clear sky chart

Job 9:9

Job 9:9-10
9 He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.
10 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
miracles that cannot be counted.
NIV

Sunday, June 16, 2013

M63 LRGB with the Starshoot G3

Finally, I had a good clear night and had enough time to image something properly with the Starshoot G3.  This time, I thought I would shoot a galaxy, and I chose M63 because it is a tightly wrapped spiral with a lot of fine detail.  Although this object would fare better using the 8 inch, being I'm still learning how to use this camera, I used the 6 inch.  The 8 inch's field of view with this camera is substantially smaller, and I really didnt want to mess this up with tracking and framing problems.

The 6" still showed quite a bit of detail.  I might have done a little better with more, shorter exposures, as the core is blown out.  However, I got the fainter extreme outer regions nicely with these 5 minute subs.

This was my first processing attempt.   These images are much more difficult to process.  I do believe however, that this camera is the way to go for smaller objects.

This next image was restacked, and reprocessed.  I took 20 dark frames and was able to go a little deeper.

I may have lost a little detail in this one, but I like the color better, and I got a little more of the outer regions of the galaxy.  I cannot figure out why the images are flipped vertically.  I didnt flip them, but I noticed in Fits Liberator, some of the frames were flipped and some were not.  I dont recall the exact processing workflow I used when producing these, so it might have something to do with the original fits files.

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