Arp 299, AKA: NGC 3690

[Paul M]

Had a few clear nights but that Full Moon... So I spent most of my effort on something far away from the glowing cheesball. I didn't want to go for anything big and flash, because, well, just because...

I've see some interesting Arp's coming up in the EEVA threads and decided to route out one of those, overhead if possible. Arp 299 fitted the bill. So each night I left the gear outside being managed by APT and running subs until 04:30 ish. I think my style is somewhere betweed EEVA and Deep Sky imaging (hmmm, is there a distiction there?)

Having messes up on setting the plan in APT one evening I've ended up with a blend of 90 and 300 sec subs, 220 subs in total, all at gain 240 with the ASI071 camera, RC10 @2000mm f/l. The NEQ6 Pro is holding up like an old soldier giving some of my best guiding ever, partly due to having a proper guide scope now  

Processed entirely in ASTAP. I did run it all through Siril, but TBH, ASTAP made a better job of removing the Lunar / LP gradient and equalising the background than Siril (in my hands).

I think the RC10 needs a collimation tweak. Not looking too good either side of focus but bearable.

So, you'll be expecting a brilliant image after that intro... while you wait for that:

 

 

 

[Paul M]

I had another go in Siril and cropped a lot more. It is a small target to be fair to my processing skills. Not many reference images in the googlesphere.

Bar an absolute stunner on Cloudy Nights, it's mostly observatory/Hubble stuff.