May 1, 2009

Whale and Hockey Stick (NGC 4631 and NGC 4656) from Kelling

Finally found the time to spend processing the subs from Friday night session at Kelling heath. The sky was a bit murky, and more than a bit blustery. The guiding was having real issues keeping the MakNewt pointing in the right place, so I am surprised to see the detail that has appeared out of the stacked version.

OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt
Guiding: ED80 + DSI-C + PHD (The SX Lodestar misbehaved for some reason)
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 22×600s, IDAS (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2 + ImagesPlus

(Click on image for larger version)

And a quick picture of my little part of the Kelling field…. the sky glow in the background is from the shower block on the Kelling Heath Yellow field. The spring event only has astronomers on the red field, so the lights stayed on pretty much everywhere else 🙁 The glow from Holt village to the south west also gets worse every year, not helped by the moisture in the air over the weekend.

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