Orpington Astronomical Society

Astronomy => Astrophotography => Topic started by: The Thing on May 29, 2012, 21:16:53

Title: M51 Rother Valley Campsite 25 May 2012
Post by: The Thing on May 29, 2012, 21:16:53
Friday night was cracking, really clear. I processed this very quickly on Saturday.

Meade LX90 8" UHTC at ~f5 on HEQ5, QHY5 on Meade finderscope, Baader Alan Gee II Telecompressor, Canon 1000D modified, Astronomik CLS-CCD filter, APT,PHD, EQASCOM, CdC.

Processed in Deep Sky Stacker, bilinear de-bayering, Kappa-sigma stacking (kappa 2, iterations 2). 1hr 20mins in 300s subs.

Full size. (http://www.ancientlight.amateur-astronomy.org//images/M51_RotherValley_20120525_dss_flat.jpg)
(http://www.ancientlight.amateur-astronomy.org//images/M51_RotherValley_20120525_dss_flat_sm.jpg)
Title: Re: M51 Rother Valley Campsite 25 May 2012
Post by: JohnP on May 29, 2012, 21:28:59
All looking very good Dunc - 3 quality images - amazing for a deep sky camp weekend - especially considering its end of May..

Well done - John
Title: Re: M51 Rother Valley Campsite 25 May 2012
Post by: The Thing on May 29, 2012, 21:32:00
Thanks John. Friday night was amazing.

The M101 would have been a lot better if I'd stayed up though as the guiding/ascom disconnected and less than half the subs were any use. C'est la vie.
Title: Re: M51 Rother Valley Campsite 25 May 2012
Post by: JohnP on May 29, 2012, 21:39:57
bummer.. i'm thinking m51 is my fav - even better as I saw it visually through Mr' G's scope on Friday night as well (that was a first for me)...

Colour balance looks a little red on the m101...

John
Title: Re: M51 Rother Valley Campsite 25 May 2012
Post by: RobertM on May 29, 2012, 22:22:32
There's some really good data in there Duncan, especially for such short exposure time.  Could be this screen but are the flats working well ?

Robert
Title: Re: M51 Rother Valley Campsite 25 May 2012
Post by: MarkS on May 29, 2012, 22:30:48

Hi Duncan,

That is my favourite image of your 3.  Probably because I really love M51.  Maybe it's not quite as sharp as it could be - I don't know the reason for that.

To be honest, I think you would have done better to spend 4 hours on one image than 1 hr 20 min on each of 3 images.  But here speaks a man who spent 50 hours on a single image and still managed to produce cr*p!

Mark
Title: Re: M51 Rother Valley Campsite 25 May 2012
Post by: The Thing on May 30, 2012, 08:37:40
Quote from: RobertM on May 29, 2012, 22:22:32
There's some really good data in there Duncan, especially for such short exposure time.  Could be this screen but are the flats working well ?

Robert
DSS isn't very good with flats in my experience, though it was worse.(see Carols post http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=8408.msg57265#msg57265 (http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=8408.msg57265#msg57265). I'm going to reprocess in IRIS when I get a chance.