisp and a small galaxy pop-up in the left side of the cluster. The astrometry made with astrometry.net show us that is IC 4617. 

The result is quite nice and I think a regulated cooled camera of this kind could bring even more data. 

[Craney]

Excellent shot.  This  field of view scale opens up a lot of possibilities for smaller DSO's  ( galaxies and planetarys) that would remain very small with a 200mm F.L and DSLR at prime.

What scope did you use ?   ... and did you use a 'Live-stack'  or collect the subs and process later.

 

Sean.

[jimao22]

The scope is the MN from my signature. I didn't use live stack ( I didn't know you can do this - how can you stack "live" frames ? ) - I just shot frame by frame, no guiding at all for 10 sec - and then use the old fashion way to process deep-sky images.

[Rodd]

Great job!  I have this camera and have tried this technique though to much inferior results.  It is very promising.  I was afraid to go over 10 sec because the camera is not cooled.  I think if you double your subs it would improve the image.  The camera is very sensitive. 

Rodd

[jimao22]

Thank you! The idea in this kind of acquisitions is to have a bigger number of subs with shorter exposure time. This will lower the FWHM and the roundness of the stars, giving a better result against the bad seeing. At least these are my thoughts... Till now seems to be ok.

[Merlin66]

Hmmmm

the FWHM doesn't change with exposure. 

[Stub Mandrel]

I am tempted to try my ASI120MC on galaxies, of course the challenge is finding the target...

[wimvb]

22 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I am tempted to try my ASI120MC on galaxies, of course the challenge is finding the target...

Ngc 9646 gets nicely framed in this camera.

(Are we hijacking this thread? Sorry.)

[stepping beyond]

I got my asi174MM cooled in Jan. , it's a very capable do it all camera that has given me the opportunity to explore even more with my modest po'mans imaging kit. That's a well done Glob.

[jimao22]

Thanks for all comments here! I didn't feel like been "hijacked" .

Anyway, this week-end I will be on the top of the mountains with my tent and I will try to capture some new deep-sky objects. Because my motorized mount is on the pillar in my observatory, I will grab a non motorized alt-az mount and in this case, I should bring the exposures to a minimum. I will see how it will work. Hope to have a good weather.