First go at processing M57 from Saturday Nights imaging. The lights promise better than this cropped result shows but I am please to be able to see the central star. It has been slightly sharpened with the Refocus plugin for Gimp and I have used a 'real' unsharp mask process to tweak it a bit more. Not a patch on Marks.
13 of 15 x 120s. LX90 8", Konica Minolta Dynax 7D, Baader Alan Gee Mark II Telecompressor, PHD, DSSLive and DSS, lots of wires and laptops.
(http://ancientlight.amateur-astronomy.org//images/M57_20090524_Woodlands_DSC_13x120s_darks_flats_crop_unsharp.png)
Nice one Dunc - Well done - John
Duncan,
That's much better than my first Ring Nebula and it's a good result for an unmodified camera. If your guiding and polar alignment is good enough to push the exposure time to 5 minutes that will make a considerable difference.
Mark
Nicely done Duncan, it's always going to be difficult pulling something out of the mirk with short exposures so you've done really well.
Very nice, Duncan, amazing for such short exposures
Thanks all.
I found that longer exposures on such a bright subject ended up saturating the CCD and losing detail in the structure. It's an old DSLR (2001).