M8 & M31 Quickies

[Uranium235]

Hurahh!! After 3 weeks of waiting we finally got some clear sky last night. Even though it was a full(ish) moon I wasnt bothered as ive been so starved of photons lately. Had work the next day so I was limited to just a 2 hour session.... boooo. Will re-visit M31 once the moon dies down and finish the job properly.

It was also the first time out for the CCD CLS clip filter (review also posted). It definitely does the job of cutting LP, though im having to poke things around in DSS to get the right colours - should get the hang of that eventually though.

Anyways, here ya go:

M8: Lagoon Nebula (tough for me as very low)

6x360s + darks, bias and flats

M31: Andromeda galaxy

10x360s + darks, bias and flats

(flats produced by AI's virtual lightbox.... very handy).

Thanks for looking!

[Sam]

They both look great, well done!

[Uranium235]

cheers m8, I think I will try to add another hour or two to bring out a few more of those dust lanes

[russ]

very nice indeed, especially M31.

[cardconvict]

very nice m31 you can tell that the moon has washed alot out of it for the subs that you have done

[Uranium235]

Thanks shame about the moon really. But knowing my luck, when its a new moon it will probably cloud over again for another 3 weeks!! All i need is one good night to nail that sucker for good. Will keep the subs I have and chuck it all in the mix once I have about 30 subs (3 hours total).

Normally, when the moons up I just image the opposite side of the sky where its dark but theres not much on offer in the west at the mo, all the action is in the South and East (where the moon has decided to park itself).

[cardconvict]

yeah it's ment to be clear tonight so i think i'am going to have a shot at it again with my lp filter . even though the moon wil be out

[Uranium235]

Yea, same here too - hope to see some action later on tonight.... its so hard to say "no" to a clear sky! Hmmm... but from the look of Sat24 at the mo, its not looking too clever.

[Uranium235]

For a change I decided to process the subs in Maxim DL, and what a difference it makes!

DSS had beed giving me problems with the colour balance of the final image due to using flats taken from a laptop screen. I read from elsewhere that this problem can occur in DSS if using a modded dslr + CLS filter.

Its my first stab at Maxim DL (and it takes an age to process), but I like what i see so far.

[winterlight]

The MaximDL post processing really made a huge difference.