Messier AP Quest

[Graeme1858]

Hi Graeme,

Congrats on the new flair, well-earned.

Cheers,
JT

Very nice images Graeme!

I would be proud of a set like this!

Congratulation on the M40 photo award!

Thanks very much.

It's been fun!

Regards

Graeme

[UlteriorModem]

Nice images!

Get some flats to get rid of the dust bunny.

[Graeme1858]

Nice images!

Get some flats to get rid of the dust bunny.

Cheers Tom.

I had the cardboard and duct tape light box set up to do some flats but it didn't work on the night! Annoyingly!

I'll have it tested and up and running before next session.

Regards

Graeme

[Graeme1858]

M3 added.

Good size quite bright Glob. 4 stacked images 1600iso 10s, 20s, 30s and 40s.





I spent some time on M94 as well but with a 9 day old Moon in the sky I think the images were all washed out. I'll go and have a go at it now.

Regards

Graeme

[Graeme1858]

45/110 - 07/05/20

My hand controller packed up a few weeks ago so I've sent it back to the supplier under warranty. Last weekend I set up with the laptop connected to the mount. The CGX has a USB on the mount that can be seen by CPWI but you don't get any ASCOM control. I spent the evening doing a Polar Alignment and some visual viewing. It was quite nostalgic! I've not used an eye piece for over a year! So by slewing the mount with the laptop arrow keys I aligned on Venus and stopped to view with my 23mm for a while. Then continued aligning on Capella, Arcturus and Regulus. Finishing on an All Star Polar Align on Regulus. Then I moved round to Albireo and took in the view with the 23mm, 10mm and my 6.5mm. The colour difference was clear and always a pleasure but I couldn't focus with the 6.5mm. Then I had a look at M81 and M82. Both were found almost centre of view (40mm) but both faint fuzzies perhaps just a hint of core in M81. A visual evening made a nice change.

Anyway, it occurred to me that I would be able to set up with the pc with the 600D and APT and capture some data unguided, without the hand controller! So I went out last night and tried it. After aligning I captured some M101 data as a practice run for the May challenge. I'll have another go when I get my new hand controller and the Moon is out of the way. Finally I got some subs on M40, M108 and M94. M40 is getting stacked now. I'll post up the three images over the next couple of days as I get round to processing them.

Updated spreadsheet log attached.

Regards

Graeme

[Graeme1858]

So here's the three galaxies from my 07/05/20 session.

Can I ask, do they still count if they're really rubbish images? It was a full Moon and with no hand controller I was doing short duration unguided captures! They all share the same 10 Dark frames, 20 Bias and 20 Flats.

M40 - to quote Steve sdbodin "The Lamest Messier"



Just a pair of stars then. Interesting faint nebulosity around the near star, 70 UMa, probably just Moon glare and over stretched processing. 3 x 30 second Lights at 1600ISO but DSS only stacked 1 due to lack of stars, I think. The flat frames didn't seem to work!

M94 - Croc's Eye Galaxy.



Just caught the core and the line of sight star. I'll have to have another go at this one some time because the whole thing fills my 600D frame nicely. 4 x 40 second Lights at 1600ISO, DSS stacked 2.

M108 - Surfboard Galaxy.



Just a faint smudge really. Great name though! 3 x 40 second Lights at 1600ISO, DSS stacked 1.

Hopefully the new hand controller will show up some day soon.

Regards

Graeme

[Graeme1858]

As of 23/05/20 I'm at 51/110. That's almost half way!

Messier log updated and attached.

Gallery updated with all images. There must be a couple of duplicates because there are 68 images there!

app.php/gallery/album/188

Click the image name at the top of the thumbnail for a short description.

Messier List Imaging Log - 230520.pdf

(168.96 KiB) Downloaded 400 times

Thanks

Regards

Graeme

[Graeme1858]

Galaxy season is here so I decided to add a few to my Messier Quest.

On Friday night just gone Kent was treated to the clearest night sky for ages! The Moon was less than first quarter and in the opposite direction (nearly) to my targets. Almost all of Ursa Minor was visible (after a period of dark adaption) I like to use the 4 bowl stars as a measure of clarity.

So I put the CGX, the 9.25 SCT and the ASI294MC together, connected up and balanced. Fired up NINA and was all set to go.

