M101 and friends

[cfinn]

The weather has been so bad over the last few months, but finally for the first time since January I was able to get out and image and chose to target M101 over a couple of nights. This is only Luminance at present, and the way things are going I might have to wait until next year to add the RGB data. We'll see...

Anyway, this is around 6.5 hours with my Esprit 120 and QHY 268M. I upgraded my EQ6R to a second hand AP Mach 1 GTO on an Eagle Pier last year and my goodness what a difference that has made. I am getting really consistent performance all night long at around 0.4" RMS usually, and this is without PEC training the mount. That is half the RMS error I was able to get out of my EQ6 on average, but the consistency and reliability is the biggest game changer for me. I think this, relatively decent seeing and a modest dose of BXT makes for a satisfyingly detailed image. I have found that if the seeing is good, as was the case here, then BXT after a 2x drizzle integration makes a noticeably bigger difference in terms of contrast enhancement than BXT at native pixel scale for my system (1.2" PP). When doing this I always bin x2 back to native pixel scale after applying BXT, as doing so rarely sacrifices any detail and I would rather maximise SNR.

I've framed M101 with some friends and created individual portraits with different HDRMT settings to maximise the amount of detail and contrast visible.

I hope you like it.

Charles

[WolfieGlos]

Nice work so far 👍

And wow, I don't think I've even seen those spiral arms in NGC 5477 previously :

2 hours ago, cfinn said:

 

 

[engstrom]

Nice image of m101. It’s helping see just how out of focus my own attempts are :-)

[geeklee]

13 hours ago, cfinn said:

target M101

Fantastic work so far Charles.  The detail is excellent, especially on NGC 5474 - usually a bystander.  Good luck with any future plans for colour.

[cfinn]

22 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

Nice work so far 👍

And wow, I don't think I've even seen those spiral arms in NGC 5477 previously :

 

Thanks! Yes, that was unexpected for me too. It’s not obvious I don’t think unless you boost the contrast a little, with HDRMT in my case, then they pop out quite nicely.

[petevasey]

As you will see from my latest thread I've just had a poor attempt at NGC5474, only 80 minutes of Luminance.  But your image has benefited nicely from the 6.5 hours of data.  I'll look forward to seeing a colour version when the time comes.  Of course not just 5474 but the whole image is excellent.  Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,  Peter

Edited May 2 by petevasey
Added thread link

[cfinn]

22 hours ago, petevasey said:

As you will see from my latest thread I've just had a poor attempt at NGC5474, only 80 minutes of Luminance.  But your image has benefited nicely from the 6.5 hours of data.  I'll look forward to seeing a colour version when the time comes.  Of course not just 5474 but the whole image is excellent.  Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,  Peter

Yours looks like a good start! More integration time will beat down the colour noise and reveal the structure in the galaxy more I'm sure. It's been so tough with the weather the last few months. Here's hoping next year is more fruitful.