Leo Triplet reprocessing

[Nerf_Caching]

Hi all, here is my image of the Leo Triplet which I took over three nights. It consists of one hour and seventeen minutes of data using a stock Canon 650d using 30 second subs at iso 800. The scope I used was a Skywatcher Evostar 72ED refractor. The mount I used was a Star Adventurer without guiding. I was just curious to see what you guys could get out of my stacked file as my knowledge of post-processing is still evolving. The processing software I used was GIMP. Have fun!

Leo triplet stack 2.TIF

[MarkAR]

Pretty good but it would be better if you could hook up to a laptop or intervalometer to take longer exposures.

[wimvb]

Very nice image for such a short time. A few pointers. As @MarkAR noted, longer and more exposures will reveal more detail and bring the noise down.

To get a repeatable framing, align the long side of the camera sensor with the RA axis. Take a 30 s exposure, and about 5 seconds in, start slewing RA+ at 1x sidereal. This will cause star trails along the RA axis. Then rotate the camera and repeat until the streaks are parallell to the long side of the image. This will result in more consistent framing from night to night. If you have the opportunity, keep the camera attached to the scope when shooting several nights in a row.

To get round stars across the entire frame, you will need to invest in a field flattener.

Edited May 15, 2020 by wimvb