M33 CCD & CMOS Combination

[tomato]

This is M33, from last night, 5.2 hrs total integration before clouds called a halt. I used a Moravian G2-8300/Esprit 150/SW 0.77 FR to capture Luminance, and a QHY 268c/Esprit 150 to capture RGB. Data was calibrated and stacked in APP and then I extracted the RGB channels from the OSC stack using PI, then processed the channels in Startools 1.8, AP and GIMP. 

I'm not sure why the bright stars have diffraction spikes given it was all captured with refractors, most likely the OAG prism intruding now that this scope has the Focal Reducer fitted.

I got quite excited examining the bright star which is cut off at the top of the image, about two thirds along on the right. With the apparent symmetrical star pattern around the bright star it looked like some kind of gravitational lensing effect, but no, inspecting the uncropped stack, it's just a line of sight coincidence, there are no corresponding stars on the top half.🤭

Thanks for looking.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by tomato
typo corrected

[Laurin Dave]

Nice one Steve...   the 4 small spikes at 90 deg are from the KAF8300  camera.  I get them with my KAF16200 although the other night I had multiple spikes as a spider had weaved a web across the dew shield  

[tomato]

Thanks Dave. With no imaging for long spells due to the weather, the Arachnid community have been working overtime in the dome . I go round with the feather duster but I haven’t checked inside the extended dewshields for a while.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

I quite like the spikes, has a subtle hubble-ness to it 😁