April 22, 2010

M101 from SGL5

This was the original target for the TS OAG equipped 190 MakNewt, but its been a chore to get this processed. Playing with the other data (M13, NGC7023) has helped me learn a little more about the sky conditions over the two nights, plus I hadnt got Maxim to guide and dither correctly (used PHD instead), it that has caused some issues when stacking.

Anyway, here it is…. I can now see why its a hard target to get good data for, the faint arms really are very faint, and any moisture or muck in the sky will fade them out. I`ll get some more data on this when I can, but I am happy with this as a real first light with the TS OAG (even it is the last of the lot to get processed). Its a bit noisy, the faint bits have had a bit too much noise reduction, there is some gradient showing in the corenrs for some reason, but I dont think this current set of data going to get any better looking than this….

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt @ f/5.3
Guiding: TS OAG + Starlight Xpress Lodestar
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 9×900s (usable), Hutech IDAS LPR (101 bias, 101 flats)
Orchestrated: CDD Commander
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

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