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New and improved M51


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Last night I had another go at getting M51. This time I had a polar alignment problem ( I need to realign the reticle in the polar scope I think) so I did what I had to to shorten the exposures. I turned the camera gain all the way up, to see what would happen initially, and the frames came thick and fast. I think that they are better than when I had the gain on minimum, so maybe I had the wrong end of the stick on that issue.

image.jpg

I think I could get to enjoy this.

Captain Chaos

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Great work CC and good progress from the last pic.

Interesting what you say about the gain. I'm not quite sure what to do either. I reckon on using as long an exposure as poss in the conditions to reduce the impact of "shot noise" but sometimes I have had nearly every frame blown about by the wind so then guess it's better to crank up the gain and go for more frames. It's a pain converting to bmp for Maxim though. What are you using to stack?

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Well that's the next question really.

I used K3CCD as it uses a dark frame subtraction automatically and I got a nice looking result. After putting the result frame into Registax and messing with the histogram, brightness and contrast I got an even better result (the one posted).

However, if I let Registax loose on the AVI it gets a really WOW looking result with absolutely no messing with the sliders, histo, brightness or anything. The downside is that the nasty white dots are all over the place.

I'm wondering if there is a way to do the dark subtract first on the AVI, then pass it on to Registax. That would be the best of both worlds I think.

Captain Chaos

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Hmm. I think I'm going to want that camera back soon! I never actually used it for imaging in anger. Idjit! Remember though that Registax is just that, a stacking and initial processing package. Other more image-based packages will see you getting much more out of these frames.

Arthur

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Thats a really good image CC you are doing great mate , as James says keep at it , i feel my crown slipping soon , :lol:

Rog

In my dreams mate, in my dreams.

What I need to get to know is when this M51 is "finished" so that I can go and do something else. I can see me doing M51 until even the camera gets fed up of it.

I tried a quick M101, but I would need the focal reducer and I can't get the Newt to focus with this arrangement. I even have a struggle with the camera as it is.

Captain Chaos

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