Trying to improve my Nemesis. M51.

[assouptro]

Hi all

I hope everyone is well? We are truly living in strange times! 
I started the first week of the lockdown stripping and re-greasing my mount followed with a swap of scopes. off came the ed100 and on went the Meade lx200 12” blue monster! 
I have modified the Meade zeroshift microfocuser by removing the motor, cutting a slot in the housing and attaching my Pegasus astrofocus cube which I can control from the laptop via the mount hub pro. (I plan on sharing this mod to the forum sometime soon as it seems to work well) This makes the focusing of the scope easier. 

I want to finally deal with my Nemesis. M51. I love this over photographed galaxy collision and I want to do it justice.
Having images it many times in the past 10 years I seem to make micro improvements each season even though the money I have parted with for each improvement seems unjustifiable. 
Lrgb imaging is definitely harder for me at least than Narrow Band and although we have had an unusual amount of clear skies here in the NW I have been struggling against Easterly gusts that have made guiding difficult if not impossible at times so I only have a Luminance Layer to show for my efforts so far. 
I am happier with it than any other version I have managed so far and hope to add some colour as soon as I can capture enough data.

Anyway, enough with the explanation. 

This is just over 6 hours of 8 min lum subs 

Scope: 12” lx200 with 6.3 fr/ff 

camera: Atik 460 bin 1x1

It’s obviously a compressed version, possibly over processed, uploaded via my iPhone, but it’s the best I have managed so far and I hope you like it 

thanks for looking 

Bryan 

[x6gas]

Ummmm.  Gulp.  I was really, really, really pleased with my version when I captured this back in the day... but this is just astounding.  Don't know what you have invested in kit but I'll go out on a limb and say it's worth every penny.  This will be a beauty when you add the colour...

And it may be imaged a lot, but it's a beautiful thing nonetheless.

Edited April 26, 2020 by x6gas

[assouptro]

15 minutes ago, x6gas said:

Ummmm.  Gulp.  I was really, really, really pleased with my version when I captured this back in the day... but this is just astounding.  Don't know what you have invested in kit but I'll go out on a limb and say it's worth every penny.  This will be a beauty when you add the colour...

And it may be imaged a lot, but it's a beautiful thing nonetheless.

Thank you so much for the comment! 
I am really hoping I don’t ruin the progress with the colour data as i have struggled with Lrgb processing in the past. 

Thanks again

Bryan 

[JohnSadlerAstro]

That is absolutely incredible! I love the detail at all the brightness levels, from the really faint star clouds around the spiral arms right to the centre of the core....it looks like something from Hubble!  With this as the L, i don't think a colour version can go particularly wrong, it will be interesting to see what extra detail colour can bring out.

John

[assouptro]

46 minutes ago, JohnSadlerAstro said:

That is absolutely incredible! I love the detail at all the brightness levels, from the really faint star clouds around the spiral arms right to the centre of the core....it looks like something from Hubble!  With this as the L, i don't think a colour version can go particularly wrong, it will be interesting to see what extra detail colour can bring out.

John

Hi John

I am Thrilled you you like it and slightly humbled by the Hubble reference! 
I was very lucky with the sky conditions as I have been pushing my luck at 46” per pixel but that’s what I love about this hobby, seeing what can be done outside of the recommended parameters!

I will add colour! 
 

thanks again 

Bryan

[MarkAR]

Fantastic image, beautiful crisp detail.

[assouptro]

24 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Fantastic image, beautiful crisp detail.

Thanks for the comment Mark

😊