M97 & M108

[SamAndrew]

Captured these last week, still quite amazed how well these LRGB images are coming out for a Bortle 8 sky. Not ideal shooting with such a short focal length at this time of year; currently fighting the urge to get another newtonian, but the costs soon add up once you've added a coma corrector and motor focuser, and really I have my heart set on a big refractor.

My processing is improving, this one took two attempts as I didn't mask the stars the first time when doing High Dynamic Range Wavelet Transform which exaggerates the diffraction patterns caused by the ASI 1600 camera resulting in cross shaped stars. I wonder if the collimation could do with adjusting, looking at the stars in the corners, but maybe this is just the limit of the scope. Blue channel background is a bit uneven, attempted several background corrections but think this is just the result of light pollution and maybe more data would help.

Included the annotated image as the wide field of view has picked up a lot of small fuzzies.

Capture details

• L 4 hours 35mins
• R 50 mins
• G 1 hour
• B 1h 10m

5 minutes subs at gain 0

William Optics Star 71, AZEQ5, ZWO 1600mm

Thanks for looking, feedback welcome

Sam

 

[souls33k3r]

Awesome stuff mate. Gives me slight bit of confidence in trying to image galaxies from my Bortle 8 skies in East London now

[SamAndrew]

1 hour ago, souls33k3r said:

Awesome stuff mate. Gives me slight bit of confidence in trying to image galaxies from my Bortle 8 skies in East London now

Thanks, I think the key so far has been to get a lot of luminance data, would love a longer focal length scope; need to keep saving.

[Shibby]

Very nice one Sam - I love the wide field, but still plenty of detail in there too.

You didn't get on with the Quattro 10 then?

[SamAndrew]

Thanks - I was happy with the Quattro, but I ended up moving into London so sold most of my gear. I have since moved again and now have outside space, but wanted something more portable this time. Can get setup in 15 minutes with the Star71 as I can leave everything connected to the scope.

[sulaco]

That's a great image, a widefield that I wouldn't have thought of. Great amount of detail.

Campbell

[Barry-Wilson]

Great image Sam and not easy from busy urban skies ?.