M1 - First Light for MN190

[OzDave]

Hi,

As it happened, New Year's Eve produced clear skies where I live and I took the opportunity to set up my new MN190 and EQ6 and capture some images of M1 as a first light test.

I managed to stack 33x150s at ISO400 and another 16x300s at ISO400. I processed these in Nebulosity and used the DDP tool rather than a more traditional Levels/Curves stretching session. Perhaps I'll have another go at processing this when I get some more time.

Here are the cropped images of the two stacks. It seems that the stack of 150s subs is the better result with more clarity and apparent sharpness. Not quite sure why that is. I wonder if I can somehow combine the two stacks to get a better single image somehow?

Anyway, I am quite pleased with the general result but would love to hear any constructive comments on how the processing could have been improved.

David

[Deneb]

The MN190 is becoming more favourable as an imaging scope of choice, im so glad i had spoken to TJ,

Your M1 - thats a very good result, but the black background looks a bit clipped.

Nadeem.

[OzDave]

Yeah, I thought that about the background. I'll have another go at processing when I get some time (on a flight to Las Vegas at the moment). I used the DDP tool in Nebulosity to stretch it automatically basically, so quite possibly some clipping occurred somewhere.

I've not tried very hard on the processing so I'm quite pleased with the results so far. Hopefully if I make a bigger effort I can get something more out of this data. However, I think focus may have been a little off perhaps and the stars are a bit fuzzy and elongated. But I suppose that's what you get from a rush job to setup on New Year's Eve.

David

[firstblooduk]

I love M1 now, what a lovely set of images.

[moocher]

If i could see it like this i`d be happy!!!

Alan

[OzDave]

Got bored waiting in the airport lounge, so decided to have another crack at processing, this time with levels and curves using the 150s stack. The result seemed to be less sharp than what was achieved via DDP, so I did a 2x2 binning and cropped out the relevant part of the image.

Still not sure if I'm getting the best out of this, or overdoing it or what. If anyone wants to have a go at the processing to see if they can do any better, I can supply a stacked FITS with no PP.

I have to say, I really like this target. It reminds me of some kind of great celestial brain with the red showing all the neural activity. Not sure I can see a Crab at all...for me it's the Great Brain Nebula.

David

[Beyond_Vision]

A good first light David, I still haven't had a chance to capture anything with my MN190

Regards

Kevin