Yet another M63 Sunflower Galaxy

[AnakChan]

It seem M63 is a popular galaxy for April!  Here's what I managed to capture on 21-22nd April. Details are as follows :-

 

Takahashi µ250CRS (@ 2500mm F/10)

CentralDS Astro A7S cooled to about -5C (ambient was 14C)

93 light subs of 2 mins each @ ISO2000

113 Bias (built use SuperBias)

97 Darks

100 Flats 

Processed via PixInsight 1.8.5 and Photoshop CC

The first time I processed with ABE, I had lots of background noise. I re-processed without ABE and it seemed to have looked better.

 

[Ben the Ignorant]

Wow! The advantage of a large-diameter astrograph shows! The nucleus is nearly as fine as a star.

[ChrisEll]

That's jolly nice.

[simmo39]

V nice.

[ollypenrice]

The core is really excellent. Stunning resolution.

I'm not convinced by your flats though. The image looks vignetted and you have a dust bunny round a star low down and just left of centre. If you could sort this out you'd be able to go after the faint outer tidal structures.

Olly

[AnakChan]

Thanks for the complements folks. I'm still learning heaps about digital AP and I'm very much a rookie trial 'n error-ing.

Yeah there's something weird about my flats. Actually my flats weren't taken in the same session as the light session. I take my light sub out in the field and I took the flats like 9 hrs later after coming back home so camera orientation was probably off, etc. I'd probably need to spin off a separate thread once I've worked out how to formulate my questions in a structured way. I have so many questions :D.

[whatablanker]

I always do my flats as soon as I've got the scope focused. It uses the time up until it gets properly dark. Love the detail. It beats mine hands down. 

[AnakChan]

The reason why I do my flats (and actually my bias & darks too) at home is that my friends & I normally have to get out quick before sunrise & before the golfers start rocking up ;). We do our astronomy work in the golf course car park about 100km from home. The golf course (conveniently named Cosmo Classic Golf Club!?) has electric fencing around their fairways to prevent wild boars from coming).  Everytime we go, it’s exciting :). If it’s not wild boars, it’ll be owls or flying foxes scaring us.

[ChrisEll]

One thing I learnt in the past 18 months of doing AP is don't mess with flats... get them wrong and the whole session is compromised. They only take a few minutes to do so it's false economy to cut corners there!