A few from 17/01

[Thalestris24]

Managed to grab a few images in the early hours of the 17th with the minicam5s and F4.8 80mm. Usual live stacking with SharpCap Pro. Unfortunately I some how managed to live stack with the wrong darks which messed the stacks up . Fortunately was able to remove errant hot pixels with the despeckle tool in Gimp :). I did get some subs of the snowglobe cluster (ngc 5466) but decided they were too underexposed to use. Insufficient data is the bane of my life! Did another Needle Galaxy, M3 and had a go at the coma galaxy cluster.

Coma Cluster - 3 x 6 x60s:

M3 - 5 x 21 x 15s:

Needle Galaxy mk2 - 6 x 21 x 15s:

The 'orrid gradient is from the nearby streetlight - I wish it would go away!

 

Since phd2 dithering has been very recently implemented in Sharpcap, I may try it out next time  I'm also going to see if running the camera colder makes any difference. Up to now I've had it at -18 deg but maybe I could try -25 and see if it helps with noise/hot pixels. I'll have to make the darks first!

Louise

[Davey-T]

Well done Louise, I think you deserve a medal for astro' imaging against adversity 

Dave

[Thalestris24]

1 minute ago, Davey-T said:

Well done Louise, I think you deserve a medal for astro' imaging against adversity 

Dave

Thanks, Dave - I try! If only I could get 2 or 3 clear nights on the trot! At least I'd be able to get more data!

Louise

[Dave Lloyd]

Love that shot of ngc4565. 

[Thalestris24]

5 minutes ago, Dave Lloyd said:

Love that shot of ngc4565. 

Nice of you to say so! All the images are a bit fuzzy - I thinki a combination of sky quality, relatively low target alt,  lack of aperture and maybe focus is slightly off! It's always hard to get good focus here - and to keep it.

Louse

[RobertI]

Nice needle!

[Thalestris24]

2 hours ago, RobertI said:

Nice needle!

Hi Robert

Thanks! I'd like to bag some other galaxies and maybe even some nebulae but the signal/noise here is terrible! I've thought of getting a different camera such as the 183 but (apart from the expense) I'm not sure that it would help much. I' think I'll try and get more/better data with the Minicam5s.

Louise