SGL6 Images

[NickK]

I'll post more later (I need to pop out for food shopping!).

M104 unguided, taken on the saturday of SGL6. Weather was clear but lots of wind.

Equipment: Pentax 105SDP, EQ6, ATIK 16ic imaging with 1.25" Baader UV/IR cut and LP filters stacked and attached to the adaptor.

IIRC due to the wind I used short 30sec/1 minute subs and only about 5 of them had point stars thanks to the gusts.

[peter shah]

beautiful m104

[MikeD]

Agreed.

Mike.

[barkis]

A lovely Sombrero Galaxy senor.

Captured under adverse winds too, a really great result

Magic.

Ron.

[RikM]

Nice one Nick. Looks even better here than it did on the laptop screen.

[NickK]

Next up is a single raw frame of Saturn. Now I would crop it however it looses something - look at it - I'm damn sure you can see the curve of the ring over the surface of the planet itself (more resolution camera captain!). A 10 second exposure - now I'm betting that was through cloud as 10 secs with a bright target such as saturn would saturate the CCD:

Now with the 3.5mm EP bought at SGL6 that's a bit bigger

I've spent the time my internet has been down on doing some stacking...

[shaunster]

Very nice, one of my fav targets just too low for me at home!

[NickK]

Unfortunately my M51 was fatally flawed . Taken on the friday before I had started drift aligning against polaris. With five 60 second exposures the result - elongated stars, ruining the image.

[NickK]

M100. Mag: 9.40. On saturday , after some drift alignment I was getting nearer to 2 minutes (these were taken before the next polar drift align pre-m104 above). Seven 120 second exposures stacked. There's a little blobbyness still:

[NickK]

Now, something I love about imaging you don't get with observation. This isn't pretty as the camera noise at 10 seconds exposure is starting to appear.

M59, Mag: 9.80, size 5'06"

IC809 Mag 15.00, size 1'06" as a smudge upwards at ~12o'clock,

To the left, ~9:30o'clock, from IC809 is a faint line of stars, approx mag 17+, (but could be a galaxy) in the camera noise (only 10sec sub) then at 3o'clock I haven't found which galaxy this is..

[NickK]

M60, Mag 8.80 with it's companion NGC4647, mag 11.40. Slightly blobby :/

[NickK]

Ok, next up, back to pretty - revisiting my imaging first light - M81, Mag 6.90.

A little better than the first attempt

A few more to come.. including m42

[NickK]

Ok, here is the M42.. now I thought about multilayering with saturated areas alpha'd to maintain the quality but then remembered what Squidy said at SGL6 - you have to know when to stop and admit you don't have enough data in the image.

I can pull out additional nebulosity from the background but then end up saturating the core - something I don't want as the core stars are separate as they are when you look through an EP at it.

I've also noted that different monitors play havoc with the image detail you're attempting to convey! (and that's just between the laptop screen and monitor!)

[Ant]

I've had a bit of a play... Sorry this is only my work laptop, with CS2 and no funky actions to use...!

There is more in than you realize .

Cheers

Ant

[Ant]

Unfortunately my M51 was fatally flawed . Taken on the friday before I had started drift aligning against polaris. With five 60 second exposures the result - elongated stars, ruining the image.

You know what I'd be quite happy with that as well...

[RikM]

Now that's a trick, fixing the stars like that.

Still very nice images Nick.

[Ant]

It's easy to do...

In PS, duplicate the layer. Select the mode to DARKEN - as standard it's a drop down box with NORMAL in it.

Then you can nudge the copy layer using the cursor - usually one nudge up or down (it'll either get better or worse, if worse go the other way) and one nudge left or right (again you'll know if you've done it the right way).

When I get home I'll do some screen grabs if you want?

Cheers

Ant

[RikM]

Just tried that on a couple of my ropey images and it really helps.

Thanks for that. Sorry for poaching your thread Nick

[NickK]

No problem here Rik

Thanks Ant!

[SlipperySquid]

Nice collection there Nick...You where a very busy likkle imager