M66 Luminance *reprocessed*

[MikeD]

Hi all.

One of those night's last night, rolled off the roof at around 8.30pm to setup and then spent over an hour trying to get my setup to guide.

I have no idea what was going on but I just could not get the setup to calibrate.

Finally got things sorted, don't know how just the usual turning thinks on and off got me there in the end.

So I started a run and went in to sit with the wife. did the usual check every few subs only to find on the second sub a cloud had come over and lost me my guide star.

So I reset the guiding and off we went again. Another peek after 6 subs reviled I had forgot to reset the position of the galaxy in the shot after the guiding had wondered around during the cloud pass

So scrapped those and centred M66 again and off we go.

Three good subs and then a sub with a huge star trail in RA. the power plug to the mount had pulled out enough to kill the power to the mount, the lead was not under any strain so I an guessing the cat must of nipped in and had a play:icon_scratch:

Reset everthing and by this time the wife was in bed so I could stay a keep an eye on things,so finally managed a good run.

So a night when I should have been able too run off 40 x 5 minute subs and get to bet not too late ended with 24 subs and a late night.

Anyway here is the hard earned image.

24 @ 5 Min's with the 10" newt and HX916.

Mike.

[Beyond_Vision]

Worth every minute of hassle Mike a fantastic image. I had the same trouble the night before last when I tried to use my WO66Sd for guiding instead of my Bresser R102. No matter what I did it would not calibrate. But last night it worked all night with no problems at all.

Regards

Kevin

[Aza]

Awesome result despite the problems.

[CELESCOPE]

LOL sounds like me does that Mike ehehhehe,

but a cracking image finally by the looks of it.shall look foward to your colour version as i know you will do .

Rog:)

[RobH]

It's so frustrating when you get nights like that.....we all have them though!!

It looks like yur perseverence paid off though. That is a very fine luminance image you have there, and you've still got plenty of time to grab some colour.

Cheers

Rob

[moocher]

Worth all the hastle Mike, lovely and like Rob said plenty of time for the RGB.....

Moocher:)

[MikeD]

Thanks guys.

Yes, color and Ha for this next, then M65 and then the RGB star field containing all three with the 80Ed for a hi res Leo trio composite, weather permitting.

Mike.

[MikeD]

Hi all.

Spent some time reprocessing the data for this shot tonight and have managed to push the image a little harder in detail and depth.

Mike.

[Beyond_Vision]

Yep thats looking sweet Mike. Looking forward to when you get some colour data

Regards

Kevin

[Cloudwatcher]

Ooo! Looking very good indeed! I can only echo Rog and Kevin's comments............... Bring on the colour!

[barkis]

It's looking very good indeed Mike, after your initial problems.

The rework has done it's job too, so you are set fair for the colour data. Should be a doddle now.

Ron.

[RobH]

Hello Mike.

IMHO, somewhere halfway between the two would be the way to go.

The second has definite sharpening artifacts...rings around stars, slight pixellation in certain areas of the galaxy.

Many parts of the galaxy have been well enhanced though

Use layers and sharpen one layer, then erase the bits you don't need sharpened, such as the background.

Cheers

Rob

[MikeD]

Thanks guys.

Rob, thank's for the feedback. It's always good to get a fresh view after repeated fiddling of an image.

You are right,I have gone too far on the core and believe it or not I used masked layers for the sharpening but Looks like I have run a few repeat sharpening on the wrong layer, at some Pont.

Expect a take Three.

Mike.

[MartinB]

I did enjoy reading your write up Mike, so nice to find it's not just me who has all these hassles. My worst calibrating moments have come from having 2 competing bright stars in the frame when doing the calibration.

This is a terrific image and the colour will really show things nicely. I like the sharpened version as far as the galaxy itself is concerned. I've lost count of the number of times I've worked on the wrong layer!