M51 - whirling along (Tom Gray)

M51 - whirling along

Revision title: Astrosharp

I must say I was surprised at the detail in this fairly short integration after a blustery night. Thing settled down sufficiently in the wee hours to achieve RMS ~1" guiding, even so, achieving fine focus was difficult.

Captured and calibrated in Nebulosity 4 (2x2 binning, ASCOM gain 10x), with good darks and flats (APT FlatsAid tool), I was surprised how easy this was to process in Startools 1.8. I tamed brightness in HDR and applied extra deconvolution to remove the atmospheric distortion. Colour balancing and noise reduction with 'superstructure' module completed the workflow.

Compared to my previous images of the whirlpool, I'm really pleased with the resolution boost in my new colour camera. Hoping to add more to this in the coming months, and would like to try at f6.3, or even a frame filler at f10 if conditions allow.

B

Title: Calibrated with ASTAP

Description: This version comprises the best 60% subs (41 x 120s) calibrated and stacked in ASTAP and processed as RGB in Startools 1.8 I was able stretch the data more and quite like the extra detail, but had to reign back the saturation, and there is some annoying horizontal banding at the top of the frame. I could darken the frame to hide this but like the faint star streams that characterise these galaxies.

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: Adjusted in Nebulosity 4 to reduce the green hues in revision B

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: Cropped

Description: Cropped and tweaked in iPhoto.

Uploaded: ...

E

Title: 'Smooth ripple'

Description: I wanted to apply some new processing techniques I've learned in Startools - essentially a double pass of the superstructure and colour modules, to manage background noise and image smoothness, and colour correction. I like the depth this produces in the galaxy core and star streams.

Uploaded: ...

F

Title: Astrosharp

Description: A final version with retrospective sharpening (Astrosharp) of the final image

Uploaded: ...

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

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Deep sky
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Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
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Professional, scientific grade data
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8008007
PixInsight job	IIDKE9EXSQQN35BNDWU77HKHSVOMAY55
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	13h30m24s.70
RA (top/left)	13h28m28s.48
RA (top/right)	13h32m34s.93
RA (bottom/right)	13h32m21s.81
RA (bottom/left)	13h28m13s.72

Dec (center)	+47°15′10″.7
Dec (top/left)	+46°59′14″.5
Dec (top/right)	+47°02′39″.8
Dec (bottom/right)	+47°30′57″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	+47°27′27″.7

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