M51 Finally

[Jkulin]

Well after nearly a yearly of experimenting with new equipment and software, learning new techniques and then finally come the eagerly awaited long nights of winter and we get nearly 11 solid weeks of cloud!

Well I have always wanted to capture M51 and do it justice , my previous images haven't set the world on fire, but they are what they are, so this is a small step up thanks to two good friends @peter shah and @Toxophilus who have mentored me, its certainly not finished and I still have the Ha to add, and most definitely not in their league, but certainly better than my previous efforts.

I used figures from my G2V experiments and was pleased that they needed no colour calibration from within Pixinsight, but they probably do now!!!

I'll fix what is wrong as time goes by, but for now this is classified as "Work In progress"

I have captured some other good images over the last year, but as my processing wasn't up to scratch and I refuse to publish what I haven't captured and processed myself.

This represents 4 nights from the 25th March to the 10th April 2019 and the capture are as follows: -

Lum 11 x 600s
Red 11 x 696s
Green 11 x 600s
Blue 11 x 798s
Ha 11 x 600s to be added later

These were all taken at 2 x 2 binning which gave me 1.1 arc sec/px

When I get more time then I will work on the noise and adding the Ha, but I really was quite pleased that I am slowly coming to terms with PI.

The guiding could have been a lot better, the seeing was terrible, I had times that it varied from 0.2-0.8RMS and the winds didn't really abate, at least it give me a challenge to do better when everything is perfect.

[daz]

That's nice John!! A great W.I.P.! 

Really nice details in the main galaxy and bridge - that Ha should make the little knots just zing!

 

[Jkulin]

2 minutes ago, daz said:

That's nice John!! A great W.I.P.! 

Really nice details in the main galaxy and bridge - that Ha should make the little knots just zing!

 

Thanks Daz, the Ha I captured I will have to manually add in PS as it doesn't line up perfectly, I will work on dropping the noise, but considering all new equipment it will keep me chasing for better ?

[tomato]

That’s a great M51! 

You have quite an array of kit listed in your signature, would it be possible to list which scope and camera you used for this capture?

Thanks

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Very (Very) nice image 

Steve

[Jkulin]

14 hours ago, tomato said:

That’s a great M51! 

You have quite an array of kit listed in your signature, would it be possible to list which scope and camera you used for this capture?

Thanks

Yes, sorry, I should have done that: -

GSO 10" Truss RC
Moravian G2-8300 MkII
Moravian EFW MkII FW
Chroma LRGB
Lodestar X2 Guide Camera with Celestron OAG
iOptron 120EC Mount

Don't be guided by all the nice kit, it's more of a matter with me of all the gear and no idea?? Well at least when it comes down to processing.

Thanks for yours and teoria_del_big_bang kind comments.

[Tzetze]

Very nice work John.

Wow, down to 0.2" RMS error on the guiding. Nice mount!

[alan potts]

Very nice image, wind must be a pain, I'm luck here sundown almost always take the wind if there was any away.

Alan

[Jkulin]

5 hours ago, Tzetze said:

Very nice work John.

Wow, down to 0.2" RMS error on the guiding. Nice mount!

Thanks Mike, the mount has some amazing potential, just need some really very clear still nights to get the best out of it.

[Jkulin]

5 hours ago, alan potts said:

Very nice image, wind must be a pain, I'm luck here sundown almost always take the wind if there was any away.

Alan

Thanks Alan, it rarely affects me once the trees have got some leaves on, but the 10" is quite a large bulky OTA and I'd love to run it without a shroud, but can't because of light pollution.

[Allinthehead]

Great image John.