M51 (with an Explorer 130, EQ5, DSI-1)

[mattlane]

So last night was a very fruitful evening. Following a setup in daytime to then look through the Polar Scope in the dark and see Polaris sitting in the little spot (it was totally centred, couldn't believe it).

Set up to image M51, so here's the details so far.

47 Lights, 20 Darks (Bias and Flats to come...).

Unguided on a Skywatcher EQ5 Goto, with a Skywatcher Explorer 130PM. Using a (£100 off ebay) Meade DSI-1 Colour.

Captured using Nebulosity on my Mac - seriously, way easier than trying to use Envisage again. Using DarkAdaptedX to control my laptops screen and make it go all red.

Stacked using Nebulosity, with a bit of PS curves and levels.

I think this is the beginning of a project, would be really nice to get another 50 subs added and see what more i can tease out.

Have sent my initial stack to a chum (Eagleseye) so lets see what he can coax out of it so far!

Most chuffed as this is the first occasion where i have gone out with the objective of getting a good image, and managed it without any pain or stress.

Bring on the next clear sky!

[Psychobilly]

Very Nice Matt...

Nice to see a DSI being used for what it was initially "designed" for...

Peter...

[RikM]

Nice one Matt.

Rik

[Daz1969]

Matt.thats real cool!

I have a dsi mk1 aswell and have yet to use it(been building the obsy)

Iam most encouraged by your pic.

Keep up the good work dude.

Daz

[Ant]

Thats pretty good mate, much better than the poor attempts I've had a M51.

How long were the subs?

Cheers

Ant

[mattlane]

Thanks for the positive comments chaps...

Ant, the subs were 30 seconds.

Hopefully i can add a few more tonight if the weather co-operates...

I think what's most exciting about this image is in doing it i know the penny dropped, i got the result i wanted and i know that over time this image will become better and better as i add more subs to the stack.

Also worked out a really useful way of finding the object quickly. As we all know goto/synscan seems to generally get the scope in the neck of the woods for visual, but for imaging its a pain when the object isn't in the field of view.

1, Align mount, and then connect to stellarium

2, move scope to object with handset/stellarium and find it visually, get it centred.

3, go back to stellarium and find the cross hair for the mount, take a screen shot because i was finding that in stellarium when its in the eyepiece and centred its not lined up in stellarium.

4, go back to the alignment star, put in the camera and get perfect focus (easily because it'll be a really bright star)

5, then open up the screen shot and manually position the mount with the handset so the cross hairs are in the same place in stellarium as they are in the screen shot from earlier

6, do a test exposure and see if its in shot.

Saved me probably 20 minutes of time messing around trying to find the object again. In the past i've tried this manually by comparing stars in the field of view with stellarium and getting very lost. At least with this method i'm not far off the target, half a screen at the most.

M

[sgazer]

that is really good, well done.

[cloudbuster]

Nice pic Matt....well done!

Ive yet to shoot this subject, as i dont have go-to, and am only a beginner, but your pic has inspired me to give it a go!

cheers

bob