M33 Triangulum

[discardedastro]

OK, so this suffered from a light leak (see this thread) but is actually a set of frames I've processed twice - before and after reading Insight PixInsight (the first chunk of it at least). That thread has my "before" - this is the "after"!

• Scope: Skywatcher 200PDS
• Mount: Skywatcher EQ-6R Pro
• Imaging: ZWO ASI183MM-PRO at -10c, ZWO EFW, Baader LRGB filters
• Guiding: Primaluce 60mm guidescope on ADM dovetail and brackets, ZWO ASI120MC-S
• Focusing: Eyeballing it, with quick reference via a Bahtinov. Autofocuser is in for the next capture...
• Capture: Sequence Generator Pro and PHD2 for the guiding
• Processing: PixInsight: normal process for cal/integration (all manual), crop, dynamic background extraction, deconvolution, channel recombination, background neutralisation, photometric colour correction, SCNR, multiscale linear transform denoising, histograms tweaked, LRGBCombination, curvecorrection, TGVDenoise.

Working with not a lot of exposure time - 12 minutes luminance, and 15 minutes each for R/G/B as 120s and 300s exposures respectively. I've only had a few clear nights (as is law) since I got the ASI183MM but it's been outstanding so far. Clearly amp glow makes long exposures tricky but the sensitivity means that really long exposures tend not to be the way to go anyway!

[x6gas]

Nice effort, especially with a relatively small amount of data.  I found M33 to be a difficult target to process so think you've done well here.

[rickwayne]

Man, I hear you about the amp glow on the 183. Just got mine, was only able to shoot a few subs. Looked at the result in KStars FITS viewer and almost fell off the porch. Who's been setting off fireworks next to the Horsehead Nebula?!! Really nice Triangulum, here.

[discardedastro]

5 hours ago, rickwayne said:

Man, I hear you about the amp glow on the 183. Just got mine, was only able to shoot a few subs. Looked at the result in KStars FITS viewer and almost fell off the porch. Who's been setting off fireworks next to the Horsehead Nebula?!! Really nice Triangulum, here. 

Thanks! It does calibrate out - it does mean your dark frame calibration has to be absolutely spot on, though. I've heard of people struggling with PI's dark frame optimisation routines and the 183 glow. Conversely, the detail you can get out of a single frame is fantastic!