Messier Marathon!

[ShineOn]

The night of 6/4/20 was clear but with a 98% illuminated moon. With a paucity of narrowband targets to go at, I attempted something a little different.

This image represents my effort to image as many of the Messier objects over the course of one night, from my location in Bakewell, Derbyshire, England @ 53 degrees N. I managed a total of 90 (including ‘M51b’ and ‘M109b’).

I used Sequence Generator Pro to create a sequence, based upon the objects position in the sky at various points through the night (I am lucky enough to be able to image from my balcony which has excellent sky visibility from the NE to the W, and northwards to the altitude of Polaris).

All images were taken with my Atik 460ex mono attached to a Skywatcher MN190 using a Baader Luminance filter. Exposure lengths ranged from 5 seconds to 120 seconds depending on the target / proximity to the Moon and binned 2x2. Originally, I had hoped that SGP would handle the sequence automatically, but when I was confronted with a new error message and several early software crashes, I decided I needed to 'babysit' the process through the night.

Minimal post processing was done on each image in Photoshop to include levels and curves adjustments, gradient removal using Gradient Exterminator and noise reduction using Topaz Denoise. Each image was cropped / resized to 400px by 320px. Finally the processed images were assembled on a large blank canvas in PS.  The full resolution image can also be viewed here:

https://www.astrobin.com/full/8tnsnj/0/?nc=user

It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, spanning 3 days in the planning, execution and processing phases. I hope you enjoy, Simon.

Edited April 9, 2020 by ShineOn
Added my name!

[steve k]

41 minutes ago, ShineOn said:

The night of 6/4/20 was clear but with a 98% illuminated moon. With a paucity of narrowband targets to go at, I attempted something a little different.

This image represents my effort to image as many of the Messier objects over the course of one night, from my location in Bakewell, Derbyshire, England @ 53 degrees N. I managed a total of 90 (including ‘M51b’ and ‘M109b’).

I used Sequence Generator Pro to create a sequence, based upon the objects position in the sky at various points through the night (I am lucky enough to be able to image from my balcony which has excellent sky visibility from the NE to the W, and northwards to the altitude of Polaris).

All images were taken with my Atik 460ex mono attached to a Skywatcher MN190 using a Baader Luminance filter. Exposure lengths ranged from 5 seconds to 120 seconds depending on the target / proximity to the Moon and binned 2x2. Originally, I had hoped that SGP would handle the sequence automatically, but when I was confronted with a new error message and several early software crashes, I decided I needed to 'babysit' the process through the night.

Minimal post processing was done on each image in Photoshop to include levels and curves adjustments, gradient removal using Gradient Exterminator and noise reduction using Topaz Denoise. Each image was cropped / resized to 400px by 320px. Finally the processed images were assembled on a large blank canvas in PS.  The full resolution image can also be viewed here:

https://www.astrobin.com/full/8tnsnj/0/?nc=user

It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, spanning 3 days in the planning, execution and processing phases. I hope you enjoy, Simon.

Wow thats very impressive !!

[Laurin Dave]

Brilliant!!.. Great idea extremely well executed.

Well done

Dave

[astroman001]

Fantastic achievement. Well done and well executed. I have a poster a bit like that on my observatory wall except using professional images.

Peter

[astroman001]

Hi Simon, what would be interesting is seeing the results at all the same image scale. I believe for this you expanded to fit the cropped image size?

Peter

[ShineOn]

1 hour ago, astroman001 said:

Hi Simon, what would be interesting is seeing the results at all the same image scale. I believe for this you expanded to fit the cropped image size?

Peter

Hi Peter, the original FITS files produced by this set up were 1374 pixels wide, so I was careful not to crop by more than two thirds to achieve a 400px wide image.  But a lot of the images, especially the wider clusters didn't require too much of a crop.  Have attached resized 100% crops of M51 and M57 as examples (no processing).

[Starfisher]

a great idea indeed to try out myself. but first learn the ups and down in AP 🙂 . 

i started however photographing Messiers because they are 'easy preys' .

[pietervdv]

Very nice, I'm impressed you got so many in a single night! 

Pieter 

[ShineOn]

4 hours ago, pietervdv said:

Very nice, I'm impressed you got so many in a single night! 

Pieter 

Thank you Pieter.  It was only when I started looking through Stellarium the day before that I realised just how many were within reach in one night.  I'm helped by 'sky availability'