M16 First efort

[mackiedlm]

Hi Folks,

This is my first effort with polar alignment of my 8" LX200 GPS on its wedge. Un-modded canon EOS1100D. Wind was gusty which did not help at all!

I know the stars are bloated but I think that could be partly down to the wind moving the scope, partly to not perfect PA. Possibly focus may not be spot on either though i had a FWHM of 4-4.5 in BYEOS though its showing higher than that in DSS. No guiding yet either (Boy do I have lot more I need!)

28 x120s lights (The Eagle dropping into the skyglow and the moon coming up pretty much curtailed efforts to get more time on it. Full sets of flats and darks applied.
Stacked in DSS, processed in Photoshop.

All in I'm quite pleased with it though I do know its not fantastic.

Suggestions to improve (with the kit I have please) would be greatly appreciated.

Rgds

David.

M16 first effort.tif

[Stub Mandrel]

HI David,

That's not bad at all for an unmodded 1100D. Main improvement would be to experiment with curves and gamma to bring our more of the background nebulosity:

Next step up is removing the blue-green filter to make the camera more sensitive to Ha.

If you save your image as a PNG file it will display in the forum as a more quickly displayed [review (and folks can right click it to see the full image).

 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Stub Mandrel
Bladdy crepe spilling.

[mackiedlm]

On 21/09/2019 at 22:51, Stub Mandrel said:

HI David,

That's not bad at all for an unmodded 1100D. Main improvement would be to experiment with curves and gamma to bring our more of the background nebulosity:

 

Next step up is removing the blue-green filter to make the camera more sensitive to Ha.

If you save your image as a PNG file it will display in the forum as a more quickly displayed [review (and folks can right click it to see the full image).

 

Hi there, thanks for that. So Ive gone back and tinkered as suggested. also removed some of the worst trailed subs. Got more of the nebulosity but the stars look worse I think. But then they were not brilliant to start off with. A good exercise for me though to see how much difference pushing things a bit further can make.

rgds

David