NGC 1300

[Jockinireland]

NGC 1300 is a beautiful barred spiral galaxy in Eridanus. This image was produced using data captured through telescope Live with a Planewave CDK24 and a FLI ProLine PL9000

It amounts to under 3 hours of data in RGB. Processed by myself in Pixinsigh with a few finishing touched on Photoshop.

[Juno16]

That is a beautiful process David!

As soon as I saw this image, I thought to myself man I have got to image that beautiful galaxy!

As I read on, for just a brief second I thought you had acquired a Planewave! Wow, good for you!

Well, the next best thing for sure. It’s really cool to have the ability to capture data with a remote scope.

Comparatively, what is it like processing this type of high quality data compared to processing your own data?

[Jockinireland]

That is a beautiful process David!

As soon as I saw this image, I thought to myself man I have got to image that beautiful galaxy!

As I read on, for just a brief second I thought you had acquired a Planewave! Wow, good for you!

Well, the next best thing for sure. It’s really cool to have the ability to capture data with a remote scope.

Comparatively, what is it like processing this type of high quality data compared to processing your own data?

Hi Jim -thanks for that. A Plancewave - oh I wish!! I dream of winning the lottery then having a stable of rigs, including long FL Planewaves and shorter FL Taks placed at dark sky remote facilities around the world. But its going to need to be a BIG win. And considering I never do the lottery......

Yes its a real beauty of a galaxy but too low for me - never reaches 20 degree alt unfortunately.

If I'm really honest, the data from TL is often not as good as one would expect. Because the cameras are CCD, there are often hot/cold columns that you need to deal with. Its not difficult to do but is a pain. What you get is calibrated subs. I think that the calibration is done automatically which can sometimes mean that the calibrations are not as good as they could be. If it was me calibrating my own data I'd go back, tweak some settings and redo. You cant easily do this with TL data. An example is that on one set of frames in this image, the calibration had not removed all the hot pixels I did not find that out until I tried to register and this set was failing. So back to Cosmetic Correction to remove them. It worked, but again you'd expect better.

Then, even though these are FLI cameras, they are CCD and frankly, my 2600mc is less noisy and more sensitive (at least to my eye). Also they are all 9 microm pixels which, when you use one of the smaller FL scopes ends up pretty heavily oversampled. Which rather negates the good seeing of their locations.

Lastly, because of the costs, you tend not to take as many frames - this was 12 X 300s per channel - so 3 hours total. Then, because you are stacking such a low number of subs it can be difficult to remove satellite trails (at least it is for me - I'm sure someone more skilled could do it). I lost a sub from each set for either this type of thing or for trailed jumped stars. Which when you only have 12 in a set hurts some.

Once you have your integration, I'd not say its any easier or harder than doing my own data.

So overall, the data is ok but not outstanding.

But its nice to have some data to work on, particularly of targets that I could not get, even if the sky was ever clear.

If you'd like to have a play with with some data from them let me know. I had intended to put the data for the witch head (posted lower down in this forum) into the monthly challenge but when I checked with TL they said "no - not allowed". Seemed a bit daft to me because that set is actually really nice. But there you go!

Take care

David.

[Juno16]

That is a beautiful process David!

As soon as I saw this image, I thought to myself man I have got to image that beautiful galaxy!

As I read on, for just a brief second I thought you had acquired a Planewave! Wow, good for you!

Well, the next best thing for sure. It’s really cool to have the ability to capture data with a remote scope.

Comparatively, what is it like processing this type of high quality data compared to processing your own data?

Hi Jim -thanks for that. A Plancewave - oh I wish!! I dream of winning the lottery then having a stable of rigs, including long FL Planewaves and shorter FL Taks placed at dark sky remote facilities around the world. But its going to need to be a BIG win. And considering I never do the lottery......

Yes its a real beauty of a galaxy but too low for me - never reaches 20 degree alt unfortunately.

If I'm really honest, the data from TL is often not as good as one would expect. Because the cameras are CCD, there are often hot/cold columns that you need to deal with. Its not difficult to do but is a pain. What you get is calibrated subs. I think that the calibration is done automatically which can sometimes mean that the calibrations are not as good as they could be. If it was me calibrating my own data I'd go back, tweak some settings and redo. You cant easily do this with TL data. An example is that on one set of frames in this image, the calibration had not removed all the hot pixels I did not find that out until I tried to register and this set was failing. So back to Cosmetic Correction to remove them. It worked, but again you'd expect better.

Then, even though these are FLI cameras, they are CCD and frankly, my 2600mc is less noisy and more sensitive (at least to my eye). Also they are all 9 microm pixels which, when you use one of the smaller FL scopes ends up pretty heavily oversampled. Which rather negates the good seeing of their locations.

Lastly, because of the costs, you tend not to take as many frames - this was 12 X 300s per channel - so 3 hours total. Then, because you are stacking such a low number of subs it can be difficult to remove satellite trails (at least it is for me - I'm sure someone more skilled could do it). I lost a sub from each set for either this type of thing or for trailed jumped stars. Which when you only have 12 in a set hurts some.

Once you have your integration, I'd not say its any easier or harder than doing my own data.

So overall, the data is ok but not outstanding.

But its nice to have some data to work on, particularly of targets that I could not get, even if the sky was ever clear.

If you'd like to have a play with with some data from them let me know. I had intended to put the data for the witch head (posted lower down in this forum) into the monthly challenge but when I checked with TL they said "no - not allowed". Seemed a bit daft to me because that set is actually really nice. But there you go!

Take care

David.

Thank you for your nice details on using the TL service David.

Maybe something to think about some day, maybe.

I have more limited dark skies this time of year, but not like lots of folks. I can get some imaging done when the weather is clear (rain right now).

The neat thing about using a remote service would be to capture data from a target that I can’t capture from home (like you did).

Thanks for the info and thanks for sharing the beautiful image!

[messier 111]

nice take , thx .

[JayTee]

A beautiful capture David. I have been wanting to image this galaxy for three years. It was the whole reason why I bought my 6RC.