Whale Galaxy - 1st Test wth C8 Reducer (astropical)

Whale Galaxy - 1st Test wth C8 Reducer

At dawn the sky was more white than blue predicting a layer of haze that robs seeing on top of wind gusts. Anyway, I merely wanted to debut an image of a galaxy with the 0.63x reducer at FL=1280mm. The star shapes are aweful because of wind shaking and tilt, but I also had frames with round stars in that I am sure the reducer is doing a great job in conjunction with even a small 30/120mm F4 guide scope controlled by PHD2 with multi-star guiding resulting in excellent guide curves. The setup should do well in absence of wind which easily distorts any FOV at 1280mm focal length. Will care about reducer backspace another time, but for now it does not appear to be a major issue. Cropping is always an option 😎

NGC 4136, the Whale Galaxy, is processed with Starnet++ to emphasize luminosity and colors. The 50 frames each of M13 (9 frames left) and M57 (6 frames left) did not survive the wind shaking therefore serving as cropped and sliced insets only. All three objects are to scale. No filters, no calibration frames.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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Status	Basic failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4467449
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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