A Rose by any other name...

Thanks Mike - glad you're keeping up to date with the website

As it happens, I spent a little bit of time last night also doing some MPC work - I managed to get some good astrometry on four asteroids and submitted it.

In two nights, this setup so far has managed to get a confirmed mag 17.9 asteroid. I'd hope to get at least a magnitude dimmer if i can. Then who knows, I could be in the realms of discovery...

I'm hoping that the next couple of months will see the setup being tweaked and pimped so it really performs. I think there's a good bit of tuning to do though before it can really show its best.

Dave - I was surprised too. They really didn't show up on the single frames. And given I threw 58 frames away...

Cheers
Dave

Mike - just one other point - the Meade DSI certainly served me well. It was my first CCD imager and I have to say, for the price, it was excellent value.

I think the biggest difference it made was giving me a cheap step up onto the ladder. Astrophotography is very demanding on equipment and the grey matter. It can be very frustrating and so easy to drop a clanger. I'm so glad I bought the DSI first before dipping my toe in the top end. I think if I'd gone for one of the mid to top end imagers first, I'd be so frustrated Id've given up by now

The fact that I could get the ProLine taking reasonable images from night one was a testament to learning the ropes with the DSI.

And after all, it was the DSI that confirmed a Supernova and got me an Observatory Code.

Who knows where the ProLine will lead

If I get a chance over the next week, I'll take some shots of the setup and post them.

Cheers

Dave

Thought I replied to this message earlier...

Super image Dave. You must be well pleased with it!
Great detail in the galaxy. Not sure what would cause the loss of detail around the star unless a piece of dust coincided with that area or the sharpening process *mabey*.
Those dark streaks are real alright and really add to the appearance of the galaxy. Caught them a couple of weeks ago
www.astroshot.com/Deep%20Sky/slides/2007...%2013%20M63%20V2.jpg
Your image is much brighter though.

Regards,

Michael - yours image is a lot smoother but your right about those tremendous dust lanes. I see you also captured the edge on galaxy too.

I think the loss of detail around the bloomed star occurred during the econvolution process. You know the way you get that dark halo around a bright star when you do certain processes? I think that's it. I had taken some flates which showed quite few dust motes so I think I've nailed most of those.

Digital Development is cool too but you really have to be careful with it.

You said it in another post over the wekend and its so important - in order to get the faint detail in galaxies and other deep sky objects, I think we really need to star thinking in terms of 2+ hours worth of data. Even data gathered over a number of nights. I think Rob Gendler recently published an image with over 20 hours or so of data. Albeit from New Mexico where they can afford it...

Still - whilst I'm really pleased with the first two nights of the ProLine, I think there's a ton more tuning work to do.

Cheers
Dave

Digital Development is cool too but you really have to be careful with it.

DDP usually involves not only adjusting the histogram but also sharpening the image. When I was using DDP, I found it was creating halos around stars and was getting a little annoyed with it. However, I read somewhere (in Ron Wodaski's new book I *think*) of a way to remove the sharpening effect yet still carry out the adjustments to the histogram.

In Maxim, got to ddp. Click on "Set User Filter" and set the middle value to 1 with all the other remaining values to zero. This switches off the sharpening effect with you tell it to DDP. The image can be sharpened afterwards with much better control on it.

Also note the value for "Background" and "Mid-level". For both of these, set them to "Auto". Then uncheck "Auto". Change the value in the box for "Brightness" downwards by 100 and increase "Mid-level" upwards by approx 20%.

I find this works much better. Hope this helps.

Dave,

Thats a grand image alright! Lots of luverly detail in their. Sorry I can't offer any suggestion as to what's going on around the bright star. Everything I thought of has already been discussed.

Best of luck with Kylie's new sister mate. Hope you get many years of mind blowing and useful imagery from it.