ASTRO: M1 narrow band and broadband

Around new year I have been taking some images of M1.

First I took some narrow band images with Astronomik 13nm Halpha and
OIII-filters. Hoping to get better detail than last time I used my 10" Meade
ACF at about 2214mm focal length (scale of 0.6 arcseconds/pixel). Halpha is
at
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1Ha-40x5gut.jpg
Taken from the middle of Berlin with a 10" Meade ACF at f/8.8, G11 mount,
SXV-H9 camera, 40x5 minutes, Astronomik Halpha filter.

Unfortunately seeing was only "decent" and not very good, so I did not get
better detail than three years ago with my 8" LX200:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/m1-112x5gut.jpg

Here's a version with 12x5 minutes OIII for green and blue:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1bicolour.jpg

As I was not really happy with the narrow band images I took some broadband
images a few days later. Even under city skies M1 is easier with broadband
than narrow band, which is quite unusual for this kind of object.
This time I used a different spacing for the focal reducer which got me a
focal ratio of f/5.7 (scale about 1 arcsecond/pixel). Luminance is a mix of
14x5 minutes unfiltered, 9x5 minutes red and 3x5 minutes Halpha, trying to
emphasize the halpha filaments while retaining a "natural" look. Green and
blue had 4x5 minutes each, all colours were unbinned. Originally the picture
had a more blue colour, but that looked quite "cold" to me, so I increased
red a bit.

http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1colourgut.jpg

Stefan

Stefan Lilge wrote:
Around new year I have been taking some images of M1.

First I took some narrow band images with Astronomik 13nm Halpha and
OIII-filters. Hoping to get better detail than last time I used my 10" Meade
ACF at about 2214mm focal length (scale of 0.6 arcseconds/pixel). Halpha is
at
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1Ha-40x5gut.jpg
Taken from the middle of Berlin with a 10" Meade ACF at f/8.8, G11 mount,
SXV-H9 camera, 40x5 minutes, Astronomik Halpha filter.

Unfortunately seeing was only "decent" and not very good, so I did not get
better detail than three years ago with my 8" LX200:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/m1-112x5gut.jpg

Here's a version with 12x5 minutes OIII for green and blue:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1bicolour.jpg

As I was not really happy with the narrow band images I took some broadband
images a few days later. Even under city skies M1 is easier with broadband
than narrow band, which is quite unusual for this kind of object.
This time I used a different spacing for the focal reducer which got me a
focal ratio of f/5.7 (scale about 1 arcsecond/pixel). Luminance is a mix of
14x5 minutes unfiltered, 9x5 minutes red and 3x5 minutes Halpha, trying to
emphasize the halpha filaments while retaining a "natural" look. Green and
blue had 4x5 minutes each, all colours were unbinned. Originally the picture
had a more blue colour, but that looked quite "cold" to me, so I increased
red a bit.

http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1colourgut.jpg

Stefan

A lot of work went into that image. M1 has been a hard one for me.
Never have liked my results so far. I keep reprocessing the old data
new ways and am getting there. I suppose I could try some Ha as well.
It's plenty bright in LRGB so never have tried narrow band on it.

I'm way behind in processing images. Went to process a new one last
night of a pair of taffy galaxies and found my flats were awful. They
worked fine for earlier images but severely over compensated for the
vignetting on one side and severely under corrected on the other. Then
I remembered things were so cold I had unlocked the mirror and moved it
as the Crayford focuser was at max out position. Apparently that
screwed up my flats as I retook them today with the mirror in the new
position and all was fine again. But with the cold when I went to
relock the mirror it refused to lock. Something was frozen inside. Now
I need some warm weather to thaw the scope so I can relock it. Without
it locked focus changes drastically one side of the meridian to the
other when I do a meridian flip. It's driving me nuts. Guess the
mirror lock doesn't like -30C very well. Warming today so have some
heaters in there and think I can get the temperature above 0C and thaw
whatever is the problem. Ice is everywhere due to extreme humidity this
winter. See all the red in the humidity line of my Clear Sky Clock.
Its not available in Europe but over here is usually far more accurate
than the official US weather bureau for predicting conditions. The data
for it comes from the Canadian weather bureau. Ours needs to take
lessons from the Canadian boys it appears!
http://www.cleardarksky.com/c/MntrpLkMNkey.html?1 Check the Explain box
and it will tell you what the codes mean. You can see it says my seeing
is poor for Sunday and bad for tonight. Most of the time it is stuck on
the poor reading. Sometimes it goes down to bad as for tonight but it
is very rare to see it hit 3, average. I've never seen 4 or 5 in the
three years I've been here.

Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Rick, I'm not surprised your scope doesn't like -30 C.
We had some nights around -15 to -17 C in the first days of January and
neither my mount, my new Skywatcher ED120 and myself functioned well under
these conditions. At -17 C I could only spend 4-5 minutes outside before I
had to come inside to warm up. I can't even imagine imaging when it is -30
C. I don't think it ever was that cold in Berlin.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
ster.com...


