First light: Finderguider M31 & M33

[Uranium235]

Hiya,

As seen in the DIY astro section, last night was the first true test of the homebrew QHY adapter I made for the for the 50mm guider using just aerosol can tops and masking tape. It did the job very well indeed and guided the scope for the whole night with only a couple of slight drifts (down to polar alignment... or lack of it!).

It was probably the clearest ever night since I moved here and couldnt believe it when I saw the milky way overhead... I had to check stellarium to make sure i wasnt going loco As a bonus, I had the pleasure of watching the persids while imaging... hmmm, doesnt half crick your neck though.

The M31 is a continuation of a previous shoot done with the ED80. Except this time i used the newt with the intention of combining the output of the 150p and the ED80. It worked pretty well, apart from the fact that the coma from the newt has slightly affected the star matching towards the edges.

If you think ive burnt it a little in processing, let me know so i can change it, thanks

Secondly is a bonus target of M33, it pops up above the houses about halfpast midnight so i thought "why not?", but is it supposed to be that blue?

M31: Andromeda

1) 14x360s from ED80

2) 10x360s from 150p

3) Combination of both

M33: Triangulum

1) 10x360 from 150p

Guided by homebrew 50mm finderguider (a serious competitor for my ST80 now).

Thanks for looking!

[Psychobilly]

Glad the finderguiders working well ...

Watch the processing on M31 its dead easy to blow out the core... keep a close eye on the right hand side of the histogram or the top right region on the curves window..

Peter...

[peter shah]

looks like its giving you good results

[Uranium235]

Thanks guys, I will have another poke around with the combo to see if I can tame the core a bit better whilst still keeping as much of the outer dust rings as possible. Easier said than done with this monster.

[cardconvict]

lucking good i must say it is a big improvment with full spectrum cam's

[Psychobilly]

Are you applying your processing tweaks to the whole image? Sometime you need to treat different areas seperately.. You can also work with multiple copies of the image on layers and combine them using various techniques...

M31 is "challenging".. check that the core on your subs is ok and grab loads of data it should make life easier once you have deeper data to play with...

Peter...

[Uranium235]

Yes, ive been applying changes to the image as a whole. Processing seperate areas or layering, is unknown territory for me so I guess its time to learn. The 1000d is in the fridge right now taking more 360s darks. Im going to knock M31 down and start from scratch again... heh, much the same way you would with an audio mix

[Uranium235]

Bit of bad news, im going to have to dump most of the ED80 data because it was taken on a moonlit night. When I combine it with the 150P data it just introduces too much noise to give it a decent stretch.

However, on the good side I think ive sussed out how to soften the core but keep the outer edges. It introduces a little noise, but I think thats something that can be sorted out with more subs.

This is just the 150p data thats gone through the histogram specification, some stretch and a little bit of softening. If we're lucky enough to get some clear skies in the next week, I'll redo the ED80 data and try to combine again.