My targets for the evening were the Messier galaxies of Leo and Virgo and I managed 10 x 180 seconds on 7 of them. 30 minutes exposure isn't really enough for a quality image so they're mostly over processed! But the craic was had and that's the main thing! I was expecting M105 and friends to be the highlight of the evening but it has to be said, ellipticals are the not the most photogenic celestial targets. The actual highlights both whilst capturing and processing were M66 and M95 beautiful barred spirals. I processed M66 twice, first attempt didn't calibrate the flats so it's full of dust bunnies and vignetted corners. The second attempt didn't de-bayer properly so was a blob of over saturated green. I'm definitely going to go back to these for a couple more hours of data each.

M49

M58

M60

M66

M95

M96

M105

Tally is now 58/110. Thanks for looking.

Regards

Graeme

[Graeme1858]

It's been three years since I added any images to my Messier AP Challenge! I thought I would give it a go and get some more.

As it stands there are 62 images in my Gallery: app.php/gallery/album/188

Some are a bit rubbish so I'll re-do them at some stage (I started this in 2019 when I bought my Canon 600D) but for now I'm going to go for the ones I have yet to capture.

Some are a bit too low in the sky for a 51°N Latitude so I'll need a plan B for them.

Here's the next stage of targets that I'll be going for over the Summer, I've sorted them in right ascension order:

[Graeme1858]

M85, image no. 63.

app.php/gallery/album/188

Messier Imaging Log 270524.pdf

(451.38 KiB) Downloaded 104 times

[Graeme1858]

M12, image no. 64.

https://theskysearchers.com/app.php/gallery/image/3123

[Graeme1858]

M39, image No. 65/110. Partially clear, clouds drifting through. 10xL, 3xRGB. Needs a wider field of view.

app.php/gallery/album/188


And that's it till the Autumnal Messiers. The rest of the Summer ones are too low for my 51°N latitude.

[Graeme1858]

Here's the plan for tonight. Five more to add. They're all a bit tricky for Southern England, especially M25. So I'm just going to go for 30 minutes each, in order of lowest altitude as they cross the Meridian. It will be interesting to see what I get. The clusters should reveal some photons but the M16 and M17 nebulosity might be a bit iffy with the nearly Full Buck Moon not too far away!

[Graeme1858]

Here's the plan for tonight.

Scrub that. Trevor the weather got it wrong again. Oh well, give it a few days and the Moon will be out of the way a bit.

[Graeme1858]

Three more from the other night using my 110mm Frac on the AVX.

M107. This was just about 40 minutes of 120 second subs, so I had to make copies because Pixinsight needs at least eight of each to stack. The red was over emphasized.

M25. Same again. M25 fits nicely in my 110mm F6 field of view.

M17. All three of these were sitting at or below 25° altitude so my expectations were not good. But I was well chuffed with how this M17 came out all things considered. I might try getting some more data on this one to give it the attention it deserves.

68/110 completed.

[Graeme1858]

Here's a few more Autumnal Messiers to add to my collection.

The uninspiring M73, just three stars.

The Eagle Nebula M16, which I captured 30/07/24 but haven't posted yet.

M74 and M77 are next on the list.

[Graeme1858]

M74. Captured last night. I did 15XL 5XRGB @ 2 minutes each then copied them all so that PI could stack them.

This one would have been better in the SCT but I used the refractor since it is on the pier! So with that and the limited integration, I was quite pleased with how it came out.

Higher Res: https://www.averywayobservatory.co.uk/a ... jegoxi51c7

[AstroBee]

Nice images, @Graeme1858 . I'm at 98 on the Messier list right now. Just a few of those boring open clusters left for me to complete the list. Some of my captures are very old, single frames, taken with a DSLR so I eventually want to go back and do proper images on those.

[Graeme1858]

Nice images, @Graeme1858 . I'm at 98 on the Messier list right now. Just a few of those boring open clusters left for me to complete the list. Some of my captures are very old, single frames, taken with a DSLR so I eventually want to go back and do proper images on those.

Cheers Greg. 98 is nearly there! I started mine a few years ago with my old Canon 600D so some of them are really poor quality! Then I let the Challenge slip. It's good to get back into it with improved quality! This one is 72/110. Some of the ones that are low in Sagittarius are not visible from here so I'll need to move south to complete the Challenge. I look forward to seeing your final 12 though!

[AstroTyler]

Excellent set of images.