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Exposure Subject: M41 "Whirlpool" Galaxy in Ursa Major Date: 06/05/2004 Location: Caeser's Creek, OH Technology: DSLR Camera: Canon 10D Lense: Prime focus on 8" LX200 UHTC (2000mm f.l.) at f/6.5 Exposure: Qty4 x 3 minutes Technique: Unguided, Stacked and Processed in ImagesPlus Copyright 2004, Benjamin K. Tiefert Processing Selected best 4 of 6 raw images. Combined two dark frames using Average Stack Calibrated frames by subtracting average dark frame Aligned images using X-Y transform Stacked images using simple addition Binned 2x2 ADD Developed using Background Wt = 1.29, Break-Point = 46509 Tightened stars with Adaptive Richardson-Lucy PSF : Gauss, PSF Size : 5x5, Noise Threshold : 2.00, 10 iterations Stretched histogram using Background/Contrast/Stretch Linear, Bkg = 9, W = 31687 - RGB Self-Critique I believe that this images largest flaw is the overprocessing that resulted in the "speckling" of the halo around M51. More detail could also be brought out by using more exposures, and guiding them. (You can see guiding errors even in this composite of the 4 best tracked frames). I will retrain my PEC and see if I get any improvement. I am open to any other suggestions you may have! I am overall very happy considering that this was my absolute first attempt at images and processing using my DSLR and ImagesPlus. |