M3 and M63 with the Skylux

Folks - I've uploaded two files here:

www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/fi...3-2%20proc%20min.jpg

and

www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/fi...3-1%20proc%20min.jpg

The first is M3 - 50 x 10sec exposures

The second is M63 (the Sunflower Galaxy) - 25 x 15 sec exposures.

Both images were taken wit the Skylux and DSI. Post processing was a bit aggressive. For now, I've been using the DSI in JPEG mode. I will use FITS in the future to hopefully glean better image data and hopefully better quality.

Comments, as ever, appreciated as are subject matters!

Cheers

Dave McD

Interesting to see what a 70mm scope can capture under such short exposures. I'd be interested to see what sort of image would occur from say, a 5min exposure.

Now that would be cool. But I need to get on top of the polar alignment for that. And to do that, I need a good stretch of clear skies

Also, don't forget, all images are without a Barlow. It would be interesting to see how Jupiter comes out.

And by the way, the night you came over, I left the DSI running - it kept taking images. There were over 2000 of them! And it stayed on the chip all that time :shock:

Cheers

Dave McD

2000 you say! Your polar alignment can't be that bad so.
How long roughly would it take for 2000 frames to record?

I think the exposure duration was about 0.3 sec but the elapsed time was over 6000 seconds (100 plus minutes).

Surprisingly, the image was just a white blob...!

Although the image stayed on the chip, it had moved significantly from one corner to the other. Because exposure is short, the DSI just stacks them. But if I want to take a single exposure of 10 minutes, the image would trail.

Of course, the image was taken via the Skylux - tracking would be more critical with the C8.

Cheers

Dave McD