M33 from Dungeness

[MarkS]

Here is M33 from Wednesday night (8 Dec) near Dungeness.

27x5min with modified Canon 350D on the Bananascope (Tak Epsilon 180ED) using CLS filter.
Ambient temperature -1C.

I had guiding issues because of the biting cold wind and I had a problem with focus drift as the scope cooled.   So I'm not very happy with the result.  I've scaled by 2/3 and cropped.



Larger crop here: http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/2010/m33_08122010.jpg

Mark

[Fay]

Well, Mark, I think that is a nice result, considering the wind etc. However, shame you are not totally happy, being that you went down to Dungeness.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Mark,

Nice but you only have the middle bit of the Galaxy, where's the rest, or was it too big for the Banana scope?

Chris

[MarkS]

Nice but you only have the middle bit of the Galaxy, where's the rest, or was it too big for the Banana scope?

What?  I've got the whole galaxy (look at the larger image).

It doesn't go as deep as I would like - ideally I'd like to bring out more of the very faint outer arms.

[mickw]

Nice one Mark
I prefer the uncropped version, wispy bits seem more noticeable with the larger background

[MarkS]

I've also got some data that I shot when I went out to near Appledore in Kent the previous month.  On that night I shot some full colour data without filtering and some separate Ha.

When I get time, I'll combine it all into a single composite - it should bring out the faint wispy bits better.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Mark,

That's what I mean the other arms.

Chris

[RobertM]

I really like that Mark.  To me it's got good colour balance and lots of faint whispy outer arms in the uncropped version, which I think is just about the right fov for M33.

Hat's off to you going to all that effort in the biting cold arctic winds; that's quite a feat of endurance (to me anyway) !

Robert

[MarkS]

I really like that Mark.  To me it's got good colour balance and lots of faint whispy outer arms in the uncropped version, which I think is just about the right fov for M33.

Thanks - I was deliberately trying to avoid the intense colour found in versions such as Robert Gendler's M33 (which you can find using Google)

[MarkS]

I've completely reprocessed this from scratch.

It now combines:
27 x 5min using CLS filter from Dungeness (8 Dec 2010)
with
9 x 5min IR/UV filter + 12x5min with Ha filter from Appledore (10 Nov 2010)

I'm now reasonably happy with the result.


Here's the unscaled (but cropped) version:
http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/2010/m33_08122010v2.jpg

Mark

[Mac]

still looks fantastic.