Stefan Lilge wrote:
Around new year I have been taking some images of M1.

First I took some narrow band images with Astronomik 13nm Halpha and
OIII-filters. Hoping to get better detail than last time I used my 10"
Meade
ACF at about 2214mm focal length (scale of 0.6 arcseconds/pixel). Halpha
is
at
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1Ha-40x5gut.jpg
Taken from the middle of Berlin with a 10" Meade ACF at f/8.8, G11 mount,
SXV-H9 camera, 40x5 minutes, Astronomik Halpha filter.

Unfortunately seeing was only "decent" and not very good, so I did not
get
better detail than three years ago with my 8" LX200:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/m1-112x5gut.jpg

Here's a version with 12x5 minutes OIII for green and blue:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1bicolour.jpg

As I was not really happy with the narrow band images I took some
broadband
images a few days later. Even under city skies M1 is easier with
broadband
than narrow band, which is quite unusual for this kind of object.
This time I used a different spacing for the focal reducer which got me a
focal ratio of f/5.7 (scale about 1 arcsecond/pixel). Luminance is a mix
of
14x5 minutes unfiltered, 9x5 minutes red and 3x5 minutes Halpha, trying
to
emphasize the halpha filaments while retaining a "natural" look. Green
and
blue had 4x5 minutes each, all colours were unbinned. Originally the
picture
had a more blue colour, but that looked quite "cold" to me, so I
increased
red a bit.

http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1colourgut.jpg

Stefan

A lot of work went into that image. M1 has been a hard one for me.
Never have liked my results so far. I keep reprocessing the old data
new ways and am getting there. I suppose I could try some Ha as well.
It's plenty bright in LRGB so never have tried narrow band on it.

I'm way behind in processing images. Went to process a new one last
night of a pair of taffy galaxies and found my flats were awful. They
worked fine for earlier images but severely over compensated for the
vignetting on one side and severely under corrected on the other. Then
I remembered things were so cold I had unlocked the mirror and moved it
as the Crayford focuser was at max out position. Apparently that
screwed up my flats as I retook them today with the mirror in the new
position and all was fine again. But with the cold when I went to
relock the mirror it refused to lock. Something was frozen inside. Now
I need some warm weather to thaw the scope so I can relock it. Without
it locked focus changes drastically one side of the meridian to the
other when I do a meridian flip. It's driving me nuts. Guess the
mirror lock doesn't like -30C very well. Warming today so have some
heaters in there and think I can get the temperature above 0C and thaw
whatever is the problem. Ice is everywhere due to extreme humidity this
winter. See all the red in the humidity line of my Clear Sky Clock.
Its not available in Europe but over here is usually far more accurate
than the official US weather bureau for predicting conditions. The data
for it comes from the Canadian weather bureau. Ours needs to take
lessons from the Canadian boys it appears!
http://www.cleardarksky.com/c/MntrpLkMNkey.html?1 Check the Explain box
and it will tell you what the codes mean. You can see it says my seeing
is poor for Sunday and bad for tonight. Most of the time it is stuck on
the poor reading. Sometimes it goes down to bad as for tonight but it
is very rare to see it hit 3, average. I've never seen 4 or 5 in the
three years I've been here.

Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Very good!
Kev

"Stefan Lilge" wrote in message
...
Around new year I have been taking some images of M1.

First I took some narrow band images with Astronomik 13nm Halpha and
OIII-filters. Hoping to get better detail than last time I used my 10"
Meade ACF at about 2214mm focal length (scale of 0.6 arcseconds/pixel).
Halpha is at
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1Ha-40x5gut.jpg
Taken from the middle of Berlin with a 10" Meade ACF at f/8.8, G11 mount,
SXV-H9 camera, 40x5 minutes, Astronomik Halpha filter.

Unfortunately seeing was only "decent" and not very good, so I did not get
better detail than three years ago with my 8" LX200:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/m1-112x5gut.jpg

Here's a version with 12x5 minutes OIII for green and blue:
http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1bicolour.jpg

As I was not really happy with the narrow band images I took some
broadband images a few days later. Even under city skies M1 is easier with
broadband than narrow band, which is quite unusual for this kind of
object.
This time I used a different spacing for the focal reducer which got me a
focal ratio of f/5.7 (scale about 1 arcsecond/pixel). Luminance is a mix
of 14x5 minutes unfiltered, 9x5 minutes red and 3x5 minutes Halpha, trying
to emphasize the halpha filaments while retaining a "natural" look. Green
and blue had 4x5 minutes each, all colours were unbinned. Originally the
picture had a more blue colour, but that looked quite "cold" to me, so I
increased red a bit.

http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp2/M1colourgut.jpg

Stefan