NGC2175 from Beckenham 15-16 Jan 2012

[The Thing]

This nebula is just the right size for my Fov, so I have collected 4 hours of data. Might do some more at DSC...

Meade LX90 8", Baader Alan Gee II Telecompressor, Canon 1000Da, Astronomik CLS-CCD clip filter. HEQ5, Finder Guidescope, QHY5, PHD, EQMOD, CdC.

80 x 300s processed in Iris and Photo Filtre. I need to take out the subs with the airplane trails (there is another top left). Also the sigma setting needs a tweak in Iris. I am sure the processing gurus could extract a lot more from this data.

Large image here.

[Mac]

Looking good,

The dark sky data should bring this on leaps and bounds.

Mac

[The Thing]

Thanks Mac.

[JohnP]

Looking nice Dunc & looks like you have sorted out your flattener issues - stars are nice & round.

... isn't 80x5mins 6.66 hrs... not 4 hrs (did you mean 400mins)

Very good - I am sure added data from DSC will bring this on 'leaps & bounds'....

Nice one - John

[MarkS]

That's an excellent start on an interesting object I'm not familiar with.

I can see that the background gradients were a problem.

The colours in the nebula look good but possibly a bit green?

Mark

[The Thing]

Thanks John. Blimey, was I really presiding over a fully functioning accurately guided observational mechanism for 6.66 hours. I was asleep for most of it as well!  About time too with the 10000 hours of frustration getting to this point Of course it was too good to last, my usb hub died doing the flats, hopefully another will arrive in the morning (it's in the post yesterday).

Mark, my sense of colour is attrocious, but I haven't touched the colour balance at all so it's not me guv'. I'm doing a plane free re-process at the moment and will try to get things balanced. I think the glows in the corners are bad dark subtraction, so I'm redoing the master dark as well. Staring from scratch basically. I should be able to get a much better result, I'm going to learn Iris scripting as well so processing is reproducible. Time to wheel out photoshop for final tweaking as well.

See you tomorrow!

[mickw]

That's starting to look really good Duncan, looking forward to the extra data.

[Carole]

That was a lot of data Duncan, 80 x 300secs, I've not attempted this one yet, but I imagine it is a bit of a challenge from where we live. 

Well done so far, and look forward to seeing the next update.
My impression was the same as Mark's

possibly a bit green?

but seeing as I haven't done this one yet and most of the images of this subject seem to be in B&W or narrowband I have no idea what colour it is supposed to be.

Sorry to hear about all your equipment woes.

Carole

[Fay]

well done Duncan thats a lot of subs!!!! such a trouper

[RobertM]

Well done Duncan.  That's a very impressive first light for the 1000D and it looks like everything is working well.

Robert

[Whitters]

Very nice image Dunc

[The Thing]

Thanks Paul.

I am going to see if I can add yet more data from down here at DSC as the area has a lot more faint detail that I woudl like to bring out . The forecast is for clear skies after 9:00 so here's hoping...

[The Thing]

After a few tips from Mark, here is a reprocess exclusively done in Iris. It now looks like what it's named for. I used the Iris local estimator gradient removal method twice to get rid of the light pollution effects and that's brought out loads of background Ha. And I have colourful stars!

Full Size

[mickw]

Nice one, loads more detail

Is the background a bit too red or is there really that much Ha there ?

[The Thing]

Is the background a bit too red or is there really that much Ha there ?

I have looked at other peoples versions on the web and yes there is, it's very tempting to whack it out but since I have dark areas showing, it must be about right. This was 80 subs so there is potentially some deep data in there.

BTW I recalibrated my desktop before I processed this and it looks red on that screen, but it's decidedly grey on my laptop! Needs doing...