M42 and M51 - Imaging unfiltered during the full moon, worth it?

[Luke Newbould]

Hi everyone,

 

It looks like most of the UK got some clear skies this weekend, even though it was around a full moon I was still glad to get out and at least have a go! - I hope you all got the chance to get out too

It gave me the opportunity to try and make a video also which I've been enjoying doing recently

 

I imaged for two full nights, dusk til' dawn, and in the end captured 104x2m subs on M42, and 300x2m subs on M51. - very tiring!

I'd made a mistake on night 1 and accidentally recorded that night's data all at 300 gain! - I noticed on night 2 and put it back to 100 as I'd intended originally, in the end I don't feel it mattered too much .

 

anyhow, I was very happy with how m42 turned out given the conditions - as to m51 though I'm not too happy with it, the data was pretty much ruined by the nearby moonlight so even with 10 hours of exposure it was washed out and a [removed word] to process. - I'm not put off though of course, I'll just redo it when conditions favour it more

 

Thank you for taking the time to look

 

and finally my video covering my multi-night slog!

 

[tomato]

Who says you can’t image under a full moon? These are both excellent results IMHO, undoubtedly your perseverance and dedication have helped enormously in collecting that much data.

To put it into some sort of perspective, your M51 is better than one I captured a while ago from a moonless Bortle 3 sky while on holiday, but my total integration time was only 30 mins.

[Luke Newbould]

@tomato - Thank you for the kind comments! I'm glad you like the end results

A bortle 3 must have been beautiful by the way, I'd like to go somewhere dark for a night when we can travel around again, even if just to look at the sky visually. - I marvel at the sky from my bortle 7 so a proper bortle 4 would probably blow my mind haha!

[geeklee]

Both still great images Luke - the detail in M42 is stunning.  Great perseverance through the full moon - I've not integrated some of the RGB stuff I got over the last few nights but the histograms on the individual subs are like nothing I've seen before - just so washed out! 

I'll aim to check out your recent videos this week, thanks for sharing 👍

[Luke Newbould]

@geeklee Thanks so much mate, I appreciate that a lot! - I know what you mean about the subs looking incredibly washed out, it's quite hard to stay motivated to press on during the night when the data per sub looks so poor 👍

And thank you again for watching when you get around to it 😃 - I'm really enjoying sharing my nights with people that way

[peter shah]

great result....Loving the videos keep them coming

[Luke Newbould]

@peter shah Thank you so much Peter for the kind comment! - I am really enjoying making them and everyone has been so supportive, it's a fantastic community we're a part of

 

I'm sorry about the late reply!

[astro mick]

Exerllent.

Mick.

[AstroNtinos]

Gorgeous images. Very sharp and highly detailed. Great job!

[Neko]

awesome video and results! 

So, bortle 7, no filter, and moon?? wow...I'll have to test that myself!  I am at bortle 6-7 too and usually capture with Optolong L-pro

with filter it takes a lot longer. To capture same light/detail as your m42 I would need some hours i think 

[Luke Newbould]

Thank you guys! I'm real pleased you liked the shots !

I had a lot of fun doing the experiment, I'd still rather be shooting with narrowband filters at something appropriate during that sort of lunar phase, but it's just nice to see that you still can do something without, even when the sky brightness looks almost insurmountably bright

 

Cheers!