M5 - up (not too) close and personal (Tom Gray)

M5 - up (not too) close and personal

Now we are encouraged to 'stay alert' if not 'at home', I'm trying to make the most of this social distancing, and the extra flexibility that home working allows; I'm certainly not missing the two hour commute (even if the roads are clear).

My Astro calendar reminded me that M5 was well placed for viewing, so I did just that, using my flip mirror system - easy to resolve in my 8" SCT - before proceeding to image. I was set up for f10 and not wanting to waste a precious moment of transparency, and with a waning moon beginning to make an appearance, I managed 30 minutes of subs. I'll do another at f3.3, to try and capture a bit of the starfield, but, given the resolution of my OSC, I am pleased with the detail and sharpness of this 'up close and personal' image - at 24,500 LY everything is relative.

I like the mix of colours, golden main sequence stars and younger, brighter blue stars, still in their prime - like I say everything is relative. Imaging and imagining go hand in hand.

Original
B
C
Final
D

B

Description: I processed both images in Ivo Jaeger's very intuitive, easy to use, yet powerful Startools. The original uses colour sampling based on the RGB balance across the image. This revision uses whitebalancing from a sample star. Interesting that this brings out so many golden suns, but I don't think it will win a 'golden globe' for processing performance - perhaps I forgot to cap excess green signal.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Whichever version you prefer, I'm always amazed by the power of software (and the minds behind it) that can pull out so much detail. Globulars are usually so bright you can see something pre-processing, but quite a transformation, I'm sure you'll agree.

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: A little more saturation really brings out the vibrancy of those hot blue white stars

Uploaded: ...

UK Astro-Imaging
The OSC Club (One Shot Camera)
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	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

	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

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3508836
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):