M56

[Mognet]

I freely admit to not being entirely certain what I'm doing yet, but I'm starting to get passable images with my new setup

11 subs of 120 seconds using a ZWO ASI585 and William Optics ZS73 APO with flattener on an AZ-EQ5, stacked in ASTAP and stretched in GIMP

Only 11 subs as the battery was losing power and the subs ended up with star trails in them after these

Edited June 11, 2023 by Mognet
Processing details

[Neil_104]

It most definitely looks to me that you are headed in the right direction 👍

[Clarkey]

Definitely a good start - keep going. Just out of interest, did you use an IR cut filter? The 585 is quite sensitive to IR and your stars look at bit bloated. Maybe high cloud or something else - just a thought.

[Mognet]

21 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

Definitely a good start - keep going. Just out of interest, did you use an IR cut filter? The 585 is quite sensitive to IR and your stars look at bit bloated. Maybe high cloud or something else - just a thought.

Thanks. I haven't used a filter. I suspect either my focus was a little off, or I'm stretching the data too hard as the exposures may not be long enough. I've attached one of the subs in FITS format, and the stars look fairly sharply defined in that

M_56_Light_001.fits

[Clarkey]

I think you would see quite a bit of difference with the filter. My guess is that there is some bloat which would be greatly reduced with a UV/IR cut filter. Well worth the £20 outlay for a basic 1.25".

[AstroMuni]

55 minutes ago, Mognet said:

Thanks. I haven't used a filter. I suspect either my focus was a little off, or I'm stretching the data too hard as the exposures may not be long enough. I've attached one of the subs in FITS format, and the stars look fairly sharply defined in that

Thats a great start...As others have said try adding a UV/IR cut filter and see if you can reduce the FWHM on the stars to improve focus. The aim is to get lowest FWHM ie. sharpest stars. 🙂 Good luck.

[Laurin Dave]

A very good start, your bright (and not so bright) stars are saturated so I'd lower your exposure to 30s to start with and see what happens . How do you focus ?  If you haven't got one I'd suggest using a Bhatinov mask. 

[Mognet]

After waiting for two months for a clear and dark sky I've finally had chance to try with a UV/IR cut filter. Processing isn't great, and I was having a bit of an issue with star trailing, but the results are defintely improved. Just got to sort the other niggles now.

[Paul2019]

Looks great 👍 love seeing what objects people can get in these little fracs, helps with buying decisions. Thanks