M104
Jun 26, 2021 20:39:33 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Since the moon is currently around the full phase and getting new deep images will need to wait for a few days, I decided to reprocess one of my images from last year to see if I could pull out more detail. The image below is of the Sombrero Galaxy, also known as Messier 104. This galaxy in the constellation of Virgo is around 32 million light years away (+ or - 3 million light years). I have also included my previous image for comparison (same data, I just reprocessed the image with a bit more expertise that I have gained since last year).This image was taken with a canon DSLR with 10, six minute exposures with the ISO set to 1600 using a 4096 mm focal length at F10. All comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.
The new reprocessed image has been cropped in a bit, the color is more correct and more detail is visible.
(Download)
Previous version of M104 using the same data.
(Download)
Jun 26, 2021 20:41:45 #
Jun 26, 2021 20:43:28 #
Jun 26, 2021 20:47:31 #
mundy-F2
Loc: Chicago suburban area
Ballard wrote:
Since the moon is currently around the full phase ... (show quote)
Very nice pictures.
Mundy
Jun 26, 2021 20:54:58 #
Jun 26, 2021 20:55:57 #
Sidwalkastronomy
Loc: New Jersey Shore
As a fellow astronomer I can appreciate this image. 10 6 min exposures must have been taken in a very dark area. In NJ we get light fog way before that.
How did you track as the outside stars are pretty round which means your tracking was right on.
At f 10 what scope did you use?
Any flats taken? Darks?
Which processing program did you use? Nicely done
How did you track as the outside stars are pretty round which means your tracking was right on.
At f 10 what scope did you use?
Any flats taken? Darks?
Which processing program did you use? Nicely done
Jun 26, 2021 21:11:06 #
Very nice image. You must be very happy with the skills you have learned in the last year. Well done.
Jun 26, 2021 21:24:46 #
pquiggle wrote:
Very nice image. You must be very happy with the skills you have learned in the last year. Well done.
Beautiful and intriguing. You captured history 30 million years ago, I wonder if those flames are still raging or if they have died.
Jun 26, 2021 21:47:04 #
Jun 26, 2021 22:33:25 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Longshadow wrote:
Cool!
Hi Longshadow
Thanks for checking out the image of M104 and for the comment.
Jun 26, 2021 22:34:09 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
UTMike wrote:
Beautiful!
Hi UTMike
Thanks for viewing my redo of M104 and for the comment.
Jun 26, 2021 22:35:10 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
mundy-F2 wrote:
Very nice pictures.
Mundy
Mundy
Hi Mundy
Thanks for checking out my newest version of M104 and for the comment.
Jun 26, 2021 22:35:55 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
kpmac wrote:
Very nice.
Hi kpmac
Thanks for checking out my newest version of M104 and for the comment.
Jun 26, 2021 22:57:01 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Sidwalkastronomy wrote:
As a fellow astronomer I can appreciate this image. 10 6 min exposures must have been taken in a very dark area. In NJ we get light fog way before that.
How did you track as the outside stars are pretty round which means your tracking was right on.
At f 10 what scope did you use?
Any flats taken? Darks?
Which processing program did you use? Nicely done
How did you track as the outside stars are pretty round which means your tracking was right on.
At f 10 what scope did you use?
Any flats taken? Darks?
Which processing program did you use? Nicely done
Hi Sidwalkastronomy
Thanks for viewing my newest version of M104 and for the comment. I took the subframes for stacking last year in by backyard in Grass Valley Calif (2500ft elevation around 50 miles north of Sacramento. On moonless clear nights I can see the Milky Way fairly easily from this location (including the winter Milky Way above Orion, but it is fairly dim). The telescope used is a 16 inch Meade LX200 mounted on an Astro-Physics 1600GTO mount that sits on a home made base. To guide the scope I used an off axis guider with a Starlight Express Lodestar X2 ccd connected to a laptop running PHD software that sends commands to mount for guiding correction. The DSLR I used is a canon EOS 5D Mark IV. I did use 10 Darks, 30 Flats and 250 Bias frames. I used Pixinsight for most of the processing and did a little bit of post processing with Picture Window and Raw Therapee. The sky was decent that night but it was late in May and I was only able to get 10-6 minute subs before M104 was too low in the sky and behind trees.
Jun 26, 2021 23:00:58 #
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
pquiggle wrote:
Very nice image. You must be very happy with the skills you have learned in the last year. Well done.
Hi pquiggle
Thanks for viewing M104 and for the comment. Yep I have been learning at lot on how to remove image noise and methods to increase sharpness and do better color correction using Pixinsight. Still a lot more to learn particularly since I'm know starting to use a Mono camera and use multiple filters to create full color images.
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