My first imaging attempt on a globular cluster - M3 @ 135mm (Ian Dixon)

My first imaging attempt on a globular cluster - M3 @ 135mm

"Messier 3, in the constellation Canes Venatici, is one of the three brightest globular clusters in the northern sky. It lies on the border of Canes Venatici with Bootes, about 6° NNE of Beta Comae Berenices. Messier 3 is one of the most beautiful and easily seen globulars. With an apparent magnitude of 6.2, it is visible to the naked eye under dark conditions - and a superb object with the slightest optical aid. In binoculars, it appears as a hazy, nebulous patch. A 4-inch telescope shows a bright compact core within a round and mottled, grainy glow, which fades slowly and uniformly to the outer edges." - text quoted from information listed in SkySafari 6

Our first nice day this spring and I left for the farm - a 50 km drive south of the city. I set up at dusk and began taking images at around 10:30 pm. It was an unbelievable +17C on this clear day, and I was excited to get out under the skies sans ice fishing gear and heavy boots to try my luck at M3. As usual, spring arrives like a falling piano in the prairies. The deer in our field regarded me with curiousity and the Canada geese, mallard ducks and sundry kept up their cacophony far into the evening as they swam in the flooded creek beside my "base camp".

M3 reminded me of how challenging finding a DSO can be without the aid of goto etc. M3 is rather isolated, I spent about 30 minutes fiddling with my framing, by guessing at altitude between Arcturus and Cor Caroli (just over a third of the way north of Arcturus) and then triangulating with Arcturus and Murpid. Then I would finalize by taking a 10 second image with the intervalometer, judge my position, tweak, and try again.

I stopped down the lens to f3-ish. This series of images was taken unguided.

This is my first imaged globular cluster. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for looking!

Kind regards,

Ian

Original
B
Final
C

B

Description: Colour adjusted in Lightroom.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: I tried to fix the gradient in this version.

Uploaded: ...

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Samyang 135 f/2

Deep Space Objects @ 135 mm

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Mix of multiple sources
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3481741
PixInsight job	LXU57XTIQAQWALLQQJBWPR82WS71KZ7X
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	13h41m51s.75
RA (top/left)	13h26m15s.10
RA (top/right)	13h27m06s.30
RA (bottom/right)	13h56m06s.72
RA (bottom/left)	13h58m02s.29

Dec (center)	+27°56′21″.3
Dec (top/left)	+32°50′15″.0
Dec (top/right)	+23°01′04″.5
Dec (bottom/right)	+22°56′26″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	+32°45′12″.2

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