M101 Managed by the skin of one's teeth

[Firas]

Second to last image of the season. Taken at @wimvb Wims magnificent dark skies, north of Stockholm. 

The skies are so good (Bortle sky 4) that this image was  actually possible. Despite a terrible error in my HEQ5, which made it drift badly in RA, and thus shortening the session to a little more than three hours in total. But I had to throw away some subs because it was evident that they will do more harm than good, and I ended up with one hour of Luminance and half an hour each RGB.

While preprocessing I really thought this one will end up unworthy to be worked out and eventually neglected. But I wanted to see if anything can be saved.

So I fire up Pixinsight and I processed with straight forward attitude rather than my meditative style of processing (Photons have travled millions of years, you should spend some time getting them right). 

I think I pulled out what can be pulled from an embarrassingly short session of 2.5 hours. Yet some stuff like the bleaching of color over stars wasn't manageable because of a combination of imprecise focus and the elongated stars caused by the RA drift. I chose to tone it down although there was some room for more stretching, but this level gave pleasing dynamics, it seemed.   

Next season will deliver better for sure. Wim have generously allowed me to have a pier besides his at the under construction observatory, and my gear will be controlled through the net, thanks to his expertise. A truly great step in this wild hobby, that I am most thrilled about. No more bad skies in inner city lights, and no more uncomfortable balcony stuff. I will still miss the hustle though..

Any critics are most welcome. 

Clear skies

/Firas

  

[AKB]

That looks really lovely!

[wimvb]

Very nice, especially considering the veeeery bad RA guiding. Now that I see the final result, I realise that we should have spent a little more time on framing. That small galaxy on the left is cut in half, unfortunately.

[Firas]

9 minutes ago, AKB said:

That looks really lovely!

Many thanks! 

 

7 minutes ago, wimvb said:

That small galaxy on the left is cut in half, unfortunately.

Sure! I could have cropped it, but decided not to, so the geometry of the image is unaltered again after the first crop that I did. 

[gorann]

A nice finale of the seaon I would say, bringing great promise for the next one - you just have to fix the mount and make sure the obsy gets ready in time.

[Firas]

13 hours ago, gorann said:

A nice finale of the seaon I would say, bringing great promise for the next one - you just have to fix the mount and make sure the obsy gets ready in time.

Thanks Göran! I still have M51 being processed and will be the final of the season. 

I am considering to dismantle the whole mount and have it refurbished completely with Rowan's belt modification as well. It should be alright, but a bigger, sturdier mount is indeed what I am aiming for eventually in a permanent observatory. I think it will be operational by autumn.

You should vist it if you are ever in Stockholm! That would be fun. 

[gorann]

20 hours ago, Firas said:

Thanks Göran! I still have M51 being processed and will be the final of the season. 

I am considering to dismantle the whole mount and have it refurbished completely with Rowan's belt modification as well. It should be alright, but a bigger, sturdier mount is indeed what I am aiming for eventually in a permanent observatory. I think it will be operational by autumn.

You should vist it if you are ever in Stockholm! That would be fun. 

Yes will do, and the same goes if you ever get close to Värmland!

Wim may have told you that I am now building a second obsy next to the other one and initially it will house this thing that I bought second hand in Oslo today - takes up the whole back seat: