Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565) with ED80 and D5300

[Xiga]

Hi guys

I'm breaking the cardinal rule here of posting late at night, right after finishing PP, so let's see what sense the dawn brings! ? 

I shot this in the early hrs of 29th of March. There was no moon present (i think!) and conditions were pretty good, AFAIK. 

This is 28 x 360s, so about 2.75 hrs in total. Taken as usual with the D5300, IDAS-D1, and SW 80ED. 

APP used for stacking and gradient reduction, everything else done in PS. 

Would have liked twice, or 3 times, the data, but it's just not happening, so i've just decided to process what i've got. 

Thanks for looking, and all CC welcome as always ?

[Tim]

Great result!

[James]

That’s lovely  

[souls33k3r]

Who needs a dedicated astro camera when you're able to produce such amazing results using DSLR

[Star101]

Very nice Xiga.

[Jarvo]

Fabulous image. This is now my next target.

 

[Allinthehead]

Looks great in a widefield image. Ed 80, dslr and less than 3 hours integration! Hats off. 

[Xiga]

15 hours ago, Tim said:

Great result!

 

12 hours ago, James said:

That’s lovely  

 

12 hours ago, Star101 said:

Very nice Xiga.

Thanks Tim, James and Star101 ? 

12 hours ago, souls33k3r said:

Who needs a dedicated astro camera when you're able to produce such amazing results using DSLR

Well i wouldn't say No to one! ? All joking aside, a dedicated astro camera is on the cards at some point, but not for a while yet. Lots of life stuff happening in the next 12+ months so imaging will have to take a back seat for a while. When it picks up again, i'll think about upgrading then. 

10 hours ago, Jarvo said:

Fabulous image. This is now my next target.

 

Thanks Jarvo. It's a great target alright, plenty going on in widefield too. Look forward to seeing your version. 

10 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Looks great in a widefield image. Ed 80, dslr and less than 3 hours integration! Hats off. 

Thanks Richard! 

The low integration time was all my own fault. This was actually an image that nearly never happened. I had spent the best part of 2-3 hrs earlier in the evening trying to plan a big 50+ panel mosaic of the milky way (using the 135mm lens), but when i drove home to get started, i wimped out when i saw just how low on the horizon it was going to be (and plus there was a streetlight in the worst place possible). So i quickly threw together a sequence for this and just got what i could until the clouds came. So i could have easily doubled the exposure time had i not faffed around with the 'pie-in-the-sky' MW idea earlier on! ? When it came to PP, the low integration time really showed itself in the sky background. Had to use more NR than i am normally comfortable with, and even then i still left some noise in there, as i don't like using too much. It was the one part of the image that worried me the most. I flip-flopped on it a few times before finally making a decision, so hopefully it looks alright! 

[tooth_dr]

There isnt anything wasted in this image Ciaran!  The detail in the dust lanes is phenomenal and the blue tones are coming through really nice.  Although the background has been smoothed/NRd, it works well and in fact I'm quite envious.  Well done on a superb image.

[Xiga]

49 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

There isnt anything wasted in this image Ciaran!  The detail in the dust lanes is phenomenal and the blue tones are coming through really nice.  Although the background has been smoothed/NRd, it works well and in fact I'm quite envious.  Well done on a superb image.

Thanks Adam, you're too kind. 

I was pleased myself with how the dust lanes came out. I think the small pixels of the D5300 really help here. I also think that my image scale musty be pretty close to optimal for my skies & guiding. My imaging scale is 1.54", and my typical guiding is in the 0.7-0.8" range, so about half the imaging scale, which i've heard is what one should aim for. Now, at some point in the future i would love to get a 183 sensor and a bigger refractor (100ED or 120ED) and go after some of these smaller galaxies. The only question mark i would have would be how the guiding performance would impact on an imaging scale of 0.95". 

I spent a lot of time on the colour for this one i must say. I didn't use a DDP stretched image at all on this occasion, i did it all manually in PS. I used the arcsinh-stretching routine, which really made the colour pop big time. Which meant i only had to do a small amount of saturation later on. I don't know if you use it yourself, but i recommend you give the Star Colour Calibration tool in APP a run through. It can make a huge difference to bringing out colour in your images. And if that doesn't work (always good to have a backup plan), then try Rogelio Bernal's neat (and free!) PS plugin called WhiteCal.

http://www.deepskycolors.com/archivo/2010/05/26/photoshop-Plug-in-Whitecal.html

It sets the white balance of an image, and it can work quite well for a galaxy image. I can't quite recall if i used it on this one or not, but it's very easy to test it out. Just select the galaxy with the lasso or quick selection tool, then run the plugin on a colour layer. Afterwards, rebalance the colour layers (to give a neutral grey in the sky background again) and then proceed to saturate the image (i like the Jay Gabany method). After a few iterations, you should see a marked difference. 

I know you posted your own NGC 4565 data in the other forum, so i might go back and give it a quick go and let you know what steps i took. 

 

[tooth_dr]

36 minutes ago, Xiga said:

Thanks Adam, you're too kind. 

I was pleased myself with how the dust lanes came out. I think the small pixels of the D5300 really help here. I also think that my image scale musty be pretty close to optimal for my skies & guiding. My imaging scale is 1.54", and my typical guiding is in the 0.7-0.8" range, so about half the imaging scale, which i've heard is what one should aim for. Now, at some point in the future i would love to get a 183 sensor and a bigger refractor (100ED or 120ED) and go after some of these smaller galaxies. The only question mark i would have would be how the guiding performance would impact on an imaging scale of 0.95". 

I spent a lot of time on the colour for this one i must say. I didn't use a DDP stretched image at all on this occasion, i did it all manually in PS. I used the arcsinh-stretching routine, which really made the colour pop big time. Which meant i only had to do a small amount of saturation later on. I don't know if you use it yourself, but i recommend you give the Star Colour Calibration tool in APP a run through. It can make a huge difference to bringing out colour in your images. And if that doesn't work (always good to have a backup plan), then try Rogelio Bernal's neat (and free!) PS plugin called WhiteCal.

http://www.deepskycolors.com/archivo/2010/05/26/photoshop-Plug-in-Whitecal.html

It sets the white balance of an image, and it can work quite well for a galaxy image. I can't quite recall if i used it on this one or not, but it's very easy to test it out. Just select the galaxy with the lasso or quick selection tool, then run the plugin on a colour layer. Afterwards, rebalance the colour layers (to give a neutral grey in the sky background again) and then proceed to saturate the image (i like the Jay Gabany method). After a few iterations, you should see a marked difference. 

I know you posted your own NGC 4565 data in the other forum, so i might go back and give it a quick go and let you know what steps i took. 

 

Thanks again Ciaran. Always very helpful as usual ?? As for my data - it needs better red data.  Alas it was briefly clear tonight but I ended up taking few DSLR images with a lens on SA mount. 

[sulaco]

Great imaging, fantastic amount of detail.

[Xiga]

2 hours ago, sulaco said:

Great imaging, fantastic amount of detail.

Thanks sulaco! ?

[Startinez]

A really lovely image, great job.

[Xiga]

30 minutes ago, Startinez said:

A really lovely image, great job.

Thanks Startinez!