M51 - 28/02/2007

That's a class image Michael. Tonnes of detail.

Tried some DSOs tonight but the weather is just terrible, but too much wind & clouds. Only just saved the scopes from the rain by a few seconds while looking at Venus. We gotta get some luck with it sometime soon.

Nicely done Mike, well done!

well done,
michael well done very nice detale.

Well done Michael, great image. Does the ST-8 capture in RAW or is it only DSLR cameras that do that.

RAW is the term given to lossless images from DSLRs. The likes of the ST-8 captures FITS files, which are an uncompressed lossless format, as I understand. The file also contains info about the time, temperature of the chip and a load of other info. FITS is the recognised standard as far as scientific astronomical images are concerned.

Image of M97 from this evening. Slight haze and moonlight didn't help.
20 x 2min exposures; 12" f6.3 SCT;
Not entirely happy with this. A bit noisy. Would like to see how well this would come out under clear dark skies - just how much of a difference does the moon make? probably need to take longer and more exposures.



Regards,