Two sets of data taken back to back. First set was with 30 sec, high-gain sub-images and the 2nd set was with 60 sec subs at medium gain. Total time was 3.65 hours. Cropped about 50% out to isolate the galaxy. The 60 sec subs were better, but only because I had centered the target better and it was higher in the sky when I started the set.
This image is still in process. It was not the best night for attempting this since transparency was poor at the time of imaging it. Lots of LP in the 4 hrs of exposure accumulated and almost overwhelmed the dim galaxies. The color was zapped out, so I took an image with only about 2 hrs of time and used it as color and the 4 hrs of exposure was used as luminosity.
A quickie Sunflower Galaxy. Needs more exposure, obviously. I killed some time waiting for M64 to get into position shooting this.
This object was the main goal of the night. Not quite the 3 hrs I wanted to give it, but almost. I took a nap while this was brewing, and ended it since the mount needed a meridian flip to keep going. Instead of doing that, I decided to get M13 instead.
Here’s a detail crop view with a little more color saturation to go along with the above:
3 hours of exposure for this object. I used SharpCap 3.2 LiveStacking and a Baader UHC-S filter to cut through the light pollution in a Bortle 8 Red Zone metro area.
M51 on Jan 25, 2020. 280 x 30 sec, Gain 42, Offset 15, -20C, UHC-S filter, QHY183c, TV-85 at F/5.6.
Finally, the weather cleared after several weeks of clouds. This is typical for December down here in Cajun Country. With the clear conditions, I got a chance to try out a new UHC-S filter I purchased from Baader Planetarium. It replaces the cheap generic UHC filter I got from Amazon. Still shooting from the big city these days in Bortle 8 Red zone is a good test of these filters to see how much LP gets in and how well galaxies and nebulae show up.
I found out the L-eNhance filter doesn’t do much for galaxies unless they have lots of H-alpha regions. An hour worth of subs I took at the beginning of the month of the Leo Trio barely had anything worth keeping, so I only blended about 25% of it in to this image. The 450×30 sec Live Stack with dithering turned on I acquired in SharpCap 3.2 and the UHC-S filter was good enough to stand on its own.
Minimal post processing was done for this one, which is always nice after staying up all night imaging. lol 🙂
Before I shot the Leo Trio, I did a “blue test” on the Pleiades. I have 16 minutes worth of data and it shows how well this filter does with broad band and non-h-alpha objects. Check it out:
Six images bagged in one night, although a few need at least another nights worth of additional time. Big city light pollution was circumvented with an Optolong L-eNhance filter.
30 second sub-images for the DSO’s. The moon was 5 frames stacked in SharpCap 3.2. The Cone Nebula has 130 subs from last night and 63 from a previous session. I also shot M51, but it was only a few frames before twilight and was not really enough for a display image.
An early morning imaging session. I setup after 1:00 am and imaged until sunrise on Tuesday, Dec 3, 2019. I managed to get decent amounts of data on the Horse Head and Owl nebulae, but I only got a little bit of the Cone before it went behind trees.
I will definitely want to shoot the Cone again with 2 more sets of data – one with the Optolong L-eNhance filter and one with a UHC filter. It is a beautiful area with broadband filters, but too much LP from my current site to do it justice with one of those. I think the two filters together shooting separate sets might do it justice from this place, though.