M1 crab nebula + the moon

Hi All,
I was out again last night freezing to death as we all do in the hobby.
While there I had a first go at the crab nebula,

www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/fi...1133826798-m1_3a.jpg

This is a single 7 minute exposure at iso 1600 with the 300D using the IDAS filter on the 12" SCT, processing was done in photoshop, date = 5th Dec 2005, 01.30. I actually managed to get a dark frame for it also.

Again, I manually guided with the GEG, I was all set with guidedog and the toucam for autoguiding, I found a reasonably bright enough star, but the toucam could not pick it up , The tracking is a small bit out as I had to take the scope and wedge off the pillar last week and didnt spend alot of time leveling it afterwards. I'll get around to this week sometime. I think something like a 15 minute exposute would really do this object justice.
The focusing was a little soft as it was done by eye.

Anyway, heres the moon just as it was setting behind a bunch of houses at 17.40, its a mosaic of 2 areas, each area is made up of 10 frames stacked. I'm unable to get Venus as it NEVER rises above the houses I have at the south of my location, so I'm waiting patiently for it to rise higher over the next few days.

www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/fi...33826386-moonab1.jpg

Those are stunning Dave.

Magazine quality

Gorgeous shot of the Moon Dave, a really beautiful piece. Lots of detail too along the terminator, and well worth prowling along.

Cheers for that. Filled me with horrific envy, great inspiration and hope for when I get my sh1t together, and gave me a nice warm and fuzzy feeling before bedtime.

Shane

Those are both stunning shots Dave! The crab really is a stunning object in colour!

Bart.

Two top class images Dave.

Dave do the LX mod on your toucam, autoguiding will be a piece of cake. I'd love to see what that image would look like if you had stacked 10 of those frames!!

WTG man!

Hi Dave,

Very nice shot of the moon. Was the M1 shot at F10?

I hope you don't mind a couple of observations on the M1 image.

I am guessing that you let the canon software de-bayer the M1 image? The red noise is an artifact introduced by de-bayering before you have caliberated the image.

Do you have master BIAS frames? They are easy to do and help a bit with noise as well.

For the record here is the usual basic steps I take;

Linear RAW convertion CFA, no WB
Caliberate with CFA darks and BIAS
de-bayer
Align translate and rotate
Grade
Stack
Filter
DDP
tweek levels etc

Later,

Jed.