Orpington Astronomical Society

Astronomy => Astrophotography => Topic started by: MarkS on Oct 21, 2009, 06:43:29

Title: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: MarkS on Oct 21, 2009, 06:43:29
M33 taken at UDSC, Blacklands Farm 17 Oct 2009.

6 hours total exposure in 5min subs.
H-alpha modified Canon EOS 350D on Celestron C11 with F6.3 reducer and Astronomik CLS filter (to emphasize the H-alpha regions)
The seeing was not good so I've had to 3x3 bin this and apply deconvolution to make the stars look anywhere near sharp though I might try re-processing with 2x2 binning.
Ambient temperature dropping from 9C to 3C during the exposure

(http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/albums/userpics/10046/m33_17102009.jpg)

I'm not sure it's that much better than the 20x5min version I did at High Elms last year (it might be worse!) but it does show the fainter regions a bit better:
http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/2008/m33_221108.jpg

Mark
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: Carole on Oct 21, 2009, 08:33:39
That's really good Mark, so many different colours, which incidentally don't show up so well on the linked image, which I assume is the one you did in 2008, so I think it is indeed better than your last one.

Must find out about deconvolution.

Carole
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: Fay on Oct 21, 2009, 08:45:17
Yet again, fantastic Mark, 6 hours..you earned it.

Want to have another go at this, & would like to get the Orion operational for it. Transferring Robofocus onto it.
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: MarkS on Oct 21, 2009, 08:53:42

I forgot to say that sigma stacking successfully removed the green meteor trail from the top right-hand corner!

Mark
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: Daniel on Oct 21, 2009, 09:24:53
Awesome Image Mark, this one definitely has more faint regions coming through, shame about the seeing, though it still looks excellent anyway, cant wait to see what your next one is like on a night of good seeing!

Daniel
:O)
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: mickw on Oct 21, 2009, 09:30:51
Nice work Mark, lots of detail.

I prefer the framing of the High Elms version though.
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: RobertM on Oct 21, 2009, 10:47:32
That's an exceptional capture Mark, by anyone's standards.  I really like the way you've brought out the dust detail and I also get the feeling you're almost resolving stars in M33 too - fantastic stuff.

Robert
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: Mac on Oct 21, 2009, 15:45:28
Wow, that's an amazing capture,

QuoteI also get the feeling you're almost resolving stars in M33 too

I agree

Mac.
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: Whitters on Oct 21, 2009, 21:58:26
Wow! It's full of stars 8)
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: MarkS on Oct 23, 2009, 10:06:39
Quote from: Whitters
Wow! It's full of stars 8)

I guess those "stars" must actually be clumps of stars and these in turn appear "clumped" together in the arms.  Taken together with the red "knots" and the dust lanes they make M33 a particularly beautiful galaxy to look at - there's so much to see. 

Mark
Title: Re: M33 at Blacklands
Post by: MarkS on Oct 27, 2009, 06:26:20
I've reprocessed this and made it larger at the same time - binned 2x2 instead of 3x3:
http://www.markshelley.co.uk/webdisk/m33_17102009v2.jpg

A night with good seeing would have made a huge difference to this image.

Mark